Columbus was a major military hospital center during the Civil War. That was not a status Columbus sought. However, being a branch of the Mobile and Ohio railroad, and the handling of wounded after the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, resulted in the development of Columbus as a Confederate hospital center.
After the fighting at Shiloh, a flood of wounded soldiers arrived in Columbus on the railroad. Carolyn Burns Kaye found an account written by the Rev. James Lyon of the horrific scene at the Columbus railroad depot after the Battle of Shiloh. He described there being more than 3,300 wounded soldiers “stacked like cord wood” around the depot. Large buildings, such as the then-unfinished Gilmer Hotel, were turned into hospitals. Even private homes were opened to receive and care for wounded soldiers.
One such home was Whitehall, the Southside Columbus residence of James and Martha Harris. In the basement of Whitehall, holes were drilled into the brick walls so that one end of a stretcher could be inserted into the wall while the other end would be propped up on blocks. There, and also at main hospital sites such as the Gilmer, Martha helped care for the wounded. A white ironstone pitcher, which she gave water to wounded soldiers, has been passed down in her family and, though cracked, survives to this day.
One of the most fascinating accounts of Martha’s actions was not passed down in her family, but recorded in a Chicago newspaper. Not long after the death of Martha in October 1896, a newspaper article titled “Number 27 and the Pumpkin Pie” appeared in the Chicago Times-Herald. It began:
“The recent death of the venerable and beloved Mrs. James W. Harris of Columbus, Miss., recalls an amusing yet pathetic hospital experience of that lady’s. The women of Columbus, when necessity arose, organized a Soldier’s Relief association of which Mrs. Harris was president.”
That organization was dedicated to “… ministering to the wants of Confederate soldiers as far as lay within their power, and of nursing the sick and wounded.”
Every day Martha and the other ladies of the association went to the hospitals and shared with the wounded their meager supplies of food and assisted in providing nursing care. One day, Martha came upon a “young Yankee soldier” who the doctors said was dying of typhoid fever. The attending doctor told her not to waste her time on the “poor devil of a Yankee” as there was nothing more that could be done for him and he would soon die.
In a scene that would be repeated by other Columbus ladies at the origin of Memorial Day, Martha thought of her sons in the Confederate Army and wondered what would happen to them in such a situation.
She then, “with her eyes filled with tears,” turned to the doctor and said; “I’m going to take that poor boy in my own special charge, and as there is any food or medicine left, he shall have his share of it. And I know you well enough, doctor, to feel sure that you will expend on that Yankee boy of mine as much care and skill as if he was one of my own double-dyed Rebel sons.”
Even with the loving care of Martha and the attention of the doctor, the young soldier’s condition grew ever more grave. Finally, one afternoon the doctor said the poor boy would not survive the night. As the boy drifted in and out of delirium, Martha asked him if there was anything she could do for him. He weakly whispered “pumpkin pie.” Not knowing exactly what he meant she asked again. The boy whispered again “pumpkin pie” and drifted into exhausted sleep.
Martha baked a pumpkin pie for the boy and took it to him that evening. The next morning she went back expecting to learn of his death. When she arrived and asked the doctor about his condition she was told the boy had eaten the whole pie, was by some miracle better and was asking for more pumpkin pie. With Martha’s care and more pumpkin pies, the young soldier recovered.
The Chicago newspaper article concluded: “So the boy from Maine got well, and he always declared that if it had not been for those pumpkin pies he surely must have died!” It was signed L. H. and identifiable only as a Union Army veteran of the Civil War who had served as a 19-year-old backwoods boy from Maine.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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