The Daughters of Charity at Gettysburg, Part 2 (Photos)

Editor's note: This is the second part of a two-part article. You may read part one here, about the days leading up to Gettysburg and the terrible toll of the battle itself. This article and accompanying photo gallery contain descriptions and images that may disturb some readers.

On Sunday, July 5, 1863, a carriage and omnibus set off from the Valley of St. Joseph in Emmitsburg, Maryland to care for the wounded at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 12 miles to the north. Leading the relief party was Fr. James Francis Burlando, Chaplain and Provincial Director of the Daughters of Charity in Emmitsburg. There were also 16 sisters from the Emmitsburg community, including Sister Camilla O’Keefe, whose recollections paint a vivid picture of the journey to Gettysburg and the events that followed.

According to Sr. Camilla, two miles outside of Gettysburg, the group came upon a barricade. "The pickets (soldiers) ran towards the fence with uplifted muskets,” but when they recognized who was approaching, they lowered their weapons.

There were approximately 51,000 casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg. In the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry alone, 27 officers and men had died, while 93 had been wounded and 5 were reported captured or missing.

For First Sergeant Jeremiah Brown and Company K [see part one, Ed.] there would be little time to rest. Along with much of the Army of the Potomac, they were sent in pursuit of General Robert E. Lee. The dead and those soldiers who were too injured to move were left behind in Gettysburg.

In the coming weeks, a hospital camp arose to the east of town, where army surgeons treated more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers. One of the largest such facilities set up during the Civil War, Camp Letterman did not open until July 20; in the meantime, the wounded would have to be sheltered in every available space.

When the Daughters of Charity arrived at the McClellan Hotel at around 1 p.m., the scene was chaotic, with dying and wounded soldiers in buildings all around town. “The Sisters wanted to go to work at once,” wrote Sister Camila.

Of the many makeshift medical sites, one of the most famous was the Catholic Church of St. Francis Xavier. It had been dedicated 10 years before, in 1853, by St. John Neumann. Entering the church, the Daughters of Charity saw amputated limbs in the sanctuary, “the Blessed Sacrament having been removed to the priests’ house.” Overworked doctors were operating on soldiers at the back of the church because the light was better there.

The injured had been brought to the church starting on the first day of the battle, July 1. According to Sr. Betty Ann McNeil, in Balm of Hope, the Sisters “found men lying on the church pews, under the pews, and on boards placed across the pews. Blood and bathing wounds kept the straw on the floor constantly wet under the sisters' feet. Gangrenous wounds infected the air.” Many of those wounds were also infested with maggots. The stench was nearly unbearable.

(View the PHOTO GALLERY at the end of the article for images of St. Francis Xavier Church and the other persons and places described in this article.)

In the ensuing days, at St. Francis Xavier Church and other locations, the Sisters cleaned wounds, combed lice out of soldiers' hair, mopped brows, wrote letters for the suffering men, read to them, and prayed with them.

In 1861, Fr. Burlando had written the Daughters of Charity in his province a 12-page letter offering instructions on how they should conduct themselves as nurses. He urged them to be “generous laborers in carrying on the good work” and to conduct themselves with “humility” in imitation of St. Vincent de Paul. He continued:

This awareness sustained the Sisters in the challenging weeks that followed. There were also miracles large and small to uplift them. A brother of one of the Sisters was found among the injured, and an officer allowed him to be transferred to the hospital where she was assigned. They had not seen each other in nine years.

According to Sr. Camilla, in one of the field hospitals outside town 60 Confederate patients asked for Baptism. Many of them had not believed "in Heaven, nor hell (but) only to live just as long as they could and enjoy life as it came." A doctor who had previously converted had been a positive influence on the men, along with the example of the Sisters. "Kindness bestowed on them in their sufferings had no little, effect some would say, 'The Sisters were Catholics, surely they must be right any way.'" Continued Sr. Camilla:

The Sisters also received support from their community back in Emmitsburg, which regularly sent them food and supplies. They collected clothing, blankets, and other necessities not just for the facilities where they worked, but for hospitals run by Methodists, Lutherans, and others. Witnessing this, an officer in charge of the commissary told one Sister, “I sincerely hope we shall all worship at the same altar one day.”

Over the course of the war, at least 300 Daughters of Charity left Emmitsburg to serve as nurses during the Civil War. This included a large contingent of Sisters who worked at Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia, a military hospital where many of the Gettysburg wounded were eventually sent once fit for transport.

As for First Sergeant Jeremiah Zachariah Brown and the men of the 148, they would fight in some of the most intense battles of the Civil War, all the way to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on April 6, 1865. The commanding officer of Brown’s company, Captain Thompson Core, was gravely wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania and died three weeks later. Brown was soon promoted to captain.

In October 1864, Brown volunteered to lead 100 men on a “suicide mission” against an enemy fort during the Siege of Petersburg. He and his soldiers succeeded in capturing the enemy works against all expectations. Thirty years later was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery. He died in 1916 at the age of 76.

There would be no medals for the Daughters of Charity or for the women religious from the 12 other orders who ministered to the wounded during the Civil War. However, St. Francis Xavier Church did install a stained-glass window and a bronze plaque to remember the Daughters of Charity who served Gettysburg’s wounded. And in Washington, DC, the Ancient Order of Hibernians erected a monument in 1924 to honor all “the various orders of Sisters who gave their service as nurses in battlefields and in hospitals during the Civil War.”

The women behind this monument, Ellen Ryan Jolly, later wrote what is perhaps the most fitting tribute to these amazing women. She wrote:

“The Nuns had no ambition for earthly honors, but their hearts ached in sympathy for the bruised and bleeding, the sick and dying of ‘a house divided against itself.’”

Note: Thanks to Lisa Donahue, Scott Keefer, and Lucy Touhey for key information provided while researching this article. 'Balm of Hope' by Sr. Betty Ann McNeil was the source for the letters of Sr. Camilla O’Keefe and Fr. James Burlando and provided other valuable information. Anyone interested in this topic should seek the book out.

I also highly recommend that visitors to Gettysburg pay a visit to St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and to the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. At the shrine you can walk the grounds of St. Joseph's Valley and explore the newly opened Seton Museum.

Balm of Hope, Sr. Betty Ann McNeil, 2015 – Available for download from DePaul University.

Charity Afire Trilogy, Sr. Betty Ann McNeil, 2011 – Available from the Seton Shrine giftshop.

Nuns of the Battlefield, Ellen Ryan Jolly, 1927

The Civil War: A Narrative, Shelby Foote, 1986