In the United States, there was never a more influential Provincial Director than Father Francis Burlando.
The position of the Provincial Director is always held by a Vincentian priest. He is meant to invoke the spirit of the community’s founders in the Daughters within a province, play a role in the formation of the Sisters, have a vote in Council decisions, and ensure that the Daughters of Charity live the spirit of their vows of poverty. Father Burlando was born in Genoa, Italy in 1814. He volunteered to go to America shortly before his ordination as a priest in 1837. He taught in Perryville, Missouri, and was pastor at St. Vincent’s Parish in St. Louis, where important gatherings and Masses are still celebrated for the Daughters today.
Father Burlando, circa 1870
American Vincentians, 1870, Father Burlando at right
In 1849, he accompanied Father Mariano Maller to Emmitsburg. Father Maller was set to take his position in 1850 as the first Provincial Director for the Daughters of Charity in the United States, after Mother Seton’s community formally merged with Daughters in 1850. Father Burlando was to be the Sisters’ confessor but returned to St. Louis for health reasons. In 1853, Father Maller was appointed as Director for the Daughters’ Province in Brazil, and Father Burlando was appointed as the Provincial Director in the United States.
Father Burlando had the responsibility of completing the transition of the Sisters of Charity into Daughters of Charity. Although the blue and white habit of the Daughters had begun to trickle into the United States, Father Burlando oversaw the completion of the change across the entire country through 1854. When the Civil War passed through Emmitsburg and the Sisters’ grounds became host to marching armies, Father Burlando worked to keep both Sisters and students safe, using their status as religious to make sure no accidental firing occurred. When the Battle of Gettysburg subsided on July 3, 1863, Burlando personally led the Sisters to Gettysburg to begin their nursing duties there. After the War, he helped shape the historical record by encouraging the Sisters to write their accounts of what they experienced. Today, these accounts are some of the greatest treasures in the Archives.
With regard to St. Joseph’s Academy, Burlando oversaw an expansion of the school and the construction of his namesake building. Having learned of architecture and building from his father in Italy, a plumber, he co-designed what would become his namesake building, which still stands as part of the FEMA Fire Academy.
Someone only identified as “An Old Pupil” described his relationship with the students at the Academy:
Father Burlando took the most active interest in the studies of the pupils of St. Joseph’s and in everything pertaining to their comfort and welfare, always planning how to give them increased pleasure in their recreation, and in return the pupils loved him with a sincere affection, regarding him as a most tender Father. His practical mind was always suggesting something new for their future benefit, and as he fully realized the influence of [a] woman in her home, he labored to direct the education of those under his care to that end, introducing the study of domestic economy at St. Joseph’s, that the young ladies might be trained to fulfil properly the important duties of life. For this alone he is entitled to everlasting gratitude.
Burlando Building at St. Joseph’s Academy, Emmitsburg, circa 1871
Burlando also provided guidance on business matters, with his template for establishing ministries as incorporated institutions, which helped guide the community as it established some of its most long-lasting works. Drafted in 1870, his guidelines provided uniform structure and procedure for the next 80-plus years, ensuring the longevity and independence of the Daughters’ ministries.
Father Burlando died suddenly in 1873 of a stroke. Along with his importance, the suddenness of his death probably contributes to the voluminous accounts of his funeral. Father Burlando is one of the priests, or even non-Sisters, to be buried in the Old Cemetery in Emmitsburg, in a place of honor directly around the mortuary chapel.
The Provincial Archives contains much of his personal and business correspondence, the notes that he used to compile the history of the community mergers in 1850; and his notes that were used to re-construct the Provincial Annals for the 1850s, 1860s, and early 1870s; and many of his retreats, which began in 1856. Among the accounts of his death and funeral are poems written by Sisters and students alike:
In April 2022, the Archivist for another community of Sisters reached out to a number of other Archivists from other religious communities, asking about a Sister Loretto O’Reilly who served in the Civil War. The Daughters were able to claim her, so we responded.
