by Gordon Ryan
Far from the comforts of home, the young recruits now found themselves in a state of shock after confronting the reality of war, and seated around the campfire, they sought some respite from the horror that had so quickly and totally encompassed their lives. Anders and the others had come to understand that to the man on the shooting or receiving end, a single bullet instantly dictated the scope of war. Too many troopers, killed or maimed in this “small conflict,” had already crossed Anders’s path as he performed the grungy work of helping the nursing sisters maintain and operate their hospital.
Before leaving Utah, he had almost been persuaded to join the Utah Battalion, led by Richard Young, grandson of the Mormon pioneer leader, Brigham Young. For the first time since the famous original Mormon Battalion had marched two thousand miles across the great American Southwest in 1846–47, church leaders had encouraged their young men to answer their government’s call. Over eight hundred men from the Utah basin had answered the summons, and, on a bright day in April 1898, the recruits had formed up in the square in downtown Salt Lake City. Bands were playing, flags were waving, and emotions were running high. But in the end, Anders’s passion to join the multitude rallying to the flag had been outweighed by his earlier commitment to Sister Mary Theophane. He had promised that he would accompany her medical detachment to Cuba, continuing the service he had provided for the previous two years as hospital engineer. That commitment had allowed him to resist the enlistment contagion that swept through the other young men in that frenzied crowd.
The Utah Battalion, with most of their horses abandoned in Florida, had arrived in Cuba some weeks after the nursing staff had already established the field hospital, and there had been little contact between the two Utah groups. Occasionally, random patients from the Utah Battalion had passed through the field hospital, a hastily assembled facility consisting of multiple tents that housed surgery, patient wards, and kitchen facilities.
Hunkered down by the fire, Anders heard the approach of a single rider, cautiously slowing his mount as he descended the hill that overlooked the medical facility. Two of the troopers reached for their weapons, but came to attention instead when the firelight reflected off the approaching horseman. They recognized the uniform and familiar face of their commanding officer, First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, Colonel Leonard Wood.
One of the troopers moved to take Colonel Wood’s horse, and, dismounting, the officer stepped to the fire. The troopers stood and saluted as he approached. He took a short cigar butt from his mouth, tossed it into the fire, and returned their salute.
“The head nursing sister?” he asked, nodding toward the large tent.
Also on his feet, Anders replied, “Yes, sir. Sister Mary is in the recovery tent.”
Wood pulled his pocket watch from the waistband of his military-style jodhpurs and flipped open the cover.
“Humph,” he snorted. “Well after midnight. She keeps longer hours than I do.”
Anders remained silent as the colonel walked to the tent, pulled back the flap, and went inside where he gazed down the rows of wounded or seriously ill troopers. Two kerosene lanterns, one at each end of the tent, gave off a dull glow and a soft, hissing sound. Recognizing one of the troopers, Colonel Wood moved to the foot of his bed. The sick trooper had his eyes closed, but was sleeping fitfully. After a moment, the semiconscious man awoke and opened his eyes. He started to lift his head from the pillow.
“Rest easy, Lieutenant,” Colonel Wood said. Stepping to the side of the bed, he peered down at the sunburned, gaunt face of the young officer.
“Evening, Colonel,” the man rasped.
“Just checking on the men, Lieutenant. They treating you well?” he asked, nodding toward the nurse’s station at the end of the tent.
“Just fine, sir. They look after us just fine.”
“Excellent. Now you get some more rest, Lieutenant. We’ll have need of your services shortly. Can’t do the job without good officers,” Wood declared.
“Sir, some of the men have been saying the unit is moving into action. I’m not really injured. Just a bit weak. I’d sure like the chance to return to the regiment.”
“That’s the spirit, son. But you rest while you can,” he said, bending to pat the young man’s arm. “We’ll be needing you soon enough.”
A nursing Sister quietly walked up behind Colonel Wood and lifted the chart at the foot of the patient’s bed. She quickly scanned its contents.
