GREAT News for Notre Dame/Civil War and e-Readers!

Just got some great news from my publisher, The History Press: Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory will soon be available in several e-Book formats (!):

I’m writing with exciting news from The History Press. We’re continuing to pursue the rapidly expanding opportunities for electronic editions of our books, and we plan to include your title, Notre Dame and the Civil War, in a new batch of e-books that we will bring to market in the coming weeks. We believe that we can reach additional portions of the audience for your book with an electronic edition distributed through the most prominent e-book sales channels, and we plan to begin that process immediately. This will take up to twelve weeks to complete, and you do not need to take any action. We will be in touch again when distribution of your e-book begins.

Stay posted for more details!

For an interesting take on e-Book trends, check out the always interesting and reliable Ted Savas of Savas-Beatie at his "Publisher's Perspectives" blog, here.

Harry's Just Wild About "Notre Dame and the Civil War"!

I want to thank Harry Smeltzer for writing a very kind review of Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010) in his "Harry's Just Wild About" feature in the July 2011 issue America's Civil War magazine.

Excerpt:

"The author consulted an impressive array of unpublished archival materials to relate how the school...answered the call to arms when the time came. Wile detailing the experiences of the men - and nuns - in the field, Schmidt doesn't neglect campus life during and after the war."

Thanks, Harry!

And whether you get the magazine by subscription or pick it up at the newsstand, make sure to check out Harry's article in the same issue: "Irvin McDowell's Best-Laid Plans" - The general was surprised by a fresh contingent of Rebels at Bull Run - or not. It is really interesting and well-written!

And - especially - make sure to visit Harry's excellent blog "Bull Runnings - A Journal of the Digitization of a Civil War Battle"...it is one of the best and most popular Civil War blogs out there!

Read more reviews of Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory:

Patrick McNamara's Blog (here)
Civil War News (here)
Civil War Librarian (Rea Andrew Redd) (here)
Almost Chosen People/The American Catholic (Don McClarey) (here)
Confederate Book Review (Robert Redd)(review and interview!) (here)
Irish in the American Civil War (Damian Shiels) (here)
South Bend Tribune Feature (Howard Dukes) (here)

Sister Act TWO!

I'm pleased, honored, and humbled that The History Press - publisher of my recent book Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory - saw fit to extend me a contract for a new book project, tentatively entitled Galveston and the Civil War: An Island People in the Maelstrom.

You can read more about the book project and what I hope to accomplish here.

As it turns out, the Notre Dame project and the Galveston project share something in common: the role of Catholic sister-nurses!

I have written about the Holy Cross sister-nurses of Notre Dame and St. Mary's Academy several times on this blog (here, here, and here).

While the Holy Cross sister-nurses represented one of the largest contingents of Catholic sisters to serve as nurses, the sisters in Galveston - of the Ursuline order - represented one of the smallest, if not the smallest, contingent, but their contributions and sacrifices were no less important and their bravery no less intrepid.

According to the "Handbook of Texas Online":

URSULINE ACADEMY, GALVESTON. The Ursuline Academy at Galveston was established in February 1847 by Ursuline Sisters from New Orleans, who had arrived on January 16. The school, Galveston's first parochial school, was on a ten-acre campus. Attended by girls of all faiths, the academy opened in 1854, closed for a time in 1857 during a yellow fever epidemic, and was used as a hospital by both sides during the Civil War. The main Victorian Gothic building, constructed by Nicholas J. Clayton along with the convent in the mid-1890s, sheltered more than 1,000 refugees during the Galveston hurricane of 1900. A total of 306 students enrolled in 1930, and the girls' high school, elementary school, and kindergarten had an enrollment of 225 in 1940. In January 1947 the school celebrated its centennial, and by 1949 the campus comprised seven or eight acres with the academy building, a brick chapel, and monastery. Hurricane Carla damaged both the academy and convent in 1961, and the buildings were subsequently demolished. The campus chapel, redesigned by Clayton, stood from 1871 to 1961, while the convent remained from 1854 to 1973. In 1968 the Ursuline girls' school consolidated with Kirwin Catholic High School and the Dominican girls' school; it was renamed O'Connell High School for Msgr. Dan O'Connell.