The Archivist went on to say that she had a set of letters written from Sister Loretto to her uncle in their collection and would like to repatriate the letters back to their home collection. We happily agreed to accept the letters when she next travelled through the area next.
Two and a half years later, the transfer finally happened.
Prior to the transfer, the Archives had some information about Sister Loretto. We knew she was born Mary Ann O’Reilly. She immigrated from Ireland in 1853 and that her parents were farmers. We know she joined the Community in 1855 and served in a few schools and infant homes prior to 1861. When the Civil War began, she served as a nurse in Cliffburne and Lincoln Hospitals in Washington, D.C., where she acquired the moniker “Guardian Angel of the Ambulance.” She became the second administrator of Providence Hospital in Washington in 1865, a position that stemmed from her work at the D.C. hospitals, where she was vital in establishing the Hospital in the post-war years. She died at age 37 in 1869 of an early-onset heart condition.
There are two known photos of Sister Loretto.
As best as we can conclude, the letters were used by a Sister of St. Joseph as a teaching tool, coming from their Wichita chapter. They are marked as “Found in Sister Margaret Mary Sheehan’s Educational folder.” In total, there are six complete letters from Sister Loretto to her uncle, one incomplete letter between the same, and one additional incomplete letter from her uncle to a woman named Mary.
Prior to these letters, we did not believe any of her own personal accounts still existed. The information about her time in the War came from the Civil War Annals, and, while these are massively valuable resources, they suffer from two drawbacks. First, they were written as recollections in 1866, not as accounts written in the moment. And second, they often discussed locations in general in a few pages, not the works of individuals. At Cliffburne Hospital, accounts describe a night of 64 men arriving, with “only eight [who] had all their limbs.” In spite of the challenges, doctors and nurses tried very hard to care for their patients’ physical and spiritual conditions, among the challenges being an outbreak of smallpox that required quarantining of some soldiers. Alongside the Sisters’ works, there was also evidence of collaboration with the government, with accounts of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln herself bringing donations of supplies to soldiers who had been in residence for an extended period of time!
The letters go into much more extensive detail about life and work at the Hospitals. On August 10, 1862, Sister notes that there are 15 Sisters and 13 doctors working at Cliffburne, with attendants to do “the cleaning, etc.” She also described the political state of the Hospital: “When we first came here there were nearly two hundred Confederate prisioners [sic] confined here. Many of them badly wounded but as they got better they were taken to the old Capitol and confined there until they were exchanged.” They received care, and she notes with some surprise that the “Confederates got more visitors than the Union soldiers.”
Her November 28th, 1862 letter attests to a few conversions among the soldiers, but shows her anguish at what she considers many soldier’s “indifference” to their spiritual lives. She goes into detail about the Cliffburne itself, describing it as a converted barracks for the cavalry, so many of the wards are actually horse stables: “It is a very nice place for a summer Hospital, but it is inconvient [sic] for winter.” She says that the Hospital fit 2,000, that their patient population had topped off at about 1,400, but was down to 600 by November. “I think it is about one mile square or neally [sic] so. There are seven long wooden wards or Barracks each containing seventy-five beds and forty-two tents each contanes [sic] eighteen beds, scattered about a large space besides there are a number of other buildings such as store houses, kitchens mess rooms etc.”
By April 26, 1863, Sister Loretto had relocated to Lincoln, the largest field hospital in Washington: “It is composed of twenty large wards or Barracks build in the form of a V, ten each side and one large one in the center which is used as head quarters the Doctors rooms, offices, dispensary, etc. Each Ward holds from sixty to seventy beds, they are high and well ventilated.” Her personal thoughts: “I like the Wards and the hospital generally but the situation is miserable. It is a swampy hollow place and a perfect mud hole.” They had begun receiving patients shortly before Christmas 1862 from the Battle of Fredericksburg. The Battle was one of the most lopsided victories for the Confederacy of the War, and Sister calls it “not a Battle but a slaughter [emphasis hers].” By May 1, 1863, many of the soldiers from this battle are still at the Hospital, and Sister notes that “I saw them realize what War is or at least see the fruits of it.”
