A group of 5 autograph letters signed by Helen Louise Gibson who worked with the United States Sanitary Commission, notably at a "Colored Hospital" in City Point, Virginia in 1864. Letters include: 

1. Washington, D.C., 18 November 1862. 2 pages, 8vo, on U.S. Sanitary Commission letterhead. With original envelope, stamp removed.

2. Washington, D.C., 15 April 1864. 2 pages, 4to, on U.S. Sanitary Commission letterhead. With original envelope, stamp removed.

3. On Board Steamer Kent, off Port Royal, [May] 1864. 2 pages, 8vo, on U.S. Sanitary Commission letterhead. With original U.S. Sanitary Commission envelope with May 31 Washington D.C. cancel.

4. Colored Hospital, City Point, Virginia, 2 August 1864. 3 pages, 8vo.

5. Colored Hospital, [City Point, Virginia], 29 November 1864. 4 pages, 8vo, on monogrammed letterhead. With original slim envelope.

Helen Louise Gibson (b. 1850) was a Massachusetts native and was heavily influenced by her uncle Frank Brigham Fay (1821-1904), the mayor of Chelsea, Massachusetts, who took a personal role in post-battle care to survivors of the battles fought by the Army of the Potomac. Initially, Gibson applied to Dorothea Dix, the Superintendent of Female Nurses, but was turned away due to her young age. She was, however, allowed to work directly with her uncle and his team in the field.

Fay conceived of the Auxiliary Relief Corps which would give personal relief to wounded soldiers and help them until they could be seen by a surgeon or be transferred to a hospital. The Corps could also address less serious wounds. The United States Sanitary Commission adopted his proposal and made Fay the chief of the Corps. Helen collected supplies, arranged for transport of wounded soldiers, and organized women in fundraising efforts, while also providing for the sick and wounded. 

The first letter included here, written to a young niece on 18 November 1862, succinctly describes both her work and the dangers she faced: "The other day your Aunt Tiny was riding in a wagon to find some sick soldiers when the naughty Rebels fired some brawny guns and killed two men very near to me, but your Aunt Tiny was not hurt..." Most of the letters here date from the most intense period of Gilson and Fay's work when they were in the field during the Overland Campaign in 1864.

In her letter from 15 April 1864, she reports that: "All ladies have been ordered away with much other extra baggage from the Army [of the] Potomac. It alters my plans materially and I am very much disappointed, I can assure you, but a few women have made trouble and the innocent must suffer with the guilty." Though she does not go into detail, the "few women" may have been sex workers that the Army command deemed to be causing too much "trouble." 

In a letter from May 1864 from aboard a sheep near Port Royal, she writes of transporting wounded and a poignant observation of newly emancipated former slaves: "Our last wounded have gone off today from Port Royal and at present we are lying at the landing, just in sight of a whole boatload of Contrabands who are making themselves happy by departing to the land of Freedom." She also writes of the arduous nature of their work: "We had a hard experience in Fredericksburg - never so hard, I believe...We all seem to think that Grant will besiege Richmond and we hope it will be with but little bloodshed."

The last two letters that Gilson writes are from the "Colored Hospital" at City Point, Virginia. This segregated hospital served the United States Colored Troops serving in the Army of the Potomac and consisted of 1,200 tents in the summer of 1864. Gilson writes with a remarkable account of the wounded USCT soldiers arriving from the famed Battle of the Crater during the Siege of Petersburg: "We had a number of wounded came in yesterday to the Colored Hospitals. The negroes made a charge the day before. They told lively stories of the undermining of that fort, describing the scene in glowing colors - of frying pans and tin plates filling the air. It seems they surprised the Rebs at breakfast."

She seems to have fulfilled a matronly role in the whole camp, as evidenced by her last letter included here on 29 November 1864. Writing after a brief absence from the hospital she writes, occasionally writing in vernacular, of her warm reception: "The Colored men and the Contrabands said they were 'being glad to see Miss Helen and now day she'd come, every ting would go straight.' Every difficulty that had occurred during my absence in the contraband camp was left for me to settle." She concludes with news that the USCT regiments were all transferred to the Army of the James, and that the hospital would follow, though she conceived different plans for herself: "A few days ago the Colored Troops were all transferred to the Army of the James under Butler and we are expecting to break up or rather transfer this hospital farther up the James river to that Department, but I think I shall settle this winter in some white hospital at the Front."

Letters by women on the front with such vivid content is extremely scarce. A wonderful archive. 

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