Part 27 (2/2)

She took part in the storming of Fort Donelson where she was slightly wounded in the wrist. Afterwards she served often in the picket line and distinguished herself by her courage, vigilance, and shrewdness. The boldness with which she exposed herself on every occasion, led to such a catastrophe as might have been expected. The battle of Pittsburgh Landing was an affair in which she figured with a cool bravery that kept her company steady in spite of the terrible fire which was decimating the ranks of the Federal Army. The pressure, however, was at last too great. Slowly driven towards the river, and fighting every inch of ground, the regiment in which she served seemed likely to be annihilated. They had just reached the shelter of the gun-boats when a stray sh.e.l.l exploded directly in the faces of the front rank, and Miss Wellman was struck and thrown violently to the earth, but instantly sprang to her feet and was able to walk to the temporary hospital which had been established near the river bank.

Like Deborah Samson, her s.e.x was discovered by the surgeon who dressed her wound. The wound was in the collar bone and was made by a fragment of sh.e.l.l. Although not a dangerous one it required immediate attention. When the surgeon desired her to remove her army jacket she demurred, and not being able to a.s.sign any good reason for her refusal, the surgeon coupling this with the modest blush which suffused her features when he made his requisition for the removal of her outside garment, immediately guessed the truth. With chivalrous delicacy he immediately dispatched her with a note to the wife of one of the Captains who was in the camp at the time, recommending the maiden soldier to her care, and begging that she would dress the wound in accordance with a prescription which he sent. Although Miss Wellman begged that her secret might not be disclosed and that she might be permitted to continue to serve in the ranks, it was judged best to communicate the fact to the commanding officer, who, though he admired the bravery and resolution of the maiden, judged best that she should serve in another capacity if at all, and having notified her parents and obtained their consent she was allowed to do service in the ambulance department.

She was furnished with a horse, side-saddle, saddle-bags, etc., and whenever a battle took place she would ride fearlessly to the front to a.s.sist the wounded. Many a poor wounded soldier was a.s.sisted off the field by her, and sometimes she would dismount from her horse, and, aiding the wounded man to climb into the saddle, would convey him to the hospital. She carried bandages and stimulants in her saddle-bags, and did all she was able to relieve the sufferings of such as were too badly wounded to be removed.

During this service she was often exposed to the enemy's fire. She was with Grant in the Vicksburg campaign, and on one occasion; being attracted by a tremendous firing, rode rapidly forward, and missing her way found herself within one hundred yards of a battalion of the enemy, whose gray jackets could be seen through the smoke of their rapid firing. Wheeling her horse she galloped out of range, fortunately escaping the storm of bullets which flew about her.

She shared the hards.h.i.+ps as well as the perils of the soldiers, and in the bivouac wrapped herself in her blanket and lay on the bare ground, with no other shelter but the sky, rising at the sound of reveille to partake with her comrades of the plain camp fare. All this she did cheerfully and with her whole heart. Her sympathy was not bounded by the wants and sufferings of the soldiers of the federal army, but embraced in its boundless outpouring those of her countrymen who were then ranged against her as foes. Many a sick and suffering Southerner had cause to bless the kindness and devotion of this n.o.ble girl. Herein she showed herself a Christian woman and a practical example of the teachings of Him who said,--”Love your enemies.” Such deeds as her's s.h.i.+ne amid the terrible pa.s.sions and carnage of war with a heavenly radiance which time can never dim.

Either in the army or in close connection with it, woman's affectionate devotion was ill.u.s.trated in all those relations of life in which she stands beside man. As a mother, as a wife, and as a sister, she brightly displayed this quality. The following instance of wifely devotion is related of a woman who came from the Red River of Louisiana with her husband, who was a Southern officer.

In the fall of 1863, during the bombardment of Charleston by the federal batteries, this young woman, being tenderly attached to her husband, who was in one of the forts, begged the military authorities to allow her to join her husband and share the fearful dangers and hards.h.i.+ps to which he was daily and nightly exposed. All representations of the difficulties, privations, and perils she would encounter failed to daunt her in her purpose. The importunities of the loving wife prevailed over military rules and even over the expostulations of her husband, and she was allowed to take her post beside the one whom she regarded with an affection amounting to idolatry. Sending her two children to the care of a maiden aunt some miles from the city, she was conveyed to her husband's battery, a large earth-work outside of the city.

