Helen Gilson

HELEN GILSON

CHELSEA WOMAN MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE CIVIL WAR

While in Richmond, Virginia, President Abraham Lincoln made plans to visit General Weitzel's headquarters. No carriages were available to transport him, so he decided to walk to the headquarters. The walk was long and the president halted for a moment to rest. "May de good lord bless you President Linkum!" said an old Negro, removing his hat and bowing, with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks. The President removed his own hat and bowed in silence. It was a bow which upset the forms, laws, customs and ceremonies of centuries of slavery. Helen Gilson, an army nurse from Chelsea, did a deed in 1864 which upset the forms, laws, customs and centuries of prejudice - just as her president had done.

Helen Gilson was born in Boston in 1836. She was a teacher until 1858 when throat trouble made it impossible for her to continuine teaching. In 1858 she took a position as the governess to the family of Frank Ball Fay, the 40 year old mayor of Chelsea. Hearing of the defeat of the Union Army at Bull Run in the summer of 1861, Mayor Fay and Gilson left for Virginia to aid the wounded soldiers and recover the dead. For the next three years these two devoted their life to caring of the sick and wounded soldiers. In 1864, Mayor Fay had to go to Baltimore, Maryland and told Gilson and eight men to head to Petersburg, Virginia and go to the front to be ready for the expected battle, to help and assist the wounded soldiers. The fighting at Petersburg went on for several days and for the first time some of the 30 odd regiments of black soldiers in Grant's Virginia armies were engaged. Casualties were heavy as usual. The black wounded were brought to a temporary facility at City Point which would soon become a general hospital. A doctor wrote of the facility for the blacks: "It was in no sense a hospital, than a depot for wounded men. There was defective management and chaotic confusion. The men were neglected, the hospital organization was imperfect, and the mortality was consequently frightfully large. The severity of the campaign in a marlarious country had prostrated many fevers and typhoid, in its most malignant forms, was raging with increasing fatality."

Helen Gilson

Gilson heard about the plight of the black soldiers, and resolved to take action. None of her colleagues volunteered to assist her, and they counseled her against her plan to organize the Colored Hospital Service. Repugnantly, she went straight to Major General Ambrose Burnside and confronted him with the deplorable crisis. She employed all the tact, finesse and diplomacy of which a woman is capable in order to get him to help. She was determined to overcome prejudice and professional pride of the medical profession. Her doctrine and practice always were instant, silent and cheerful. A hospital for the black soldiers was finally organized. It consisted of a square mile of tents. There was no cooking - stove and all gruels, soups and tea were made by an open fire in the hot sun, where the temperature was over 100 degrees. Gilson wrote, "It is hot, and we are smothered by the dust. The day has been a hard one. My men in the kitchen are down with fever. I have stood all day over a raging fire making soups and gruels for the 200 men; the, later tea for a hundred more, besides diet for the convalescents. Yet I have found time to visit the wards, to read to the men, listen to complaints and straighten out abuses. Poor fellows! They are full of their 'miseries,' their special term for all pain. They are like children in one's hands." Gilson had help from detailed soldiers and some northern volunteers. She also had persons with African descent, male and female, as cooks and nurses. Gilson's hospital for blacks took on a larger role than serving only the troops. She sought out and cared for the black washerwoman working in the hospitals and for families of other poor blacks. She gave them rations and helped construct comfortable huts to live in.

During the last spring of the war, Gilson now 29, complained that she "felt old." She wrote, "I am tired, tired, chronically tired. Tired to the very marrow of my bones." She was suffering from malaria and possible other maladies, but she remained at her post until the fall of Richmond on April 2, 1865.

She left the army in July, going to Long Island, New York for the rest of the summer. Recuperating, she returned to Chelsea in the fall of 1865. She was again called on by Mayor Fay to assist him. He had taken on the task of running an orphanage for 300 black children in Richmond and he needed her help. Helen Gilson returned to Chelsea in October of 1866. On October 11, 1866 she married E. Hamilton Osgood in Chelsea. The marriage lasted just over one and a half years, for Helen Gilson died in childbirth at Newton Corner Hospital on April 20, 1868, at 32 years of age. She had apparently been weakened by malaria and other maladies of wartime service from which she did not fully recover. The child did not survive. She was buried in a family plot in the Woodlawn Cemetary in Everett.

