The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863

''We are all enthusiasts now,' answered another; 'that does not make any difference.'

''I don't believe she is,' exclaimed a pretty young woman; 'behind such a face there can be only a very matter-of-fact mind.'

'A tall, cold-looking lady said: 'No, she is a devotee; I know it by her manner. We do not want such persons.'

''I do not think we can afford to lose her services,' interrupted another, who had been looking over a pile of papers. 'Listen to her testimonials. Here is one from Dr. Weston, another from the Rev. Mr. Samuels, and others. Listen, she is just the one we want.'

All listened, and when Laetitia came, after another flood of questions, her credentials were given her. During this delay, though she was, like all the rest of us, at white heat regarding her country, she was entirely quiet about herself. I asked her what she would do if she were not accepted. 'I shall go,' said she, 'whatever obstacles are thrown in the way.' She started very soon for the seat of war. I came here with her to see that she had everything she needed, and you know the rest better than I do.'

Yes, I knew the rest, for I had been with her ever since.

Though a resident of Washington, I was not 'to the manor born,' but a 'mudsill' from Vermont, and when the war broke out I applied to be received into the hospitals, but was refused on account of want of experience. Intent, notwithstanding, upon making my services necessary, I passed part of every day in one or other of them. One day I noticed a new comer. Her head was bent down as I approached her; but when I passed, she looked up for a moment, and I had a glimpse of her face. 'That is the homeliest face I ever saw,' said I to myself. It will be a perpetual annoyance to me. I am sorry she has come.' The next day I was again in that hospital, and, standing near a door which opened into a side room, I overheard a conversation going on between a surgeon and a lady. It was not of a private nature, and I kept my place and listened to it. I was charmed by the agreeable tones of the lady, her well-chosen words, and the great good sense and tender kindness of her remarks. 'I must know that woman,' said I, 'she will be a treasure if she is going to stay here.' She came out, and I recognized the homely nurse of the previous day. I was astonished, but my prejudice was entirely disarmed. I soon made her acquaintance, and gradually established myself as her assistant, until, at her request, I was allowed to take up my abode in the building.

Her presence in the hospital was soon evident. The surgeons found with surprise that her skill and knowledge were equal to every requirement, that she shrank from no task, however fearfully repelling it might be, and they quickly began to avail themselves of her womanly deftness. To the soldiers she was a perpetual blessing. Every means which her thoughtful experience could suggest she put in requisition to soothe their pain or strengthen them to bear it. Nature, who never denies all gifts to any of her children, had given her a good voice, not powerful, but sweet and penetrating, and often, when all else failed, I have seen her lull a patient to sleep with some favorite tune set to appropriate words. Priceless indeed were her services, and priceless was the recompense she received.

But for the humor that peeped out occasionally in Miss Sunderland, to an ordinary observer her character—as she moved unambitiously through the wards, doing always the right thing at the right time, unexpectant of blame and regardless of praise, obeying directions apparently to the very letter, yet never allowing the mistakes or carelessness of the director to mar her own work—would have seemed almost colorless; but I have never considered myself an ordinary observer where character is concerned, and I soon saw that hers was not the unreasoning goodness of instinct, that it derived life and tone from a past full of culture and discipline. I noticed in her three things particularly: First, complete and unusual happiness, a happiness entirely independent of the incidents of the day. It was as if an unclouded sun were perpetually shining in her heart. This came, I knew afterward, from the fact that she was serving the cause she loved most, that she was doing her work well, and that through it and connected with it she found place for all her best qualities and highest knowledge. Second, her thorough refinement. Without, as I perceived, hereditary breeding, and without conventional pruderies, she had a rare purity and elevation of feeling, which exerted a manifest and constant influence, sadly needed in a soldiers' hospital. Third, her life within. From choice, not from necessity, her life continually turned upon itself; from within she found her chief motive, sanction, and reward, and this took from her intercourse with others all pettiness, and made their relations to herself uncommonly truthful.

From time to time, as the scene of battle shifted, we removed to other hospitals, I always accompanying Miss Sunderland; but at last, in the spring, we again got back to Washington. The battles all around were raging fearfully, and the wounded were continually brought to us in scores. Day and night Miss Sunderland was engaged. Usually careful of herself in the extreme, she seemed now to forget all prudence.

'You cannot endure this,' said I one day to her. 'Your first duty is to take care of your health.'

'No, no,' said she, 'my first duty is to save the lives of these men; the second, to take care of my health for their future benefit; but I cannot give out now. Don't you see how necessary my work is?'

'Yes, I see it,' I replied. 'I don't know how you could spare yourself, but it does not seem right that you should be entirely worn out.'

'Yes, it is right,' answered she; 'a life saved now is of as much consequence as one saved next year. I am useful at this time, for I understand my profession; but others are learning the art of nursing in no feeble school, and if I die, you will find plenty of new comers ready to fill my place.'

I knew from this that she anticipated the result, yet neither did I myself see how it could be avoided; but I resolved to watch and spare her all I could.

