According to the local paper “Tourists are flocking en masse to the home of the peace-filled Daughters of Charity property in Emmitsburg, just as the U.S. Army did in 1863.”
The story continues…
The new Charity Afire museum opened Friday at the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, opening this year’s Heritage Days. Mannequins depict weary soldiers with serious wounds and the medical and spiritual care that the Sisters of Charity gave them.
The sisters, whose rural home was 300 acres of farmland situated a few miles south of Gettysburg, were trained as nurses and teachers. They usually went out across the country to serve on missions as needed.
In the new museum, visitors read letters and saw images and maps that tell the sisters’ stories, the places they served and the kinds of healing they offered throughout the war in the north and south.
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On June 29, 1863, 8,000 to 10,000 Union troops showed up with hungry horses and soldiers. The sisters fed them all, sent them off and prayed for their safety, and they would have done the same for the South, Shower said.
For Heritage Days and beyond, the shrine and Daughters of Charity Archives are reflecting on the war. The archives are not usually open to the public, but today through July 6, they will share written accounts from the days surrounding Gettysburg, in the exhibit “Our Buildings and Very Earth Trembled.”
Different letters that document the events at the Daughters of Charity 150 years ago on that date will be read each day.
Tags: Civil War, Daughters of Charity, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, Emmitsburg, Gettysburg, shrine
