This article by Fred R. Lang, based on research by Roy Stevens, was originally published in Common Ground magazine. Their permission to reprint it here is gratefully acknowledged. The painting of Ellen Orbison Harris by Fred R. Lang is based on a photograph provided by the Bellefonte Historical Society.
Shrouds of smoke clung to the branches of the trees casting a pall of gloom in the lingering twilight. A lone wagon made its way through a deeply rutted path of drying mud. Recent heavy rains had turned even lightly travelled paths to quagmires. In the driest spots small groups of men huddled around campfires, the stillness of the evening broken occasionally by moaning and the sound of spades digging the soft earth. Two sullen men paused in their task and watched the wagon pass. The driver urged his team on toward the camp ahead; his passenger, a woman, observed the two through sad, tired eyes. The men returned to their task, and the wagon moved on. Days earlier, the surrounding fields thundered with the sound of cannon fire and thousands of muskets barking death and destruction. The battle now over – won or lost – left the fields scattered with dead, dying, and wounded soldiers. As the armies moved on to other fields and other battles, medical men and caring individuals set up shelters and makeshift hospitals to care for those who might survive the carnage. The ill-equipped medical corps of the Army of the Potomac was barely capable of providing the services needed by the many men who had suffered the ravages of modern war. Sanitation was sparse, medicine in short supply, and many severely wounded men were left to live or die on their own. The frail, sad-eyed woman in the wagon was determined to see that these men would get the care and medicine they needed. Through her efforts for the organization she represented, thousands of wounded soldiers would gain a new lease on life and survive their wounds, to fight again or return home to their families.
The wagon halted at a large field tent; a lean gray bearded man emerged and came over to assist the woman down from the wagon’s bench. He wore an apron stained with blood. She barely noticed and smiled a thank you. His wooden slab operating table was presently empty, and he shook her hand and addressed her: “Mrs. Harris – thank God you’ve come! I hope you have brought the things we need.” She had indeed. From Philadelphia, bundles of supplies came by rail to the small crossroads town in Adams County where she oversaw their loading onto her wagon. It would not be enough, but more would be forthcoming she assured the surgeon. He showed her to a nearby tent that she could use while her driver and some men began to unload the supplies.
Clutching her bag and a leather notebook, she entered the tent. Placing the notebook on a small desk she sat down wearily on the side of a cot. She had not slept in three days. The cot beckoned her to recline and rest, but she fought the urge, wanting to insure that the delivery was properly documented. She lit a candle lantern opened her book and began to write. Two hours later, the candle guttering in the lantern, she was gently wakened by the surgeon. He found her slumped over her correspondence, pen in hand, and convinced her to turn in. Although she still wore her travelling clothes, he covered her with a wool blanket even though the night was warm and humid. He smiled and shook his head in wonder that this fragile creature could move heaven and earth to provide so much in the face of all odds. Who was she, he wondered – surely an angel on earth? He closed the tent flap against the night and returned to his duties.
Ellen Matilda Orbison Harris was born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, in 1816, the daughter of William Orbison, a prominent attorney. She grew up in a sturdy brick home that still stands at the corner of Penn and William Smith Streets. As a child of privilege, she was reared in the cultured surroundings of the Orbison family. Ellen was quite intelligent and well educated for a woman of the time. When she was 21 years of age, she married Dr. John Harris of Bellefonte. Harris was 20 years her senior, a physician and pharmacist. The Harrises subsequently moved to Philadelphia, where the doctor set up his practice, and they joined in the social whirl of the bustling “City of Brotherly Love.”
Ellen, or “Eliza” as she was familiarly known, was described as a frail, sickly woman of delicate constitution. Forty-five at the beginning of the Civil War, she was well into middle age by the time that she and many of her social class formed the Ladies Aid Society of Philadelphia. Ellen was elected recording secretary of the organization. These women, of prominent families in the Philadelphia area, endeavored to provide the necessary items to replenish the medical supplies and much more that the rapidly growing Union Army needed. Ellen believed that the record she kept should come from the front and embarked on a journey that would take her to virtually every battleground of the war over the next four years. The service she provided was nothing short of remarkable, far beyond that of a simple secretary, certainly beyond the abilities of a “frail and sickly woman.” Ellen Orbison Harris was the living image of the term “heroine.”
Throughout four years of the bloodiest conflict in American history, from the earliest days of the Peninsula Campaign, the carnage of Gettysburg, where she became the first female anesthetist on record, to the final days and beyond, ministering to the starving emaciated remnants of the horror of Andersonville prison. The dedication and sheer selflessness against staggering odds, not the least of which was her physical condition, went largely unrewarded and have been nearly forgotten by history.
In 1866, Frank Moore in his book “Women of War” spoke of Ellen thusly:
“If there were any such vain decorations of human approbation, as a crown or a star, for her who in the late war has done the most and labored the longest, who visited the greatest number of hospitals, prayed with the greatest number of suffering and dying soldiers, penetrated nearest to the front, and underwent the greatest amount of fatigue and exposure, that crown, or that star, would be rightfully given to Mrs. John Harris of Philadelphia.”
After the war, Dr. Harris was appointed U.S. Consul to Venice, Italy. The Harrises began a new life representing our finally re-united country in that vibrant cultural center of Europe. In a way, this could have been an appointment granted in honor of her service, which further research may perhaps prove. They remained in Venice for eleven years until John’s death in 1881. Ellen then moved to Florence, where she resided until her death in 1902. She never returned to the United States, reportedly due to her fragile health. Ellen Harris was interred in Florence, but the location of her grave is unknown.
During the course of her husband’s tenure in Venice, the consulate entertained many American citizens on the “Grand Tour” of Europe. One expatriate American artist wrote home to describe Ellen as a “delightful old lady” who welcomed him and his associates into her home. That artist was James McNeil Whistler. Even the painter of “Whistler’s Mother” knew Ellen Orbison Harris!
Today, the Orbison house on Penn Street remains one of Huntingdon’s oldest elegant mansions, having served in many capacities over the two centuries of its existence. It is in a slow state of decay and would benefit from some timely TLC. But wouldn’t it be nice to see, when passing by the house, one of those blue Pennsylvania historical markers in front noting that this was the childhood home of Ellen Matilda Orbison Harris, a genuine hero of the Civil War? Not a wreath, or a crown, but a simple marker to recall a courageous woman from Huntingdon who gave so much of herself for others.