Page 154 - Arkansas Confederate Women

Sisters of Mercy in the War 135

Sisters of Mercy were giving to the Confederate sick and

wounded. Many years afterward Rev. Mother Alphonsus said
to the writer : "We took care of the Confederates and the Fed-

erals took care of us."

The retreat of General Sterling Price from his raid in
Missouri in September of 1864 also brought many a poor sol-

dier to the care of the Sisters of Mercy. His troops suffered
terribly from cold, sickness and exposure. The indefatigable
efforts of the sisters to soothe at least the dying agonies of their
patients made a profound impression, and several soldiers em-

braced the Catholic faith, as much perhaps as a testimonial of

gratitude to their holy nurses as a conviction of religious truth.

Very Rev. Patrick O'Reilly (Father Pat), V. G., from June,
1862, to February, 1867, administrator of the diocese, was the
pastor of St. Andrews' cathedral, then the only Catholic church

in the city.

The following sisters were members of the community of
St. Mary's Academy, Little Rock, Ark., in the period of the
Civil war: Mother Alphonsus, Sister M. Xavier, Sister M. Ag-
nes, Sister M. Stanislaus, Sister M. Vincent, Sister Rose, Sister
Mary and Sister Michael.

st. anne's at fort smith.

St. Anne's Academy was located by the. Sisters of Mercy,
1851, in the old army headquarters of General Zachary Taylor,
just outside the city limits of those times, on an elevated and
beautiful site. Their boarding pupils came from the borders
of Texas, Indian Territory and several counties of Arkansas.
The day pupils from the town and surrounding country homes
combined with the boarders to make what was called in those
times a large school. The Civil war frightened away the board-
ers, and in the later stages of it, the greater number of day

scholars, also, as parents were chary of risking the absence of
their little ones from home. Their fear was all the more
intense from the fact that the Indians just across the river
were divided into two hostile camps, those under Stand Watie
were faithful to the Confederacy while those under Opotheo-
hola fought for the Union. In 1864, John Harrington, a