USA > New Jersey > New Jersey and the rebellion : a history of the service of the troops and people of New Jersey in aid of the Union cause, Pt. 2 > Part 37
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. In May commenced that series of terrible battles which termi- nated in the overthrow of the rebellion. As soon as the news reached the North, Miss Hancock at once left for Washington. Several applications were made by members of Congress, at the War Department, for a permit for her to go to the front. Each was refused, as being unsafe and improper. But with a woman's tact she made application to go as assistant to one of the Surgeons, and this plan succeeding, she proceeded to Belle Plain, where she arrived on the 10th of May. There were at this time several thousand men, soldiers, prisoners of war and wounded, at and around the Landing, lying for the most part on the open hillside, or among the low timber filling the ravines. Going promptly 'ashore, she addressed herself vigorously to the work in hand, making coffee and furnishing the sufferers as far as possible with food. With the earliest opportunity, she passed on in an ambu- lance, and was the first woman from the North to enter Freder- icksburg, where some thousands of wounded were already con- gregated. Here she remained for a fortnight, laboring night and day in aid of the suffering." On the 28th of May, all our wounded
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2 An army Surgeon, who was a witness of her labors, wrote as follows to the New York Tribune:
" All day (the first of her arrival) she worked assiduously in her sphere. When, the
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having been sent to Washington, Miss Hancock (with another female nurse) set out on a march with the army, ministering while en route to the comfort of some Union prisoners who had been nearly three weeks in the Wilderness and were almost starved. On the 2d of June, having reached White House, she again became actively employed, being frequently, while engaged, exposed to the shells of the enemy. In one instance, she writes, " a rifled cannon ball passed between Mrs. Husbands and myself, and a shell, at another time, struck the rear of the carriage I was in." On the 26th of June, proceeding to City Point, Miss Han- cock, with three men detailed as assistants, took charge of the wounded at that place-remaining thus employed until September, when she returned home on a hospital transport. In October, however, she again went to City Point, where she remained during the following winter, laboring in the well organized hospitals which were established towards the close of the war. After the fall of Richmond, she visited that city, and active operations having ceased, she proceeded to Alexandria, where a hospital was estab- lished for those soldiers who might be exhausted in the homeward march. Here she remained a fortnight, when, her services being no longer needed, she finally quit the field, endeavoring to forget the fearful scenes which it had been her lot to witness, and happy in the reflection that she had done what she could to alleviate the sufferings by which she had so long been surrounded."
next day, I opened a new hospital at the Methodist Church, I invited her to aeeom- pany me. She did so, and if sueeess attended the efforts to ameliorate the sufferings, it was in no small degree owing to her indefatigable labors. Within an hour from the time one hundred and twenty men had been placed in the building, she had seen that good beef soup had been administered to each, and during the period I was there, no delieaey or nutriment attainable was wanting to the men. Were any dying, she sat by to soothe their last moments, to receive the dying messages to friends at home, and, when it was over, to convey by letter the sad intelligence. Let me rise ever so early, she had already preceded nie at work, and during the many long hours of the day she never seemed to weary or flag ; in the evening when all in her own hospital had been fully cared for, she would go about the town with delieacies to administer to those who were so situated that they otherwise could not obtain them. At night, she sought a garret (and it was literally one) for her rest. One ean but feebly portray the ministra- tions of such a person. She belonged to no association, and had no compensation. She commanded respeet, for she was lady-like and well edueated. So quiet and undemon- strative, that her presence was searcely noticed, except by the smiling faces of the wounded as she passed."
