USA 1862-1863 LONG PERSONAL LETTERS Pa MRS BALDWIN CIVIL WAR + BATTLE ANTIETAM

Three long personal letters dated 31st Dec 1862 + 6th Jan + 19th Jan 1863, from Mrs Baldwin in Philadelphia, with envelope to Mrs James Magee in Hyde Park London (stamp removed), PAID LONDON 3 FE 63; much diverse content including 2 pages about the wounded after Battle of Antietam (the worst of the Civil War) and Aid organisations etc.  

Letters: Dec 31st 1862 + 6th + 19 Jan 1863..  ... Mrs Beck... paid a morning call... was deeply touched with what she told us of her labours on the battlefield. I will mention one or two circumstances that are not published.. she went into a hase house  after the Battle of Antietam where the wounded of both armies were lying, and someone asked if she was a confederate- she replied that she was a union woman “Union you know embraces the Confederates”. “Good” said a voice nearby which proved to belong to a wounded Carolinian whose dying hours she afterwards soothed, and when all was over, cut off some hair and wrote to the wife who would never see him again.. in these labours of love she has been most abundant. A confederate soldier to whom she was reading the Bible said that he never thought that it would have been possible that a Christian lady in the North would thus sit by and read to him - she says that the scenes she has passed through have made her think more highly of Human Nature then she ever did before. The Endurance, the patience of the men in their sufferings is most touching, and while I feel a reverence for the woman who has so ministered to the comfort of men who have lead and died for our nation, I would envy her, if I did not realise that in her acts all womanhood was honoured. The act of War being so strange to us as a nation, much has had to be learned by bitter experience of suffering, but what the government could not do, a number of voluntary societies have nobly endeavoured to do, and the trying times have taught us that there are great spirits still among Us. The Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission, “Ladies Aid”... and “Soldiers Reading Room” have sprung up to meet emergencies and have been blessings not only to the soldier but to his friends- indeed I feel it a great thing to breathe the air of my country and to suffer with her, while I yet hope and pray…