“Evening, Sister,” Wood said, removing his campaign hat.
“And a good evening to you, Colonel,” she said, inclining her eyes toward the flap of the tent.
Wood nodded his silent assent and turned his attention back to the trooper. “Eat well, Lieutenant. You’ll be sitting in the saddle and back on hardtack grub soon enough,” he said. “I’ll be back when I can.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” the lieutenant said, trying once again to raise his head in a gesture of respect for his commanding officer.
“You’ll be puttin’ your head down now, lad, and closing your eyes,” Sister Mary Theophane warned with a stern gaze.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, surrendering to his fatigue once again.
Sister Mary followed Colonel Wood out of the tent and closed the flap behind her as she stepped out into the darkness.
“And how is Lieutenant Watkins?” Wood asked. “He’s part of the 71st New York and he comes from a good, upstate New York family.”
Sister Mary gently shook her head. “They all come from good families, Colonel. I’m afraid he’ll not be returning to duty. His temperature has been above one hundred for three days, and the dysentery has nearly dehydrated him. Colonel, I’m afraid your young lieutenant might not make it.”
The colonel nodded, twisting the end of his waxed mustache in contemplation. “War is not all strategy, field movement, or bravery, is it, Sister?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t be knowing, Colonel. What I would know is that in the seven weeks we’ve been here, we’ve lost about nineteen of your troopers to battlefield wounds, and over six hundred to the diseases these boys can’t seem to withstand.”
“Yes. That’s what I mean,” Wood said, shaking his head. “Being able to adapt seems more important than having a good battle plan. The Spaniards might simply wait us out, thinking we’ll die of one malady or another,” he paused and looked at Sister Mary, “or go home.”
“Is that being considered, Colonel?” Sister Mary asked, her interest brightening.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Sister. We’ll take the fight to them first, I’m certain.”
“More wounded, then?” she said.
Wood nodded again. “It appears so, Sister.”
“Soon?”
He nodded again. “Tomorrow.”
“Aye,” she replied, sighing. “I’ll get the Sisters ready.”
“Better you get some sleep beforehand, Sister,” he suggested.
“I can sleep when we go home, Colonel.”
Wood replaced his campaign hat and tightened the leather strap under his chin. He offered Sister Mary a crisp salute. “Thank you, Sister. Without your assistance and that of your nursing sisters, many more of these boys wouldn’t make it home to wives and mothers. God bless you.”
“And you, Colonel, and all those under your command.”
Colonel Wood started to leave, then hesitated for a moment. “Sister, I get the impression all this is not new to you.”
It was Sister Mary’s turn to nod. “In the last one, Colonel. In Pennsylvania,” she said, looking past him toward the glowing campfire. After a moment’s silence, she shifted her gaze to look at Wood again. “The difference then was that Americans were killing each other.”
The cavalry colonel gazed for a moment at the weary nun. “Thank you, Sister,” he finally said, turning and walking back toward the fire to retrieve his horse. After mounting, he turned to face Sister Mary and politely raised his fingers to the brim of his hat. He then reined his hors
e around and rode up the hill he had descended, the light from the campfire reflecting off his broad back.
Anders rose from his place by the fire and walked toward Sister Mary. “Anything I can do, Sister?”
Sister Mary watched the departing horseman, silhouetted by the moonlight, until he crested the hilltop and disappeared into the night shadows. She turned to look at Anders and smiled weakly. “We can expect additional patients tomorrow, Mr. Hansen. Perhaps you should alert Stitch and the orderlies to have the ambulance wagon prepared, and I’ll inform the Sisters.”
“I see. Seems it never ends, does it, Sister? ‘A bloody waste,’ as Tom Callahan would say.”
“Indeed,” she said, turning and walking off into the darkness toward a small hill.
“Please, Sister,” Anders counseled, “don’t stray too far from the campsite.”
