She then said to him: “Well, Toby, who made the trees, the grass, the flowers and all these beautiful things which we see around us?”
The little fellow looked at her for awhile and said: “Dun no; dey was all hyar when I comed.”
The soldiers in Gallipolis acted as gentlemen in their intercourse with the Sisters. The sight of a Sister was sufficient to check the least levity. Men who had been taught to look on Catholics as dangerous people learned to love and respect the faith which taught even women to sacrifice their lives for the comfort or relief of the soldiers.
The Governor of Indiana made application to the Most Rev. Archbishop of Cincinnati for the Sisters to care for and nurse his troops in Richmond, Ky. Sisters Anthony and Sophia were among the first ones sent. They traveled in ambulances from Cincinnati. The following are extracts from the diaries of these religious:
“Much, very much, might be said of our work at Richmond, but God alone could tell the story. En route from here (Cincinnati) we witnessed sights the most appalling; the grounds were covered with wounded, dying and dead bodies. Some of the dead bodies were only partially covered, hands and feet protruding. The weather being very hot added not a little to the hardships of this scene of action.
“Arriving in Richmond, we began work immediately. The hospital had been an academy, affording wards larger and better than many other locations during the war. Shortly after attending to those suffering from the most severe wounds, a Sister discovered a poor soldier crouched in a corner. For hours he had lain under the burning rays of the sun, suffering severely from a wound received in his shoulder. The flesh surrounding the wound was dreadfully mangled, and owing to neglect was swarming with vermin. Pale and haggard he looked. I shall never forget him. We washed and dressed his wounds and administered the necessary cordials, and when we placed him in a clean cot the reader may imagine his joy.
“Another ward in this hospital accommodated more than one hundred men. Seventeen were lying on the floor, each of whom had lost one or more limbs. ‘What shall we do with these poor men?’ was the constant query.
“The first death that occurred was of a man who had been shot through the lung. He had been exposed to the heat of the sun, and had eaten no food for hours. Everything was done for him, but his moments on earth were few. He received the last sacraments and died a beautiful death. His last words were: ‘Thanks to the Sisters.’ This death and its attending circumstances were the cause of many conversions. One pious Episcopalian asked the Sisters for books on the subject of religion, saying that ‘a religion which teaches gentle ladies such devoted self-sacrifice for suffering humanity must be Divine.’