|
Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Sadie Curry Hudson Rogers
Sadie Curry and "Clara Fisher."
In the later years of the war a great
many of the wounded soldiers were brought from east and west to
Augusta, Georgia. Immediately the people from the country on
both sides of the Savannah River came in and took hundreds of
the poor fellows to their homes and nursed them with every
possible kindness.
Ten miles up the river, on the Carolina
side, was the happy little village of Curryton, named for Mr.
Joel Curry and his father, the venerable Lewis Curry. Here many
a poor fellow from distant states was taken in most cordially
and every home was a temporary hospital. Among those nursed at
Mr. Curry's, whose house was always a home for the preacher, the
poor man and the soldier, was Major Crowder, who suffered long
from a painful and fatal wound, and a stripling boy soldier from
Kentucky, Elijah Ballard, whose hip wound made him a cripple for
life.
Miss Sadie Curry nursed both, night and
day, as she did others, when necessary, like a sister. Her zeal
never flagged, and her strength never gave way. After young
Ballard, who was totally without education, became strong
enough, she taught him to read and write, and when the war ended
he went home prepared to be a bookkeeper. Others received like
kindnesses.
But this noble girl had from the
beginning of the war made it her daily business to look after
the families of the poorer soldiers in the neighborhood. She
mounted her horse daily and made her round of angel visits. If
she found anybody sick she reported to the kind and patriotic
Dr. Hogh Shaw. If any of the families lacked meal or other
provisions, it was reported to her father, who would send meal
from his mill or bacon from his smoke-house.
In appreciation of her heroic work, her
father and her gallant brother-in-law. Major Robert Meriwether,
who was in the Virginia army, now living in Brazil, bought a
beautiful Tennessee riding horse and gave it to her. She named
it "Clara Fisher," and many poor hearts in old Edgefield were
made sad and many tears shed m the fall of 1864, when Sadie
Curry and ''Clara Fisher" moved to southwest Georgia.
Bless God, there were many Sadie Currys
all over the South, wherever there was a call and opportunity.
Miss Sadie married Dr. H. D. Hudson and later in life Rev. Dr.
Rogers, of Augusta, where she died a few years ago.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
|