Sister Mary Theophane raised her arm, slightly waving her hand in silent acknowledgment and continuing her climb toward the crest of the hill. Reaching the top and standing in a small copse of trees, she lifted her eyes to the brightness of the stars, struggling to control her fears and emotions.
“Mother Mary, give me of thy strength as we enter this valley of darkness,” Sister Mary silently prayed. “You know the agony of this moment—caring for these poor wretched souls as they come face to face with their mortality. Bless the Sisters who will comfort and aid these needy men. Bless the officers who will lead them, and provide your blessed comfort for those who are frightened. Amen,” she said softly, then crossed herself and remained still in the night. The glare from the campfire down the hill reflected off the trunks of the trees around her.
Trying to sort out her thoughts and mentally prepare for the morrow, an irony occurred to her. Here she stood, as she had thirty-five years before, awaiting the dawn of July 1st. Once again she was being called upon to minister to the wounded, the terrified, and God forbid, she crossed herself again, the dying. “Gettysburg,” she whispered to herself. “Oh, dear God, not again.”
Arriving in America with a small group of Catholic postulants from Ireland in 1854, fifteen-year-old Moira Molloy immediately launched into her role as a nursing trainee. By 1860, she had selected the name of Sister Mary Theophane, taken her vows, and completed her training. She began her medical practice in the Catholic hospital in Notre Dame, Indiana, the “Mother House” of her order, The Sisters of the Holy Cross. In 1861, when the Southern States commenced hostilities against the Union, plans were formulated to provide medical care to military forces, and a long-term care facility was established at Mt. Cairo, Illinois, staffed in part by Sisters of the Holy Cross.
Assigned to the nursing staff at Mt. Cairo, Sister Mary Theophane all too quickly learned about battlefield wounds and the amputations that were frequently required to save the lives of soldiers whose wounds had not been adequately treated. In April 1863, Sister Mary found herself assigned with one other sister to travel to St. Joseph’s College, a Catholic school for young women in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Sent there to recruit additional nurses from among the women at the college, Sister Mary Theophane found the peaceful campus a respite from the mounting carnage she had witnessed at Mt. Cairo Hospital.
In late June, Union troops of the 1st Corps occupied the land around Emmitsburg, including much of the college campus. Sister Mary and her companion, Sister Josephina, were concerned by the reports of approaching Confederate troops, who they feared would prevent them from leaving St. Joseph’s to return to their hospital in Illinois. They booked passage on the night train to Harrisburg, but were halted in Gettysburg by the news of the burning of a trestle bridge by Confederate cavalry. Disembarking the train in Gettysburg on June 30th, they were provided temporary quarters by a local Lutheran minister.
The following day, before they had the opportunity to arrange alternate transportation, they were informed of the arrival of a small contingent of Union soldiers. On the morning of July 1st, Confederate forces unexpectedly appeared to the west of town, and the battle of Gettysburg was underway.
Sister Mary soon became embroiled in what would be her most forceful indoctrination to the horrors of battlefield casualties. From late morning, when the Confederate infantry appeared, throughout the afternoon, the opening skirmish raged. Following hours of shifting advantage, and the death of one Union general, Union forces retreated from their initial defensive position near McPherson’s Ridge, toward the town of Gettysburg. In quick pursuit, the Confederate cavalry and infantry overran most of Gettysburg. By dark, Sister Mary found herself behind Confederate lines.
To her surprise, she was politely asked by Confederate general Jubal Early to help establish a field hospital to be staffed by Confederate army surgeons. Early’s intent was to establish a limited field hospital at the Lutheran Seminary facilities, at the north end of Seminary Ridge, where Confederate forces were fortified on the morning of July 2nd.