*CHELSEA WOMAN MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE CIVIL WAR*
While in Richmond, Virginia, President Abraham Lincoln made plans to visit General Weitzel's headquarters. No carriages were available to transport him, so he decided to walk to the headquarters. The walk was long and the president halted for a moment to rest. "May de good lord bless you President Linkum!" said an old Negro, removing his hat and bowing, with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks. The President removed his own hat and bowed in silence. It was a bow which upset the forms, laws, customs and ceremonies of centuries of slavery. Helen Gilson, an army nurse from Chelsea, did a deed in 1864 which upset the forms, laws, customs and centuries of prejudice - just as her president had done.
	Helen Gilson was born in Boston in 1836. She was a teacher until 1858 when throat trouble made it impossible for her to continuine teaching. In 1858 she took a position as the governess to the family of Frank Ball Fay, the 40 year old mayor of Chelsea. Hearing of the defeat of the Union Army at Bull Run in the summer of 1861, Mayor Fay and Gilson left for Virginia to aid the wounded soldiers and recover the dead. For the next three years these two devoted their life to caring of the sick and wounded soldiers. In 1864, Mayor Fay had to go to Baltimore, Maryland and told Gilson and eight men to head to Petersburg, Virginia and go to the front to be ready for the expected battle, to help and assist the wounded soldiers. The fighting at Petersburg went on for several days and for the first time some of the 30 odd regiments of black soldiers in Grant's Virginia armies were engaged. Casualties were heavy as usual. The black wounded were brought to a temporary facility at City Point which would soon become a general hospital. A doctor wrote of the facility for the blacks: "It was in no sense a hospital, than a depot for wounded men. There was defective management and chaotic confusion. The men were neglected, the hospital organization was imperfect, and the mortality was consequently frightfully large. The severity of the campaign in a marlarious country had prostrated many fevers and typhoid, in its most malignant forms, was raging with increasing fatality."
Helen Gilson
Gilson heard about the plight of the black soldiers, and resolved to take action. None of her colleagues volunteered to assist her, and they counseled her against her plan to organize the Colored Hospital Service. Repugnantly, she went straight to Major General Ambrose Burnside and confronted him with the deplorable crisis. She employed all the tact, finesse and diplomacy of which a woman is capable in order to get him to help. She was determined to overcome prejudice and professional pride of the medical profession. Her doctrine and practice always were instant, silent and cheerful. A hospital for the black soldiers was finally organized. It consisted of a square mile of tents. There was no cooking - stove and all gruels, soups and tea were made by an open fire in the hot sun, where the temperature was over 100 degrees. Gilson wrote, "It is hot, and we are smothered by the dust. The day has been a hard one. My men in the kitchen are down with fever. I have stood all day over a raging fire making soups and gruels for the 200 men; the, later tea for a hundred more, besides diet for the convalescents. Yet I have found time to visit the wards, to read to the men, listen to complaints and straighten out abuses. Poor fellows! They are full of their 'miseries,' their special term for all pain. They are like children in one's hands." Gilson had help from detailed soldiers and some northern volunteers. She also had persons with African descent, male and female, as cooks and nurses. Gilson's hospital for blacks took on a larger role than serving only the troops. She sought out and cared for the black washerwoman working in the hospitals and for families of other poor blacks. She gave them rations and helped construct comfortable huts to live in. During the last spring of the war, Gilson now 29, complained that she "felt old." She wrote, "I am tired, tired, chronically tired. Tired to the very marrow of my bones." She was suffering from malaria and possible other maladies, but she remained at her post until the fall of Richmond on April 2, 1865. She left the army in July, going to Long Island, New York for the rest of the summer. Recuperating, she returned to Chelsea in the fall of 1865. She was again called on by Mayor Fay to assist him. He had taken on the task of running an orphanage for 300 black children in Richmond and he needed her help. Helen Gilson returned to Chelsea in October of 1866. On October 11, 1866 she married E. Hamilton Osgood in Chelsea. The marriage lasted just over one and a half years, for Helen Gilson died in childbirth at Newton Corner Hospital on April 20, 1868, at 32 years of age. She had apparently been weakened by malaria and other maladies of wartime service from which she did not fully recover. The child did not survive. She was buried in a family plot in the Woodlawn Cemetary in Everett.