The Sweet Singer of the Hospitals
Annie Wittenmyer recounts how, amid overcrowded Washington hospitals, she receives twenty-two-year-old Lizzie B---- of Pawtucket, R. I., expecting a commanding superintendent but finding a childlike young woman carrying a tiny melodeon. Lizzie’s extraordinary singing reveals a different vocation: to comfort the sick and wounded. At Campbell Hospital, frightened by her first ward of suffering men, she is asked to write for a dying soldier to his mother. She prays with him, then sings, moving the surrounding patients to tears. A soldier says that she looks like a woman but sings like an angel. Lizzie returns with her melodeon, and the surgeon, impressed by the effect of her music, permits her to sing throughout the hospital. She devotes herself to visiting its wards, bringing tenderness, faith, and relief from despair to hundreds of patients. Wittenmyer expands her work by providing an ambulance so she can travel among other Washington hospitals. Her songs console dying soldiers and their families, strengthen wounded men to endure life or death, and cheer thousands. Though capable of directing a special-diet kitchen, Lizzie is remembered as the hospitals’ singer; later, as the wife of a Congregational minister, she continues to move congregations with her sympathetic voice.
By Annie Wittenmyer · First published 1895 · Genre: Historical Nonfiction, Civil War Literature, Biographical Sketch · 1,708 words
First lines
In the fall of 1864, when the Union army was massing against Richmond, Va., the hospitals in and around Washington were very much overcrowded.
Under special orders from Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, and with the hearty co-operation of President Lincoln, I had previously assumed the general supervision of the special-diet kitchens of the United States army hospitals all along the lines.
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Genres
- Historical Nonfiction — The work recounts Civil War-era hospital conditions and Union relief efforts in Washington in 1864, presenting real historical settings, institutions, and figures such as Edwin Stanton and Abraham Lincoln.
- Civil War Literature — Its central context is the American Civil War, focusing on wounded Union soldiers, military hospitals, wartime suffering, and civilian service on the home-front and medical front.
- Biographical Sketch — The narrative chiefly portrays Lizzie B----, a young volunteer whose singing, prayer, and compassion comfort hospitalized soldiers, tracing her discovery and her meaningful wartime role.
- Memoir — Annie Wittenmyer writes in the first person about duties she personally held, decisions she made, and events she claims to have witnessed during wartime hospital service.
Tags
American Civil War · Union army hospitals · Washington, D.C. · 1864 · hospital nursing · women's wartime service · wounded soldiers · dying soldiers · military medicine · Campbell Hospital · Christian faith · prayer
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The Sweet Singer of the Hospitals is listed on Textopian as a historical account by Annie Wittenmyer, dated 1895 CE.
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- Work type: Historical account
- Author: Annie Wittenmyer
- Date: 1895 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Historical Nonfiction, Civil War Literature, Biographical Sketch, Memoir, Personal Reminiscence
- Length: 1,708 words
- Structure: 1 section, 49 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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