During all the year, notwithstanding her unceasing cares, she had kept herself well informed on public affairs. She knew every incident of the war, and particularly all its moral defeats and victories. At one time defeats of both kinds seemed to come thick and fast. She would shudder sometimes, as she laid down the newspaper, and say: 'This prolongs the war such a time;' weeks, months, or years, as it might be; but she never was really disheartened. She did not doubt that the contest, when it did come to a conclusion, would end in the triumph of the right, in the triumph of freedom, in the regeneration of the nation; and her courage never yielded, her resolution never faltered, till one day in the latter part of May.

She went out then in the afternoon to breathe the fresh air she so much needed, but in a half hour came back with a new look in her face. A stern, forbidding expression did not leave her during the day, and at night she tossed about on her bed, wakeful and disturbed. At length she rose, and sat for more than an hour by the window in the darkness, seeking that peace which had left her so unaccountably. A new thought, in time, took possession of her. She went back, and slept. In the morning she called me to her, and told me that on the previous day she had seen a black man knocked down in the streets of Washington and carried in chains to slavery. Then she said in earnest tones: 'Child' (she always called me child, though I was not much younger than herself), 'have you in your life done all that you could do against this abomination?'

'No,' said I.

'You hate it?' She asked; 'you understand its vileness, and hate it?'

'Yes, I do now, from the bottom of my heart.'

'Will you not promise me that until you die, you will, regardless of self, use every effort in your power against it?'

'I will, in all solemness and truth.'

She was satisfied, and said no more, for she never wasted words, and I recognized this as her legacy to me. The next day she was taken ill. I immediately sent for Mrs. Simmons, who thought she would be able to take her home with her; but before she arrived, I saw it would not be possible. Her only hope of recovery was in remaining where she was.

Mrs. Simmons came, and Miss Sunderland, notwithstanding our careful preparations, was so overcome with emotion at meeting her old friend, that for some time she could scarcely speak. After this warmth of feeling had subsided, she looked up in her face with a pleasant smile, and said:

'I was well named, after all. I have entered into the joy of my Lord.'

The next day she had an earnest talk with her friend on the present state of the country. Her faith had returned through intuition, but the grasp of her intellect was weakened by disease, and she could not see clearly the grounds of it. Mrs. Simmons, though she had, like the rest of us, seasons of doubt, was in a very hopeful mood that morning, hopeful for our leading men, for the common people, and for the tendency of events; and she explained the reasons for her belief that the enormities of that period were no new crime, but a remnant of the old not to be eradicated at once, any more than it is possible for an individual to turn from great baseness to real goodness without some backslidings, even after the most unmistakable of conversions. Miss Sunderland was satisfied, the future again became clear to her, and after that she seemed to lose interest in the details of affairs. Her thoughts and conversation were filled with heaven and a regenerated earth.

We clung to hope as long as possible, but she herself saw the end of the disease from the beginning. She talked with us, and with the soldiers who were permitted to see her, as long as she was able. Wise words she spoke, and words ever to be remembered; but at last weakness overcame her, and her life was but a succession of gasps. One morning, after being unconscious for many hours, she opened her eyes wide and looked at us. She glanced from one to the other, and then, fixing her gaze on Mrs. Simmons, said:

'Mary, I am glad—I am glad'—but she was too weak, she could not finish the sentence. Again she essayed. We heard the words 'frightfully homely,' but we could not catch the rest. The light faded from her eyes, and we thought we had seen the last expression of that wise and vigorous mind; but the next day the bright, conscious look came again into her face, but it gave no evidence of recognition, though ardent affection sought eagerly for it. For a moment she lay still, and then said, in a feeble but distinct voice:

'It is better to enter into life maimed and halt than, having two hands and two feet, to be cast into hell.' A half hour afterward she said softly, as if to herself:

'The joy of my Lord.'

They were her last words. She relapsed into unconsciousness, and lingered till the dawn of the next day, when she went to join that glorious and still-increasing band of martyrs who have been found worthy to die for our country.

SIMONY

Thou hast diamonds and emeralds and greenbacks,
Thou hast more than a mortal can crave;
Thou canst make a big pile, yet be honest,
Contractor—oh, why wilt thou shave?

NATIONAL ODE

SUGGESTED BY THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION OF JANUARY 1, 1863

I

Shine forth upon the earth,
Bright day of dedicated birth,
And breathe in thundering accents thy command!
A mighty nation's heart awake,
Her self-enwoven fetters shake,
And vivify the pulses of the land!
Arising from the past
With stormy clouds o'ercast,
And darkened by a long-enduring night,
The Future's child and Freedom's—seraph bright!
Arise great day, and legions of the free,
Beneath thy conquering flag, lead forth to victory.

II

Great Freedom dead! Foul thought
From lies of vaunting Treason caught,
And Fear's pale minions, wrapped in sorrow's pall.
Great Freedom dead! In God-like power,
'Tis Freedom rules e'en this dread hour,
And guides the tempest 'neath whose blows we fall.
Yea! War and Anarchy
Discord and Slavery,
And drunken Death, and all these tears