Diet Kitchen

Civil War Women: Mary E. Shelton

/ sandramervillehart

Iowa president of the Ladies’ Aid Society, Annie Turner Wittenmyer, had grown so busy establishing new local aid societies, providing hospital supplies, and visiting wounded soldiers in Union soldiers that she needed a secretary by the summer of 1863. Miss Mary E. Shelton quickly proved her worth as Annie’s secretary.

On August 10, 1863, Mary left Keokuk to accompany her new boss to St. Louis. Along the way Mary answered many heartbreaking letters for Annie. One father, grieving one son who died, asked Mrs. Wittenmyer to check on his other son who was ill with consumption.

The wife of a soldier had written to Mrs. Wittenmyer on behalf of her husband, who was dying from consumption. She requested he be sent home to die surrounded by his young family.

A frantic mother requested that Mrs. Wittenmyer find out news of her sick son.

These requests—and so many more—were the tip of the iceberg for what the compassionate secretary would experience.

After arranging the delivery of future supplies to the Western Sanitary Commission, the ladies traveled to Helena, Arkansas. A division had moved through Helena on the way to Little Rock and left their sick in the streets. The medical director told Annie that 13 soldiers died the first night. They needed nurses and medical supplies.

Annie left immediately and got the supplies from St. Louis. Then Annie and Mary visited the soldiers. They found dirty rooms. Unbathed men still wore their battlefield clothes. By the time they left at twilight, the hospital steward had assured them he’d clean every room. He had orders to change the patients’ clothing.

The two ladies then wrote letters until midnight. But their day’s work bore fruit—the next day, they found patients wearing clean clothes in clean rooms.

They walked to a convalescent camp about a mile outside Helena where a bedridden soldier called Mary to his side. He told her that they had only eaten bean soup for many days. He was so tired of it that he had wept when offered the soup a last time. Through his tears, he prayed. As soon as the prayer was uttered, his nurse announced, “Mrs. Wittenmyer is coming with two loads of sanitary goods!” Hearing the wagon wheels, the men cried for joy. Then Mrs. Wittenmyer brought them chicken and fruit. The soldier believed the food and other sanitary supplies had saved their lives.

Annie and Mary traveled to Vicksburg from Helena. The hospitals there were well-run. They returned to Iowa that fall. Mary, having seen so much need, wrote letters and spoke with her fellow citizens on behalf of the wounded. She urged greater generosity for the suffering solders.

Mary was constantly in the field, visiting hospitals and running hospital Diet Kitchens. Her work often took her to Nashville and Wilmington and lasted beyond the end of the war.

She wrote many of her experiences in a journal.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Moore, Frank. Women of the War, Blue Gray Books, 1997.

 

Civil War Women: Annie Turner Wittenmyer, Diet Kitchen

/ sandramervillehart / 1 Comment

Annie Turner Wittenmyer, a wealthy widow by the time the Civil War began, threw her efforts into providing hospital supplies needed by Union soldiers. The Iowa resident visited soldiers in army camps.

She established local aid societies throughout Iowa to collect hospital supplies. Her efforts were recognized. She was appointed the leadership of the Iowa State Sanitary Commission in September of 1862.

Annie continued to bring food and blankets to soldiers in army camps, field hospitals, riverboats, and on the battlefields. While there, she saw the food given to soldiers, such as hardtack and greasy bacon, and it distressed her. The men suffered from scurvy and typhoid.

Her brother, David Turner, was in an army hospital in Sedalia, Missouri. While she was with him, David was given fried bacon, bread, and strong coffee. Though she nursed him back to health, the problem of the food given to wounded and sick men remained on her mind.

An idea for a Diet Kitchen at army hospitals came to her in December of 1863. She proposed her idea to Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, and President Abraham Lincoln.

Receiving charge of kitchens in all Union army hospitals, Annie started in Nashville, Tennessee. She trained female workers to prepare light meals with individual attention to each patient’s needs. By working with each patient’s doctor, the ladies gave nourishing meals.

Over 100 Diet Kitchens, staffed by two trained women, had been established by the end of the Civil War. By then the army’s medical department had generally adopted the Diet Kitchen.

These kitchens offered another way for women to serve.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Annie Turner Wittenmyer,” Brittanica.com, 2018/12/28 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Annie-Turner-Wittenmyer.

Longden, Tom. “Annie Wittenmyer,” Des Moines Register, 2018/12/28 https://data.desmoinesregister.com/famous-iowans/annie-wittenmyer.

Williams, Rachel. “The United States Sanitary and Christian Commissions and the Union War Effort,” National Museum of Civil War Medicine, 2018/12/27 http://www.civilwarmed.org/commissions/.

 

United States Christian Commission

/ sandramervillehart

 

On November 14, 1861, a meeting of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) established the United States Christian Commission (USCC.) They were concerned with soldiers’ and sailors’ spiritual welfare and wanted to bring them to Christ.

Philadelphia merchant George Hay Stuart was the chairman. John A. Cole was general field agent.

Delegates of USCC helped regimental chaplains in caring for the soldiers. They gave religious tracts, hymnals, Bibles, and pocket testaments to soldiers. They held worship services, prayer meetings, and Bible Studies.

According to Chaplain William R. Eastman, 72nd New York, USCC provided a tent canvas for log chapels in the winter of 1863-64 near Brandy Station, each seating over 100 soldiers. Two daily services were held at City Point, Virginia—a 2:00 prayer meeting and 7:00 preaching service.

USCC also provided for physical needs. They carried no weapons yet went to battlefields, army camps, and hospitals. They worked as nurses. From the winter of 1863 on, they had about 100 Diet Kitchens to provide light meals. They gave stamps and stationery to soldiers for writing those important letters to loved ones back home.

They also provided coffee, a beverage dearly loved by soldiers. Their coffee wagons became popular. These wagons, traveling 8 miles per hour down rows of soldiers, supplied coffee for 1,200 men each hour. Hot coffee must have been quite a treat on a cold winter’s day.

Over 5,000 USCC volunteers traveled with the Union army throughout the South. Dwight Lyman Moody served as a volunteer. He held revival meetings at Confederate prisoner-of-war camps in Chicago, handing out pocket-sized Bibles.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Frey, Rebecca J. “U.S. Christian Commission,” Encyclopedia.com, 2018/12/28 https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/us-christian-commission.

“United States Christian Commission,” Ohio History Central, 2018/12/28 http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/United_States_Christian_Commission.

“United States Christian Commission,” Wikipedia, 2018/12/28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Christian_Commission.

Williams, Rachel. “The United States Sanitary and Christian Commissions and the Union War Effort,” National Museum of Civil War Medicine, 2018/12/27 http://www.civilwarmed.org/commissions/.