In May of 1862 with the fighting in the Civil War drawing ever nearer, the sisters closed the school, knowing that there would be no return in September. For their safety, Father Leray arranged for them to go to Major Cook's plantation outside the city, but after a few days four of them returned to the city to care for the wounded soldiers who had been brought there. Two sisters remained to each the black children living on the plantation but soon all were committed to nursing services for the duration of the war.
In Mississippi they served at Jackson, Mississippi Springs, and Oxford, and then traveled from Jackson by rail to Shelby Springs, Alabama in open cars with the wounded soldiers. Traveling only at night, the journey took a week, and on one occasion wild cats and wolves, smelling blood, attacked the passengers. (To be continued)
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