See also at the "Handbook":

Ursuline Sisters
HARRINGTON, MARGARET [MOTHER ST. PIERRE]

I am really looking forward to telling their story as part of this new project!

I will use some of my favorite secondary sources on Catholic sister-nurses in the Civil War, sources on the history of Catholic institutions in Texas, the Archives of the Central Province of the Ursuline Sisters, and a rarely-used archival source that I will feature in a future blog post! If you have other ideas, let me know!

Holy Cross Sisters: Navy Nurse Pioneers!

I have posted before (here and here) about the Holy Cross sisters of the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's Academy that served as nurses during the American Civil War (and I will be posting even more!)

One of their most remarkable accomplishments during the war, that they were the pioneers of the United States Navy's nurse corps, is described in the excerpt below from Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010).

PIONEERS

On Christmas Eve 1862, three Holy Cross sister-nurses boarded the USS Red Rover, the navy’s first floating hospital ship. According to the navy’s own official history, the women represented another important first: “[They] may truly be said to be the pioneers or forerunners of the United States Navy Nurse Corps as they were the first female nurses carried on board a United States Navy Hospital Ship.”(1)

Built in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1859, the Red Rover began its riverine life as a commercial side-wheel steamer. In late 1861, the Confederacy bought the steamer in New Orleans, renamed it CSS Red Rover and used it as an unarmed barracks for soldiers and sailors assigned to a nearby floating artillery battery. In early 1862, the Red Rover made its way up the Mississippi River but was abandoned a month after being damaged in a Union naval bombardment. Federals captured the ship, and following on-the-spot repairs, the steamer made its way to St. Louis, where the newly christened USS Red Rover was refitted as a floating hospital for the Western Gunboat Flotilla.

Mother Angela happily offered her sisters as nurses on the unique floating hospital, and when the Red Rover was transferred to the navy in late 1862, she sent Sister Veronica Moran, Sister Adela Reilly and Sister Callista Pointan from the Mound City hospital for service on the steamer. They were joined by two African American women, who served under their direction. Other Holy Cross sisters also served on the steamer, but Sister Veronica and Sister Adela served continuously until November 1865. The sister-nurses earned fifty cents per day (ten cents more than their counterparts in the army), though they were subject to the same irregular pay as soldiers and sailors (in a hospital account book, Mother Angela chided: “The paymaster is generally very tardy, leaving an interval of several months between his appearances”).(2)

The Red Rover set out on December 29, 1862, leaving Mound City and passing down the river toward Memphis, then Helena, Arkansas, and finally to the Yazoo River, where it received orders to guard the mouth of the White River while the flotilla bombarded Arkansas Post (Fort Hindman), Arkansas, and transported troops to storm the fort; the wounded were transferred to the Red Rover after the successful assault. Even though the Red Rover was a hospital ship, the steamer was armed and sometimes a target. On January 21, 1863, Rebel artillery fired on the Red Rover, and two shots entered the hospital. Sister Adela recalled that during the Vicksburg campaign, the Red Rover “was near enough to hear the firing and also to see the boats running the blockade.”(3)

The USS Red Rover and its Holy Cross sister-nurses were featured in a handsome series of engravings in the May 9, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly. The caption declared:

This institution…is under the charge of Surgeon George H. Bixby and Dr. Hopkins, and is an untold comfort to our sick or wounded sailors. The sketch shows the main ward, in which are accommodations for over two hundred patients. The Sister is one of those good women whose angelic services have been sung by poets and breathed by grateful convalescents all the world over. The convalescents are placed in a ward for their sole use, where they smoke, read, and generally enjoy themselves. The boat itself, a clean, roomy craft, is under the command of a gallant old sailor.(4)

In addition to being a generous and contemporary tribute, the engravings are thought to be the only wartime depictions of the Holy Cross sister-nurses in action.

Notes:

(1). E. Kent Loomis, “History of the U.S. Navy Hospital Ship Red Rover,” Navy Department, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval History, Ships’ History Section, Report No. OP 09B9, 1961, 7.
(2) Mary D. Maher, To Bind Up the Wounds: Catholic Sister Nurses in the U.S. Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), 91.
(3) Barbara M. Wall, “Grace Under Pressure: The Nursing Sisters of the Holy Cross, 1861–1865,” Nursing History Review 1 (1993): 80.
(4) Harper’s Weekly, “The Naval Hospital Boat ‘Red Rover,’” May 9, 1863, 299.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HOLY CROSS SISTER-NURSES IN NOTRE DAME AND THE CIVIL WAR MARCHING ONWARD TO VICTORY!

