Mother Bickerdyke, “the soldiers' friend.”
Among the many noble women who have contributed so largely to the comfort of our sick, wounded, and exhausted soldiers in the Western armies, there is none more deserving the title of the Soldier's friend than Mrs. Bickerdyke. She is of humble origin, and of but moderate education, a widow, with two noble and beautiful little boys, somewhat more than forty years of age, we should judge, with a robust frame and great powers of endurance, and possesses a rough, stirring eloquence, and earnestness of manner which has proved very effective in carrying measures on which she has set her heart.At the commencement of the war, she was, we have heard, housekeeper in a gentleman's family in Cleveland, but she commenced very early her labors of love and kindness among the sick and wounded men of the army, and continued them with ever increasing success till the close of the conflict. It has been one of her peculiarities that she devoted her attention exclusively or nearly so to the private soldiers. The officers, she said, had [294] enough to look after them; but it was the men, poor fellows, with but a private's pay, a private's fare, and a private's dangers, to whom she was particularly called. They were dear to somebody, and she would be a mother to them. And throughout the war, she has contended stoutly and almost always successfully for their rights and comfort. The soldiers all over the Western armies knew her and fairly idolized her, as well they might. But woe to the surgeon or assistant surgeon, the commissary or quartermaster, whose neglect of his men and selfish disregard for their interests and needs came under her cognizance. For such a one she had no mercy, and in more instances than one, by the fierce torrent of her invective, or the more effective method of appealing to the commander of the army, with whom she always had great influence, she procured their dismissal from the service. Her will was strong, and when she had determined to do a thing it would be carried through, whatever obstacles might present themselves; yet while officers even of high rank stood appalled and yielded to her commands, urged as they often were in a tone and manner which brooked no denial, she was gentle and tender as a mother to the common soldiers. The contrabands regarded her as almost a divinity, and would fly with unwonted alacrity to obey her commands. Her authority, however, great as it was, was used most beneficently; and with every day her influence was greater with the commanding generals, who saw, in her, an instrument of great good to the army. At Perryville she set the negro women to gathering the blankets and clothing left upon that bloody field, and such of the clothing of the slain and desperately wounded as could [295] be spared, and having had it carefully washed and repaired, distributed it to the wounded, who were in great need of additional clothing. The arms left on the field were also picked up by her corps of contrabands and delivered over to the Union quartermaster. Not long after she was put in charge of the Gayoso Hospital, in what was formerly the Gayoso Hotel, one of the largest hotels in Memphis. Here she was in all her glory. It was her ambition to make her hospital the best regulated, neatest, and most comfortable in Memphis or its vicinity, and this, in such a building, was not easy. She accomplished it, however. It was usual in the hospitals there as elsewhere to employ convalescent soldiers as nurses, ward masters, etc., for the drudgery of the hospital; and as these were often weak, and occasionally peevish and ill-tempered from their own past or present sufferings, it may be imagined that they did not always make the best of nurses. Mrs. Bickerdyke substituted negro women for these duties, and the improvement was speedily manifest. Herself a skilful and admirable cook, she superintended the preparation of all the food for the sick or wounded, and often administered it in person. Nothing displeased her so much as any neglect of the men on the part of the surgeon or assistant surgeons. On one occasion, visiting one of the wards at nearly eleven o'clock A. M., where the men were very badly wounded, she found that the assistant surgeon-in-charge, who had been out “on a spree” the night before and had slept very late, had not yet made out the special diet list for the ward, and the men, faint and hungry, had had no breakfast. She at once denounced him in the strongest terms. [296]
He came in meanwhile, and on his inquiry, “Hoity toity, what's the matter?” she turned upon him with, “Matter enough, you miserable scoundrel! Here these men, any one of them worth a thousand of you, are suffered to starve and die, because you want to be off upon a drunk! Pull off your shoulder-straps,” she continued, as he tried feebly to laugh off her reproaches, “pull off your shoulder-straps, for you shall not stay in the army a week longer.” The surgeon still laughed, but he turned pale, for he knew her power. She was as good as her word. Within three days, she had caused his discharge. He went to headquarters, and asked to be reinstated. General Sherman, who was then in command, listened patiently, and then inquired who had caused his discharge. “I was discharged in consequence of misrepresentations,” answered the surgeon, evasively. “But who caused your discharge?” persisted the general. “Why,” said the surgeon, hesitatingly, “I suppose it was that woman, that Mrs. Bickerdyke.” “Oh,” said Sherman. “Well, if it was her, I can do nothing for you. She ranks me.”
