Sister Camilla O’Keefe (used with permission of Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives)
This week we mark the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, fought a mere 11 miles from our campus in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Shortly after midnight on July 2, 1863, the last two remaining brigades, both attached to the Union Army’s Third Corps, left their brief encampment on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Central House to march north to join in the Battle of Gettysburg. The men had been ordered to stay behind lest the fighting, which had commenced the day before, move to the south. It would be only four short days before Fr. Francis Burlando accompanied the first Daughters of Charity into the war-ravaged town. Pictured is Sr. Camilla O’Keefe, one of the sisters who traversed the body-strewn battlefield to begin the task of caring for the wounded and dying in Gettysburg’s makeshift hospitals.
docarchivesblog.org 