Here she remained for sixty days, during which the battery where she was, made one of the princ.i.p.al targets for the federal cannon. For weeks together she lay down in her clothes in the midst of the soldiers. The bursting of the sh.e.l.ls and the sound of the federal hundred-pounders, with answering volleys from the fort, scarcely intermitted night or day. Sleep was for several days after her arrival out of the question. But at length she became used to the cannonade and enjoyed intermittent slumbers, from which she was sometimes awakened by the explosion of a sh.e.l.l which had penetrated the roof of the fort and strewed the earth with dead and wounded.

Her only food was the wormy bread and half-cured pork which was served out to the soldiers, and her drink was brackish water from the ditch that surrounded the earth-work. The cannonading during the day was so furious that the fort was often almost reduced to ruins, but in the night the destruction was repaired. A fleet of gunboats joined the land batteries in bombarding the fort, and at last succeeded in making it no longer tenable.

Guns had been dismounted, the bomb-proof had been destroyed, and the sides of the earth-work were full of breaches where the huge ten-inch b.a.l.l.s had ploughed their way.

During all these terrifying and dreadful scenes, our heroine stayed at her post of love and duty beside her husband. When the little garrison evacuated the fort at night and retired to the city, she was carried in an ambulance drawn by four of the soldiers in honor of her courage and devotion.

One of the most singular and romantic stories of the late war, is that of two young women who enlisted at the same time, and were engaged in active service for nearly a year without any discovery being made or even a suspicion excited as to their true s.e.x.

Sarah Stover and Maria Seelye, for these were the names of these heroines of real life, being homeless orphans, and finding it difficult to earn a subsistence on a small farm in Western Missouri, where they lived, determined to enlist as volunteers in the Federal Army. Accordingly, having donned male attire and proceeded to St. Louis early in 1863, they joined a company which was soon after ordered to proceed to the regiment, which was a part of the army of the Potomac.

Within two weeks after their arrival at the scene of conflict in the East, the battle of Chancellorsville was fought, the two girls partic.i.p.ating in it and seeing something of the horrors of the war in which they were engaged as soldiers. In one of the minor battles which occurred the following summer they were separated in the confusion of the fight, and upon calling the muster, Miss Stover, known in the regiment as Edward Malison, was found among the missing. Her comrade, after searching for her among the killed and wounded in vain, at last ascertained that she had been taken prisoner and conveyed to Richmond.

Miss Seelye, although she was well aware of the serious consequences which might follow, decided to adopt a bold plan in order to reach her friend whom she loved so devotedly, and who was now suffering captivity and perhaps wounds or disease. Through an old negress she obtained a woman's dress and bonnet, and disguising herself in these garments, deserted at the first favorable opportunity. She reached Was.h.i.+ngton in safety and was successful in an application for a pa.s.s to Fortress Monroe, from which place she made her way after many difficulties to the lines of the Southern Army. By artful representations she overcame the scruples of the officers and pa.s.sed on her way to Richmond, where she soon arrived, and overcoming by her address and perseverance all obstacles, obtained admission to Libby Prison, representing that she was near of kin to one of the prisoners.

Her singular success in accomplis.h.i.+ng her object was due doubtless to her intelligence, fine manners, and good looks, with great tact in using the opportunities within her reach.

She found her friend just recovering from a wound in her arm. The secret of her s.e.x was still undiscovered; and after her wound was entirely healed they prepared to attempt an escape which they had already planned. Miss Seelye contrived to smuggle into the prison a complete suit of female attire, in which, one night just as they were relieving the guard, she managed to slip past the cordon of sentries, and joining her friend at the place agreed upon, the two immediately set out for Raleigh, to which city Miss Seelye had obtained two pa.s.ses, one for herself, the other for a lady friend. They traveled on foot, and after pa.s.sing the lines struck boldly across the country in the direction of Norfolk. When morning dawned they concealed themselves in a wood and at night resumed their march.