Holy Week 1864 with Notre Dame's Fr. Cooney

I have profiled Notre Dame Holy Cross priest Fr. Peter P. Cooney in previous posts (here and here).

As mentioned in those previous posts, soon after joining his regiment, Fr. Cooney began writing letters, mainly to his brother, Owen, at home in Michigan. Fortunately, those wartime letters have survived. They give wonderful firsthand testimony to his activities as a chaplain, the role his regiment played in some major battles of the war, and the character – especially the religious habits – of some important military personalities of the war, especially General William Rosecrans.

The original letters and his other papers are held by the Archives of the University of Notre Dame. Some of the letters were published by Thomas McElroy in three parts as “The War Letters of Father Peter Paul Cooney of the Congregation of the Holy Cross,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 1933. The archives also maintains his wartime diary.

One of those letters to Fr. Cooney's brother was written on April 26, 1864, and he describes his religious duties and efforts during Holy Week leading up to Easter Day 1864:

Blue Springs, Tennesse (near Cleveland, Tenn.)
April 26, 1864

My dear Brother:

I am very surprised that I did not receive a single word from you since I left home. I have, I think, written you at least three or four letters. I hope that carelessness is the only reason why you did not write; and if you were sick or otherwise unable to write, you should have got some one to write me even a few lines. My health is and has been very good, thanks be to God.

I have been for the last two months very busy in preparing the men to complete their Easter duty, otherwise I would have written oftener, to you. Our division consists of about twelve thousand men and there are Catholics in every regiment. Protestants attend the sermons by thousands in the open field. I have baptized many of them and prejudice against to the Church is gone almost entirely.

A short time ago I baptized and gave his first Communion to the Major General commanding our division. He is now a most fervent catholic and his example is powerful over the men of his command. I have every assistance from him in anything that I require for the discharge of my duties. He is extremely kind to me.

After coming here it was very chilly and even cold and I had neither stove nor fireplace to warm my tent nor could I get any; nor brick or stone to build a chimney. During "holy week" we have about ten inches of snow on the level. Though it lasted but a few days, it was very damp and chilly.

He was at Mass on Holy Thursday and saw that I had no stove. He went to his headquarters and took a stove from one of his officers and sent it to me. The officer gave it cheerfully, although a protestant, when the General told him that I had to hear confessions and say my office in a cold tent, without fire. I have been very comfortable since, I have a fine tent in which I say Mass every morning.

The General is vice-president of a temperance society that I have established in the regiment. We meet the first Sunday of every month. At our last meeting after I had finished my lecture to them on temperance, I invited the General, who is also a member, to say a few words to the members. He cheerfully consented and made quite a speech on temperance. You may imagine the influence of a Majpr general in full uniform over the minds of officers and men who were present.

The General's name is D.S. Stanley. he waas brought up in Ohio and is an officer in the Regular army. I was at his headquarters yesterday evening and he gave me his photograph which I send you. He wrotehis name on it. I would like to have it fixed with one of mine the same as that of Major general Rosecrans', as a remembrance of their piety and our companionship in the trials of this war.

Another battle is expected ina short time. The main body of the Rebel army is at Dalton, Georgia, about eighteen miles from this place. I hope God will protect me in the future, as he has in the past. After the coming battle I will go to Indiana with the men's money and from there home for a few days, God being willing...

I hope you are well. Practice your religion Dear Brother, attend to your business at home. I was glad to see by the papers that there would be no draft in Michigan. I shall write you soon again. Write soon. My love aand blessing to my mother and all.

Your affectionate brother,

P.P. Cooney, Chaplain
25th Reg. Ind. Vol.

[P.S.]

There is an artist in our brigade who took the picture of our regiment at Mass on Easter Sunday - my tent, etc. It was sent to Cincinnati to be engraved. It makes a beautiful picture. It will cost about five hundred dollars; when finished I will send a copy.