Some months later, the chief surgeon of the hospital, a martinet in discipline, was dissatisfied at Mrs. Bickerdyke's innovations, though he acknowledged the admirable order and neatness of the hospital; he knew that she valued highly her well trained corps of negro women employed as nurses, etc., in the hospital, and he, therefore, procured from the medical director an order that none but convalescent soldiers should be employed as nurses in the Memphis hospitals. The order was to take effect at nine o'clock the following morning. Mrs. Bickerdyke heard of it just at night. The Gayoso Hospital [297] was three fourths of a mile from headquarters; it was raining heavily, and the mud was deep; but nothing daunted, she sallied out, having first had the form of an order drawn up permitting the employment of contrabands as nurses at the Gayoso Hospital. Arrived at the headquarters, she was told that the commanding general, Sherman's successor, was ill, and could not be seen. She understood very well that his illness was only intoxication, and insisted that she must and would see him, and, in spite of the objections of the staff officers, she forced her way to his room, and, finding him in bed, roused him partially, propped him up, put a pen in his hand, and made him sign the order she had brought. This done, she returned to her hospital, and the next morning, when the surgeon and the medical director came round to enforce the order of the latter, she flourished in their faces the order of the commanding general, permitting her to retain her contrabands.
While in charge of this hospital, she made several journeys to Chicago, and other cities of the northwest, to procure aid for the suffering soldiers. The first of these was characteristic of her energy and resolution. She had found great difficulty in procuring, in the vicinity of Memphis, the milk and butter needed for her hospital, and the other hospitals had also been but scantily supplied. She resolved to have a dairy for the hospitals, and going among the farmers of central Illinois she begged two hundred cows, and as eggs were required in large quantities she obtained also, by her solicitations, a thousand hens, and returned in triumph with her drove of cows and her flock of hens. On reaching Memphis her cattle and fowls made such a lowing and cackling [298] that the rebel sympathizing inhabitants of the city entered their complaints, and the commanding general assigned her an island in the Mississippi opposite the city, where her dairy and hennery were comfortably accommodated.
We are not certain whether it was on this journey or the next that, at the request of Mrs. Hage and Mr. Lovemore, of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission, she visited Milwaukee. The Ladies' Aid Society of that city had memorialized the Chamber of Commerce of the city to make an appropriation to aid them in their efforts for helping the soldiers, and were that day to receive the reply of the Chamber. Mrs. Bickerdyke went with the ladies, and the President of the Chamber, in his blandest tones, informed them that the Chamber of Commerce had considered their request, but that they had expended so much in the fitting out of a regiment, that they thought they must be excused from making any contributions to the Ladies' Aid Society. Mrs. Bickerdyke asked the privilege of replying. For half an hour she held them enchained, while she described, in simple but eloquent language, the life of the soldier, his privations and sufferings, the patriotism which animated him, and led him to endure, without murmuring, hardships, sickness, wounds, and even death itself, for his country. She contrasted this with the sordid love of gain which not only shrunk from these sacrifices in person, but grudged the pittance necessary to alleviate them, and made the trifling amount which it had already contributed an excuse for making no further contributions, and clawed with this forcible denunciation: “And you, merchants and rich men of Milwaukee, living at [299] your ease, dressed in your broadcloth, knowing little and caring less for the sufferings of the soldiers, from hunger and thirst, from cold and nakedness, from sickness and wounds, from pain and death, all incurred that you may roll in wealth, and your homes and your little ones be safe. You will refuse to give aid to these poor soldiers, because, forsooth, you gave a few dollars some time ago to fit out a regiment. Shame on you-you are not men-you are cowards-go over to Canada-this country has no place for such creatures!” The Chamber of Commerce was not prepared for such a rebuke, and they reconsidered their action, and made an appropriation at once to the Ladies' Aid Society.
When Rosecrans moved forward from Murfreesboro in June, 1863, Mrs. Bickerdyke, tired of the confinement of the hospital, joined the army in the field again, and amid all the hardships and exposures of the field, ministered to the sick and wounded. Cooking for them in the open air, under the burning sun and the heavy dews, she was exposed to disease, but her admirable constitution enabled her to endure fatigue and exposure, better even than most of the soldiers. Though neat and cleanly in person, she was wholly indifferent to the attractions of dress, and amid the flying sparks from her fires in the open air, her calico dresses would often take fire, and as she expressed it, “the soldiers would put her out ;” i. e., extinguish the sparks which were burning her dresses, till they became completely riddled.