3 In this connection, we have the following in reference to the labors of a daughter
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What has so far been said relates purely to the methods of army relief instituted and employed by the patriotic women of the State. There were other expressions of sympathy with the soldier and those dependent upon him, which were hardly less praiseworthy or important. Among these may be specified as particularly signifi - cant and valuable, the movements, early initiated in all parts of the State, for the relief and support of the families of volunteers, many of whom, but for this provident help, must have suffered from absolute want. The first movement of this character, so far as the newspaper records show, was made in the town of Lambert- ville, where, as early as April 17, 1861, a considerable sum of money for this purpose was raised. This was followed, within a week, by similar movements in Trenton, Mount Holly, Jersey City, Newark, Paterson and all the larger towns of the State-in many of which, during the entire period of the war, soldiers' families received material aid, the aggregate amounting to millions of dollars. The effect of this popular sympathy with those who marched afield at the country's call was, as may be conceived, most salutary, not only as it affected those immediately benefited, but also in its broader bearings and influence upon the cause itself. While relieving the soldier of anxiety as to the fate of his family, certainly a most important consideration, these movements had
of Massachusetts, who was greatly and gratefully identified with New Jersey troops and especially the Second Brigade. The facts are supplied by a Surgeon of that bri- gade :
"There is one person who deserves special mention for her services. I refer to Miss Helen S. Gilson, from Chelsea, Massachusetts, and the gentleman who accompanied her, the Honorable Frank B. Fay, Mayor of Chelsea, and now State Senator of Massa- chusetts. Miss Gilson was truly a ' Florence Nightingale' to the Second New Jersey Brigade. At the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, aud in the battles just prior to the surrender of Lce's Army at Appamattox Court House, shie was ever present, relieving the necessities of our wounded braves. She represented no Society, or benevolent class of persons particularly, but came with a heart overflowing with love for her country, and its noble defenders, aided by the generous hand and purse of Mayor Fay, to do what she could to mitigate the sufferings entailed by war ; and nobly did she perform her mission. I do not speak of her as I would of a great many women who came to the army to do good (and who doubtless did it). Her sphere of life, her place in society, and the people in Boston whom she represented, united with her high order of intelleet, and her graces of manner and character, enti - tle her to a much higher place in the estimation of the historians of this war. She combined, more than any person I ever knew, the useful woman with the thorough lady."
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even a higher value than this, which no student of the war can fail to discern. They assured him of the lively sympathy of the peo- ple in the grand work to which he consecrated his life; discovered to him inexhaustible depths of sympathetic feeling, of confident resolve and of loyal conviction in the great heart of the nation ; and so nerved his arm, confirmed his faith and deepened his enthu- siasm in every hour of doubt and perplexity-making him invin- cible to ordinary calamities, and girding him with more than regal courage in every moment of thickening conflict. Men may fight bravely, indeed, for glory and the pomp of fame ; may die grandly for one word of applause from some Napoleonic Captain ; but they only fight with sublimest courage, with a fortitude that rises supe- rior to all accidents, when they feel the heart of the nation-of which they are themselves a part-behind them, beating in fullest sympathy with their own; when they have an enlightened, con- scious, personal stake in the combat; when they know that the blow which shivers the power of the foe brings safety to their own kin, and will be saluted with glad acclaim, not merely because it carries victory with it, but because that victory is achieved by them. Thus it was that all through the terrible conflict, the sol- diers of the Union, fighting as it were in the very presence of their homes; fighting with memorials of home affection in their knap- sacks, or worn as talismans upon their breasts ; fighting in the con- sciousness that dear remembered faces would pale with shame if they faltered in duty, and hands that had never ceased to minister to their needs would grow listless if their own withdrew from any work-performed prodigies of valor which challenge the homage of the nations, and in the end achieved a triumph which saved the world from the ghastliest spectacle of the age-the overthrow of Christian civilization on the field towards which all the centuries had marshalled the forces of good and evil.
As among the loyal women of the State some were more con- spicuous than others in their labors of beneficence in this behalf, so there were men who became eminent above all their fellows for the extent and value of their efforts. None in the State, no one, indeed, in the country, achieved greater eminence as a friend
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and benefactor of the soldier, from the very commencement to the close of the war, than Mr. Marcus L. Ward, then a private citizen of Newark, and afterwards Governor of the State. Being chosen Chairman of the Public Aid Committee of Newark,4 in April, 1861, Mr. Ward was among the first to discover the peculiar diffi- culties and necessities of the soldiers, and with rare consecration, he at once resolved to devote himself to the work of promoting and guarding the interests, not only of the volunteers, but of their families as well. To that end, abandoning his personal business, he opened an office, and employing clerks, established a bureau of correspondence and collection, which very soon had relations with every regiment in the field. By means of a system at once simple and perfect, he collected and distributed to the families of volun- teers the pay of thousands who might otherwise have frittered it away in self-indulgence-thus saving to those directly interested, and bringing into the State, millions of dollars, without the loss of a single dime, and without a farthing's expense to any man in the service.5 These operations, extending over a period of four years, and reaching to every part of the widely extended field, involved necessarily the closest fidelity, as well as very considerable expen- ditures, on the part of Mr. Ward; but the service, voluntarily undertaken, was faithfully performed to the end, and, indeed, for a considerable period subsequent to the termination of the war. It was not alone in this direction, however, that Mr. Ward's patri- otism and energy found expression. Whatever concerned the comfort and welfare of the soldier found in him a hearty sympa- thizer, and he was as ready to minister to the wants of the sick and wounded in the hospital or field, or to intercede for a rectification
+ This committee was organized April 22, 1861, and up to the 28th of September fol- lowing, expended the sum of thirty-seven thousand three hundred and fifty-eight dollars in aiding soldiers' families, encouraging enlistments, &c. The committee consisted of 'Marcus L. Ward, Joseph P. Bradley, George Peters, Ira M. Harrison, and Beach Van- derpool.
