Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/364

Rh but you came highly recommended and I have long known of your work. But I did not know you wore such a dress. However, you can wear it if you choose." Then she wrote the order for Mrs. Farnham to report at Fredericksburg. From that time until the war closed she was one of Miss Dix's trusted nurses and was charged with duties and commissions at the front that she would trust to no one else. Although they met many times when Mrs. Farnham wore the same dress it was not mentioned again.

Helen L. Gilson, of Chelsea, Mass., had been for several years head assistant in the Phillips School in Boston. But ill health obliged her to leave it. She then went to teach the children of her uncle, Frank B. Fay, Mayor of Chelsea. Mr. Fay from the commencement of the war took the most active interest in the national cause, devoting his time his wealth and his personal efforts to the welfare of the soldiers. Influenced by such an example of lofty and self-sacrificing patriotism, and with her own young heart on fire with love for her country, Miss Gilson from the very commencement of the war gave herself to the work of caring for the soldiers first at home and afterward in the field. When Mr. Fay commenced his personal services with the army of the Potomac Miss Gilson wishing to accompany him applied to the Government superintendent of female nurses for a diploma, but as she had not reached the required age she was rejected. This, however, did not prevent her from fulfilling her ardent desire of administering to the sick and wounded. In June, 1862, she took a position on one of the hospital boats of the sanitary commission just after the evacuation of Yorktown. She continued on hospital boats between White House, Fortress Monroe, Harrison Landing and Washington. She reached the field of Antietam September 18, 1862, a few hours after the battle and remained there and at Pleasant Valley till the wounded had been gathered into general hospitals. In November and December, 1862, she worked in the camps and hospitals near Fredericksburg at the time of Burnside's campaign. In the spring of 1863, she was again at that point at the battle of Chancellorsville and in the Potomac Creek Hospital. Early in 1864, she joined the army at Brandy Station, and in May went with the auxiliary corps of the Sanitary Commission to Fredericksburg, where the battle of the Wilderness was being fought. Amidst the terrible scenes of those dreadful days the perfect adaptability of Miss Gilson to her work was conspicuous. Whatever she did was done well and so noiselessly that only the results were seen. When not more actively employed she would sit by the bedside of the suffering men and charm away their pain by the magnetism of her low calm voice and soothing touch. She sang for them and leaning over them where they lay amidst all the agonizing sights and sounds of the hospital ward, and even upon the field of carnage, her voice would ascend in petition for peace, for relief, for sustaining grace in the brief journey to the other world transporting their souls into the realms of an exalted faith.

As may be supposed Miss Gilson exerted a remarkable personal influence over the wounded and sick soldiers as well as upon all those with whom she