Cairo's Civil War Ansel, Mary Jane Safford

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CAIRO'S CIVIL WAR ANGEL the only ones authorized by army regulations, were unavailable. The food was the same unpalatable fare pared by the men on active duty, and was served on tin plates. Throughout the wards filth predominated, and the unbathed patients had nothing to wear but their dirty underclothing. The pungent smell of the sick, of grimy bodies, excrement, and stale food, was all but overpowering. Death came day after day from dysentery, pneumonia, and typhoid, largely because of unsanitary conditions, medical lethargy, or incompetence. 1 When news of the deplorable conditions in the of Cairo reached Galesburg, Illinois, the members of Brick Congregational Church under the leadership of Edward Beecher (brother of the abolitionist preacher Ward Beecher) decided to act. hundred men in the Cairo camps had already died of ease. Medical and hospital supplies were gathered gether, and Mrs. Mary Ann Bickerdyke, a "botanic cian" with four years of training at Oberlin College experienced in hospital nursing, was persuaded to pany them to Cairo and see to their use. Recently and the mother of two small sons, Mrs. Bickerdyke at four was vigorous, brusque, and capable. A person hardy could not have survived the unhealthful or overcome the army regulations, which at the time hibited the employment of female nurses. 2 I. The preceding paragraph is a composite of materials in Lansden, A History of the City of Cairo, Illinois (Chicago, 19IO Arthur Charles Cole, The Era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 (The History of Illinois, III, Springfield, 1919), 351-53; Anthony Trollope, America (New York, 1862), 402-6; Agatha Young, The Women Crisis: Women of the North in the Civil War (New York, 1959), 2. Nina Brown Baker, Cyclone in Calico: The Story of Mary Ann dyke (Boston, 1952), 3-11. 23°
Mrs. Mary A. "Mother" Bickerdyke. Mrs. Bickerdyke reached Cairo in June, 186 I, but a remarkable young lady, a Cairo resident, had been assisting daily in the town's military hospitals since they had been opened more than two months earlier. Her name was Mary Jane Safford, and she probably was the first woman in the West to carryon military hospital relief. The two women were different, yet alike. Bickerdyke was large, heavy, with 'muscles of iron and nerves of steel," a dynamic personality. Safford was small, frail, refined, retiring, beautiful, and sweetly romantic. Both were patriotic, dedicated, sensitive, self-reliant, kind, tender, unselfish, educated, and proficient. With a common purpose the two women began working together, and a relationship developed that was undoubtedly a most important influence in Mary Safford's life. 3 Mary had been born twenty-six years before in the tiny Vermont village of Hyde Park, the youngest of five children. She was descended from Thomas Safford, who had emigrated from England in 1630 and was a founder of the Mas sachusetts Bay Colony. When she was three, her family 3. Ibid., 37-45, 5 1-52; Young, Women and the Crisis, 93-94; Dictionary of American Biography, II: 237-38.
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Cairo's Civil War Ansel, Mary Jane Safford

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