5 Mr. Jonathan Cook, of Trenton, also performed excellent and commendable service in collecting, under the patronage of the State authorities, the pay of New Jersey soldiers and conveying it to their families. Mr. John Hill, of Boonton, was also inde- fatigable in similar labors, and in the care of our sick and wounded in the field and hospital.
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of abuses in regimental discipline, or to secure the reversal of harsh judgments of court-martial in cases of trivial offence, as to perform less arduous labor. In many instances, when regiments had been without their pay for a considerable period, he succeeded, by ceaseless importunity, in bringing the Government to act upon the important matter; and in one case was instrumental in obtain- ing the passage of a special act by Congress, appropriating some millions of dollars for the express purpose of paying the Army of the Potomac the amount due it for months of difficult service. He also secured the location and establishment of a Government Hos- pital in the city of Newark, in order that the wounded soldiers of this State might be brought within reach of their friends, instead of being detained at Washington or more remote points ; and for a time gave his personal attention to the supervision and direction of the immense establishment-advancing, moreover, from his own purse the money necessary to equip it for occupancy.6 Persons
6 Mr. Ward's report in reference to the institution of this hospital, says :
"Having been applied to, as Chairman of the Public Aid Committee, of this city, on Sunday morning, May 11, 1862, to furnish accommodations for several New Jersey soldiers who had been wounded at the battle of Williamsburg, and who had arrived by the night train from the seat of war, and being thus brought to a realizing sense of our utterly unprepared condition to receive and care for our brave and suffering sol- diers, I immediately repaired to the residence of his Excelleney Governor Olden, at Princeton, to secure his authority for the establishment of a hospital in this city. Governor Olden promptly and cordially authorized the undertaking, and empowered me to procure necessary buildings, furniture, surgeons, nurses, assistants, stores, and indeed all things needed to promote the comfort and well-being of the patients, ap- pointing the undersigned superintendent of the hospital to be thus established.
"On the following day, May 12, I secured a large and commodious building-situate at Centrestreet, between the Passaic River and the New Jersey Railroad-answering the conditions of the Government, which requires that military hospitals shall, when practicable, be casy of access by railroad and water communication. I proceeded at once to have the building freed of its contents, cleansed, and otherwise prepared for the reception of patients. On the same evening a dispatch was received from General Dix, military commander of Baltimore, giving notice that forty-six wounded Jersey- men were en route for Newark, and requesting that accommodations should be provi- ded for them. The following day, the 13th of May, the soldiers arrived, and constitu- ted the erst patients received at the hospital, demonstrating at the same time the great necessity for its establishment. In the conduet of the institution it became evi- dent that to secure order, proper subordination, and the greatest good to the patients, the hospital should be under military and Governmental control. To accomplish these important objects (and with the consent of Governor Olden) I visited Washington, and secured from the Secretary of War, on the 11th day of June, the acceptance of the institution as a United States military hospital, the Government agreeing to assume the expenses from its organization. On the 17th of June, Brigadier-General Ham-
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POPULAR SYMPATHY WITH THE CAUSE.
who have given thought to an examination of the records of per- sonal and individual service during the war, all concur that in the extent and beneficence of his operations, the patriotic and humane spirit by which all his acts were characterized, and the splendor of the example which he presented to the country, Mr. Ward was without a peer, and deserves to be gratefully remem- bered as having illustrated in the highest form the intelligence, patriotism and humanity of his age.