It was with her clothing in this plight that she again visited Chicago, in the summer of 1863, and the ladies of the Sanitary Commission replenished her wardrobe, and soon after sent her a box of excellent clothing for [300] her own use. Of this, some articles, the gift of those who admired her earnest devotion to the interests of the soldier, were richly wrought and trimmed. Among them were two beautiful night-dresses, trimmed with ruffles and lace. On receiving the box, Mrs. Bickerdyke, who was again for the time in charge of a hospital, reserving for herself only three or four of the plainest and cheapest articles, traded off the remainder, except the two night-dresses, with the rebel women of the vicinity, for butter, eggs, and other delicacies for her sick soldiers; and as she purposed going to Cairo soon, and thought that the night-dresses would bring more for the same purpose in Kentucky, she reserved them to be traded on her journey. On her way, however, at one of the towns on the Mobile and Ohio railroad (Jackson, we believe), she found two poor fellows who had been discharged from some of our hospitals with their wounds not yet fully healed, and their exertions had caused them to break out afresh. Here they were, then, in a miserable shanty, sick, bleeding, hungry, penniless, and with only their soiled clothing. Mrs. Bickerdyke at once took them in hand. Washing their wounds and stanching the blood, she tore off the lower portions of the night-dresses for bandages, and as the men had no shirts, she arrayed them in the remainder of these dresses, ruffles, lace, and all. The soldiers modestly demurred a little at the ruffles and lace, but Mrs. Bickerdyke suggested to them that if any inquiries were made, they could say that they had been plundering the secessionists.
Visiting Chicago at this time, she was again invited to go to Milwaukee, and went with the ladies to the Chamber of Commerce. Here she was very politely received, [301] and the President informed her that the Chamber, feeling deeply impressed with the good work she and the other ladies were doing in behalf of the soldiers, had voted a contribution of twelve hundred dollars a month to the “Ladies' aid Society.” Mrs. Bickerdyke was not, however, disposed to tender them the congratulations to which perhaps they believed themselves entitled for their liberality. “You believe yourselves very generous, no doubt, gentlemen,” she said, “and think that because you have given this pretty sum, you are doing all that is required of you. But I have in my hospital a hundred poor soldiers, who have done more than any of you. Who of you would contribute a leg, an arm, or an eye, instead of what you have done? How many hundred or thousand dollars would you consider and equivalent for either? Don't deceive yourselves, gentlemen. The poor soldier who has given an arm, a leg, or an eye to his country (and many of them have given more than one), has given more than you have, or can. How much more, then, he who has given his life? No! gentlemen, you must set your standard higher yet, or you will not come up to the full measure of liberality in giving.”
Mrs. Bickerdyke was on the field in the battles of November, 1863, around Chattanooga, and in the hospitals of Chattanooga during the winter. In May, 1864, she and Mrs. Porter, of Chicago, both in the service of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission, followed Sherman's Army in the march to Atlanta; being present at every battle, and ministering to the wounded and the exhausted soldiers. Her great executive ability had fair play here, and with few or none of the ordinary [302] apparatus for cooking, or preparing needed dishes for the sick, she would manage to make barrels of delicious coffee, manufacture panada and gruel out of hard tack, and other food for the sick from the most unpromising materials.
It is said that soon after General Grant took command at Chattanooga, in the autumn of 1863, she visited his headquarters, and in her rough, blunt way, said to him, “Now, General, don't be a fool. You want your men to do a great deal of hard fighting, but the surgeons here, in the hospitals, are neglecting them shamefully, and you will lose hundreds of men who would do you good service unless you see to it yourself. Disguise yourself so that the surgeons or men won't know you, and go around to the hospitals and see for yourself how the men are neglected.”
“But, Mrs. Bickerdyke,” said the general, “that is the business of my medical director, he must attend to that. I can't see to every thing in person.”
“Well,” was her reply, “leave it to him if you think best; but if you do, you will lose your men.” The general made no promises, but a night or two later the hospitals were visited by a stranger, who made very particular inquiries, and within a week nearly half a dozen surgeons were dismissed, and more efficient men put in their places.
After the capture of Atlanta, Mrs. Bickerdyke returned northward, stopping for a time, we believe, at Nashville. In January, 1865, she went to Savannah to superintend one of the hospitals there.
Generous to a fault, Mrs. Bickerdyke has never been influenced, even in the slightest degree, by mercenary [303] motives. Much of her service has been rendered without fee or reward, and when the necessity of providing for the care and education of her boys has compelled her to receive compensation, it has been only in such amount as would suffice for that purpose. Yet her eminent services, many of them such as none but herself could have rendered, richly deserve a noble testimonial.