After two days spent treating a constant stream of wounded, Confederate and Union alike, the relative calm of the late morning of July 3rd was shattered by a tremendous cannonade. Leaving the hospital facilities briefly and walking south down Seminary Ridge, twenty-two-year-old Moira Molloy, in full Catholic nursing habit, stood in a grove of trees. She was startled by the abrupt cessation of sound, as cannons from both sides of the battlefield almost simultaneously ceased their barrage.
She could hear horses and men moving about in the woods below the gently rising ridge where she stood. Beyond the trees lay a vast, open field across which she could barely make out the movement of thousands of distant, blue-clad soldiers, working to position their horse-drawn cannon along the elevated portions of Cemetery Ridge, which ran parallel to the Confederate positions on Seminary Ridge. Men on the Union side were taking up defensive positions behind wooden fence lines along a low, rock wall.
Suddenly, the sound of movement in the woods below her increased, and a vast army of men in gray uniforms emerged from the cover of the trees onto the open field, forming up in regimental lines. Their officers, some on horseback, moved about encouraging their men to quickly form ranks. Resplendent in his uniform, one mounted officer stood to the fore. The yellow piping on his seams and his shoulder epaulets flashed in the sunlight as he rode his skittish horse up and down the line, speaking a word here and there to encourage, chasten, and fortify his command. The muted color of the long gray line of uniforms was occasionally broken by a burst of color—the red and yellow of military sashes—as thousands of men readied themselves for battle.
Dismounting and handing the reins to an orderly, the officer strode to the head of the troop and stood facing the stationary blue line formed up nearly a mile away across the field. As if by an unseen command, a single cannon shot erupted, far to the south end of the Confederate lines, followed quickly by a second. The lone officer, who stood to the fore, raised his sword above his head and pointed it toward the distant barricade of Union soldiers, who were standing quietly, watching the massive formation develop. He shouted something to his men that Sister Mary could not hear. But it resulted in thousands of men raising their voices in unison. The cacophony carried across the field to the blue lines where a flurry of activity signaled their growing anxiety.
Over twelve thousand men, arrayed in regimental and divisional alignment below Sister Mary’s position on the ridge, started forward, their line running continuously abreast for nearly a mile and a half, north to south. Slowly at first, then at a more rapid pace, the Confederate soldiers began the long, undefended march across the low-lying field. Cannons from the higher positioned Union lines on the east began to sound their call. With the burst of the first volley, dozens of gaps opened up in the gray lines that moved like a wave across the field in front of and below Sister Mary.
Horrified, she dropped to her knees in the tree line, crossed herself, and brought her hand to her mouth as she watched the carnage envelop these brave men. They continued their advance, walking steadfastly across the field, closing ranks to fill the voids left by falle
n comrades. For nearly thirty minutes they went on, their numbers dwindling as they approached the intersecting Emmitsburg Road. Clamoring over fences on both sides of the roadway, they courageously followed their leaders into the hail of rifle fire being hurled at them from the Union ranks.
With the field nearly obscured by drifting smoke, a temporary silence was once again shattered by the deafening roar of cannonade. The fusillade was replaced as quickly as it had begun by the staccato of rifle fire, as one by one, Union soldiers began to find their range, targeting individuals in the ranks of the advancing Southern troops. Even through the drifting smoke, Sister Mary could see that the gray line now numbered thousands fewer as the surviving Confederate troops neared the barricade, behind which lay the might of the Union’s Army of the Potomac.
After a few minutes, a light breeze cleared the field of drifting smoke, and Sister Mary could discern the carpet of dead and injured men. Bodies were strewn across the tramped-down field, from their point of origin near the tree line, to the foremost advance of the gray army, now breaching the Union rampart. Still on her knees, her rosary clutched tightly in her hands, and tears running down her cheeks, she watched as the few Confederate soldiers still advancing bravely climbed the wall. Withering fire from their enemy encased them in a volley of death. Soon, those few stalwarts who had reached their objective were surrounded by a horde of blue-clad soldiers, obscuring them from Sister Mary’s view as they were disarmed and escorted further east off the ridge and out of sight.