In November, 1863, it being felt that the work of sanitary relief, which with the increase of our armies had grown to unexpected proportions, demanded a more thorough and general organization, a meeting was held, upon the call of Dr. George Taylor and Reverend G. O. Glavis, at the hospital in Newark, for the purpose of listening to a statement from Reverend Doctor Bellows, Presi- dent of the United States Sanitary Commission, in reference to the
mond, Surgeon General, commissioned Doctors J. B. Jackson and Isaac A. Nichols as Acting Assistant-Surgeons in charge."
The whole medical faculty of the city, from the moment the hospital was opened, exhibited a deep interest in its success, and for a long time gave daily and gratuitous attention. The women of Newark also most generously co-operated in the good work, supplying all sorts of delicacies for the sick, and in some cases acting as nurses. On several occasions, as on Thanksgiving and similar festival days, sumptuous dinners were provided for the patients numbering several hundred, and at such times the en- joyment was universal. Those patients who died in the hospital, were buried in Fairmount Cemetery, where a large and eligible plot of ground was given for the pur- pose.
Some time before this, (April 9, 1862,) a hospital, by direction of Governor Olden, had been opened at Jersey City, for the reception of the siek and wounded New Jersey soldiers arriving in New York from North Carolina and Virginia-Mr. Cornelius Van Vorst being made superintendant. This hospital, however, was closed on the 16th of August, and the patients removed to that at Newark. The total number of patients admitted was three hundred and eighty-three, all of whom received subsistence, such clothing as was required, and medical treatment. The medical department of this hospital was under the care of Doctors Lutkins, Oleott, and Olcott, jr., all of whom rendered their services gratuitously. Mr. Van Vorst, in his report to the Quarter- master-General, says :
" Although the Government furnished the principal medical stores, clothing, subsist- ence and furniture for the use of the inmates of the hospital, still we were dependent upon the beneficenec of the citizens of the State for many articles indispensable for the health and comfort of the sick. Plain dressing gowns, shirts, drawers, socks, lint, bandages, and delicacies such as the sick and wounded men would relish, were bountifully supplied by the several ladies' aid societies of the State. To the ladies of Jersey City, who, by their bounty liberally bestowed, and their daily personal attendance at the hospital, alleviated mueh suffering, is due the efficiency and success of the enterprise."
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plan of operations of that great charity. At this meeting arrange- ments were made for a public demonstration a few weeks later, which resulted in the formation of the "United States Sanitary Commission for New Jersey," Messrs. Cornelius Walsh, Stephen H. Condit, Stephen G. Gould, Samuel P. Smith, Thomas T. Kinney, and Dr. George Taylor, being appointed a Committee with full power to add to their number and take all necessary measures to · extend the organization throughout the County and State. Subse- quently Mr. Walsh was chosen President, Marcus L. Ward Treas- urer, and Dr. George Taylor Secretary of the association-Dr. Glavis being appointed to visit the different townships and cities, and enter into correspondence with the leading citizens, for the purpose of securing united action in promoting the interests of the United States Sanitary Commission throughout the State. Up to this time, all the contributions of the State for purposes of relief had passed through the hands of Mr. Ward, but from this date forward the Commission assumed the responsibility of this labor, Mr. Walsh contributing largely by his efforts to promote public interest in the work. During the first year of the operations of the Com- mission, the money and goods contributed by the people of the State in aid of the Commission amounted to $63,543.61 in cash, and $65,263.24 in supplies, of which nine hundred and thirty-one boxes were sent to the field, in addition to which it was estimated that the State contributed in goods and money, through the Central Fair of Philadelphia, some $40,000, while the contributions of many societies, organized through the instru- mentality of the Commission, were sent direct to New York, Washington, and the army, amounting in value to some $20,000. The largest contributions in supplies were made by Elizabeth ($7,755), Boonton ($4,140), Salem ($4,136), Millville ($2,062), Plainfield ($3,322), Paterson ($8,122), Rahway ($2,348), Somer- ville ($2,216), Woodstown ($1,598), Lodi ($1,616), Montclair ($1,793,) and Schralenburg ($1,838). The largest contributions in money were made by Newark ($7,052), Jersey City ($5,566), Hoboken ($1,050), and Pequannock Township (1,015).3.
" During the remaining period of the war, contributions were liberally continued, but no data are at hand as to the amount either of cash or supplies.