By July 3, 1863, there had been even more major battles: “Since my last letter to you we received a number of sick and wounded. The wounded were all from a cavalry fight a short distance from here [likely the Battle of Brandy Station on June 9, 1863]. They were brought to the hospital the day after the battle. They are not making preparations for a great many from the battles now going on [possibly Gettysburg]. Nearly all the prisoners have been exchanged. We have only ten or twelve here now. Only a few of them died.” She expresses the hope for the end of the War: “I am sure you have heard of the great excitement in this quarter for weeks past. I wish every day more and more that this war ended. It is dreadful to think of the number of poor souls plunged daily into eternity and the misery brought into thousands of homes. Tho so long accustomed to witness their sufferings I can not get used to it.” Finally, her time with the common soldiers revealed to her the longstanding and common divide across time, generations, and Wars between the common enlistees and draftees and their commanding officers, particularly after the long string of losses the United States suffered early in the early years of the War: “The poor men too, are so discouraged at (as they say themselves) getting whipped all the time and blame their officers very much with very few exceptions they all seem tired and disgusted with the war.”
In the last letter of hers in the collection, from November 1, 1864, an incomplete letter, she comments on the soldiers’ and their political talk in the wards, as they expect more wounded from the battlefields in Virginia, and her note that many of the soldiers she encounters tend to be supporting the election of the former general Scott McClellen over President Lincoln in the upcoming election.
As fascinating as her accounts of the Hospital and wartime life are, the letters help flesh out her life in far more detail than we have ever had before. Based on these, we are able to draw conclusions about her early life and her family life far more than we ever have before. She makes reference to writing to her parents, entirely separately from her uncle and apparently back in Ireland: “I was truly sorry to hear such accounts of our poor Ireland and it makes me still more anxious to hear from my parents.” When Sister Loretto immigrated to the United States in 1853, Ireland was still in the worst days of the Great Famine, and she brings up two names of siblings as well, Mage and Lizzy. By July 3, 1863, they have relocated to Dublin, despite listing her father’s occupation on her community entry papers as “Farmer.” Seemingly, the city offered better opportunities than continuing to farm.
The final letter in the collection was written by her uncle in 1870, a year after Sister Loretto’s death, postmarked from Atchison, Kansas. Regarding her early life, he writes that “Since she left Saint Louis we kept up a regular correspondence. Her letters were always interesting to me and I miss her on that account as well as for their feelings. Though her education was not expensive her letters show that she made good use of the opportunities that she got to learn.” It seems likely that her uncle was her sponsor when she emigrated, and she possibly lived with him, considering the separation of her uncle and the rest of her family across the sea. She also received some level of schooling, possibly from one of the many Daughters of Charity institutions in St. Louis at the time.
It is even more impressive what he wrote about the final stages of Sister Loretto’s life, events which otherwise have not made it into the historical record and shows just how much the nursing prowess of the Daughters was respected in Washington. “A Member of Congress invited her to command their Carriages when she wished to take recreation, but she never used that privilege. The President even paid her the honour of a visit. Thadeus Stephens” – the famous Congressman and advocate of a Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War – “a member of Congress who successfully contended for a grant of money to assist in building Providence Hospital was at the point of death. Mary Ann [Sister Loretto] with several Sisters visited their dying friend and with the consent of those present she Baptized the dying Statesman.
Thaddeus Stevens, courtesy Library of Congress
These letters are not just a massively valuable addition to the Daughters’ Civil War collection, they illustrate a remarkable life that, while far shorter than it should have been, made an impact on hundreds or even thousands. It is a tribute to the nurses, the combat doctors, the Irish diaspora, and, certainly, the Daughters of Charity.
The letters are available for researchers alongside the rest of the Civil War collection.
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