On one occasion, just as they were emerging from a wood in the evening, they were discovered by a cavalryman. Their appearance excited his suspicions that they were spies, and he told them that he should have to take them to headquarters. But their lady-like manners and straightforward answers persuaded him that he was wrong, and he allowed them to proceed.

Another time they narrowly escaped capture by two soldiers who suddenly entered the cabin of an old negro where they were pa.s.sing the day.

After a tedious journey of a week, they reached the Federal pickets, and finally were transported to Was.h.i.+ngton on the steamer. This was in the autumn of 1863; their term of service would expire in two months, but after great hesitation they resolved to report themselves to the headquarters of their regiment as just escaped from Richmond. Accordingly, procuring suits of men's attire, they again disguised their s.e.x and proceeded to rejoin their regiment, which was encamped near Was.h.i.+ngton.

The desertion of Miss Seelye having been explained in this manner, she escaped its serious penalty, and both the girls were soon after regularly discharged from service. As we have already remarked, no suspicion was excited as to their s.e.x, each s.h.i.+elding the other from discovery, and it was only after their discharge that they themselves revealed the secret.

The stories of women who have served as soldiers often disclose motives which would have little influence in impelling the other s.e.x to enter the army. Love and devotion are among the most prominent of the moving causes of female enlistment. Sometimes a maiden, like Helen Goodridge, followed her lover to the war; sometimes a mother enlisted in the hospital department in order to nurse a wounded or sick husband or son. It was often some species of devotion, either to individuals or to her country, that led gentle woman to march in the ranks and share the dangers and privations of army life. Such an instance as the following furnishes a singularly striking ill.u.s.tration of this unselfish love and devotion of which we are speaking.

While the hostile armies were fighting, in the summer of 1864, those desperate battles by which the issues of the war were ultimately decided, a small, slender soldier fighting in the ranks, in General Johnson's division, was struck by a sh.e.l.l which tore away the left arm and stretched the young hero lifeless on the ground. A comrade in pity twisted a handkerchief around the wounded limb as an impromptu tourniquet, and thus having staunched the flowing blood, placed the slender form of the unfortunate soldier under a tree and pa.s.sed on. Here half an hour after he was found by the ambulance men and brought to the hospital, where the surgeon discovered that the heroic heart, still faintly beating, animated the delicate frame of a woman.

Powerful stimulants were administered, and as soon as strength was restored the stump of the wounded limb was amputated near the shoulder. For a week the patient hovered between life and death. But her vitality triumphed in the struggle, and in a few days, with careful nursing she was able to sit up and converse. One of those n.o.ble women, who emulated the example and the glory of Florence Nightingale in nursing and ministering to the sick and wounded in the army, won the maiden-soldier's confidence, and into her ear she breathed her story.

She and a brother aged eighteen had been left orphans two years before.

They were in dest.i.tute circ.u.mstances and had no near relations. They both supported themselves by honest toil, and their lonely and friendless situation had drawn them together with a warmth of affection, that even between a brother and sister has been rarely felt. They were all in all to each other, and when, in the spring of 1864, her brother had been drafted into the army, she learned the name of the regiment to which he had been a.s.signed, and unknown to him a.s.sumed male attire and joined the same regiment.

She sought out her brother, and in a private interview made herself known to him. Astonished and grieved at the step she had taken he begged her to withdraw from the army, which she could easily do by disclosing the fact of her true s.e.x. She remained firm against all his affectionate entreaties, informing him that if he was wounded or taken sick she would be near to nurse him, and in case of such a disaster she would reveal her secret and get a discharge so that she could attend constantly upon him. On the morning of the battle in which she had been wounded they had met for the last time, and, as they well knew the battle would be a b.l.o.o.d.y one, agreed that each one would notify the other of their respective safety in case they both survived. A note had reached her just after the battle, that her brother was safe, and she on her part had sent a message to him that she was alive and well, believing that she would recover, and not wis.h.i.+ng to alarm him by telling the truth. Since that time she had heard nothing from him, and begged with streaming eyes that the lady would inquire if he had been wounded in any of the recent severe battles. The lady hastened to procure the much desired information. After diligent inquiries she discovered that the brother had been shot dead in a battle which occurred the day following that in which his sister had been wounded.

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