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The receipts from the New Jersey department of the Metropolitan Fair amounted to $48,960.58.9
It was not alone, however, through the Sanitary Commission that the offerings of our people reached the field. Many religious bodies, as well as private citizens, preferring the plan of operations pursued by the Christian Commission, directed their contributions in that channel, and tens of thousands of dollars, in money and supplies, were thus added to the volume of relief furnished by our people. In connection with this latter Commission, moreover, hundreds of our citizens, clergymen and others, labored at various times in the field, caring for the sick and disabled. It may be said, comprehensively, on this whole subject, that no State in the Union, in proportion to its population, did more liberal things for the soldiers of the Republic, and their families at home, than New Jersey.
8 The following is supplied by Mr. Walter Rutherfurd, chairman of the New Jersey department in this fair :
"The result of the contributions from New Jersey was as follows :
"Gross amount of sales, $16,214.11; cash contributions, $18,849.47; sale of tickets, 85.400-total, $10,463.58. Counterfeit bill, $5 ; expenses, $15. Contributed to mechanical department, $1,287.40 ; arms and trophies, $2,000 ; floral department, 82,000; India rubber, $517; cottage, $600; sent to Philadelphia, $1,600-total, $48,960.58."
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CHAPTER XLIV. ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH.
Ir will not be denied that up to the assault upon Fort Sumter, the American Church in many respects occupied an equivocal posi- tion touching questions of high national significance. In some denominations there had been a sensible decline of the righteous sentiment of abhorrence of slaveholding and the practices and doc- trines which it nourished, which once almost universally prevailed ; in some States, indeed, the Church had actually arrayed herself on the side of barbarism and oppression, ignoring the dictates of jus- tice and suppressing the instincts of true piety. In many Northern pulpits a shameless timidity held up holy hands in protest against even the discussion of questions involving the very life of the nation, while in others gowned arms were stretched out with bene- dictions upon the vilest abominations that ever debauched a peo- ple. There were, it is true, some faithful witnesses in all the churches, during the sad days of ecclesiastical infidelity ; the pious abhorrence of slavery which had characterized the fathers of the Church, was never entirely suppressed ; but the general influence and tendency, as evinced in ecclesiastical decisions, in the failure of her discipline to take cognizance of glaring iniquities, and in other ways, were wholly pernicious and impossible of defence.
And, perhaps, there are few who, looking back over these five bloody years, would care to attempt a justification of this recreancy among religious bodies; few who are not prepared to admit all that may be written in condemnation on this point. For, certainly, a wonderful change has come over the pulpit of the country as to all these matters. Discussion is no longer stifled. There is no longer a disposition to apologize for flagrant political evils, or shut the eyes to crying abominations in our life as a people. The Bible is.
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no longer twisted and distorted to accommodate its monitions or adapt its instructions to peculiar phases of sentiment in the pews. The clergy no longer fear, as they once did, to shock the prejudices of politicians or offend the schemes of parties. It is true, indeed, that the black image once so widely worshipped is broken and there is no longer need of silence as to this species of idolatry ; but even before it was shivered, while yet millions at the South and thousands at the North were striving to save it and perpetuate its worship, the Northern pulpit began to speak out with pronounced and emphatic utterance. With the first flash of the guns about beleaguered Sumter, a new flame began to burn and glow in all the churches of the North. The fire that burned and scorched the walls of that bravely defended fort, consumed in thousands of pul- pits the last vestige of sympathy with slavery and the lords of mis- rule. Human governments are ordained of God; and the ministry which for fifty years had reprobated as sinful, all agitation and dis- cussion which tended, in their opinion, to unsettle the foundations and enfeeble the popular confidence in this Government of ours, now condemned with equal vehemence the unjustifiable and wicked attempts of Southern insurgents to tear it in pieces and establish upon its ruins a gigantic crime in the outraged name of law and order. Here and there, it is true, there were those who came up slowly to the work of proclaiming loyalty as a religious duty ; but as a body, the Church spoke with grand and majestic voice; her alarms and appeals sounding out like a trumpet-call over the awakening land. Men who had defended slavery in all its aggres- sions ; who in all their sympathies and avowals were identified with the retrograde opinions of their day, suddenly became oracles of freedom, teaching men to break the enervating enchantments of the past, and purifying and exalting all within their reach by the power of their quickened and almost singular enthusiasm. Before the apparition of a great catastrophe, they ceased to be triflers and hold-backs ; some becoming courageous and intrepid to a fault in rebuking the false ; many marching afield with their lives in their hands; few, indeed, hesitating to speak, strongly or weakly, for liberty and law.
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