Did you get the book I sent you? The spring is very backward here although very warm now. I do not suppose the vegetation is any further advanced than it is at this time in Michigan.

The First Days of the Civil War at Notre Dame - Part II - A Spirit of Fire

As mentioned in Part I of this post (here), the first days of the Civil War were full of excitement at the University of Notre Dame.

While Fr. Neal Gillespie declared that some students "did not “exhibit a very bellicose spirit nor vapormuch about ‘blood and thunder’ and the ‘cannon roar’ and such like," the additional excerpt below from Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010) indicates that some of the students were indeed "on fire":

One student with a decided “bellicose spirit” was William F. Lynch, commander of Notre Dame’s "Continental Cadets." The citizens ofnearby South Bend met at the St. Joseph County Courthouse on the evening of April 15, 1861, to determine their course of action. With party loyalties set aside, the citizenry stood shoulder to shoulder in the packed courtroom, but Lynch—who was in the hall—grew impatient with the speeches and platitudes. He then gave a speech “full of a fiery patriotism that carried the audience with his enthusiasm,” one historian declared. Years later, the Notre Dame Scholastic recalled the thrilling scene:

"He stood up, tall, soldierly; his Irish eyes were glittering, his face pale. The vibrant ring of the first sentence he rattled out above the heads of the good citizens made them catch their breath. In five minutes they were frantic; and when the boy told them he was going to the front to shed the last drop of his blood if needed for the Union, the audience leaped to its feet; cheer after cheer rang out wildly."

Lynch then returned to Notre Dame, where as one report stated, he “set his own cadets afire, or rather…let the blaze out—they were afire already. To a boy they wanted to go to the front by the next train and put down the uprising of the South at once.” Lynch left for Indianapolis to offer Notre Dame’s military company to the state, but Governor Oliver P.Morton was already overwhelmed with like petitions, and he told Lynch to go home and wait. In the meantime, Father Sorin—aware of the fiery patriotism in his student body—praised the cadets for their good spirit but declared that he had no authority to allow boys under twenty-one to enlist without their parents’ permission.

Sources:

Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, vol. 2 (Chicago, IL: Lewis Publishing Co., 1907), p. 716; Notre Dame Scholastic, November 18, 1899, pp. 176-77.

William F. Lynch - perhaps Notre Dame's most illustrious student-soldier - will soon be featured in his "own" post...it's interesting to consider what might have happened if the governor of Indiana had accepted an entire company of Notre Dame men into one of the state's regiments...as it was, the dozens of young men from the school who enlisted straight away were scattered among regiments from Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and other states.

The First Days of the Civil War at Notre Dame - Part I - "Blood and Thunder"

This week marked the 150th anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Within days, President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion.

It was a week of great excitement at the University of Notre Dame as it was in homes, towns, and other campuses around the country.

One of Notre Dame's very first graduates - Neal Gillespie (Class of 1849) - stayed on at the school to study for the priesthood. He was also brother to Eliza Marie Gillespie, who would become Mother Angela (you can read about her in a previous post here).

On April 19, 1861, Fr. Gillespie wrote his mother of the atmosphere on campus in the days following Fort Sumter. An excerpt of the letter appears in Notre Dame and the Civil War: Marching Onward to Victory (The History Press, 2010):

“Here all are well except those who are taken violently with the war fever, which epidemic rages in these northern climes in spite of the gloomy weather as fiercely as in the sunny south,” wrote Father Neal Gillespie to his mother from Notre Dame on April 19, 1861, just days after the surrender of Fort Sumter and President Abraham Lincoln’s first call for troops. “Some of the students perhaps will go to fight the battles of their country,” he added but guessed that “the number will…be very small.” He reported, with chagrin, that “the excitement has sadly interfered with the lessons of some of the hotheaded ones” but wrote with admiration of two young boys—family friends—who “[took] the matter coolly, as sensible young men” and did not “exhibit a very bellicose spirit nor vapor much about ‘blood and thunder’ and the ‘cannon roar’ and such like.”

Source: Letter, Neal Gillespie to mother, April 19, 1861, Thomas EwingManuscripts (CEWI), Box 3, University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA).]

I will post more this week about how the students of Notre Dame reacted to the news of Fort Sumter!