A
few years ago, when Dr. Carolyn
Schriber was finishing up her book
titled A Scratch with the Rebels,
A Pennsylvania Roundhead and a
South Carolina Cavalier, she
revealed that she would be writing a
new book about Nellie M. Chase, the
famous Civil War nurse who developed
her career with the 100th
Pennsylvania Roundhead Regiment
following brief service for the 12th
Pennsylvania Volunteers. I
immediately took interest as I had
always been intrigued by the photo
of her with Roundhead staff in
Beaufort, South Carolina in 1862 as
well as the story of her care of a
Union soldier left for dead by
surgeons in the aftermath of
Fredericksburg. That story was
first published as a newspaper
feature story, Story of the
One-Armed Man, and then
published in Frank Moore’s 1867 work
titled, Women of the War: their
Heroism and Self-Sacrifice. Here
was this young, meek, petite and
very attractive woman from the 1862
photo who a year and a half later
would be working to patch up
soldiers in the carnage of a field
hospital at Fredericksburg. In
fact, the book title is the last few
words of a quote by Frank Moore
regarding Nellie that stated:
Even here, amid the roar and
carnage, was found a woman with the
soul to dare danger; the heart to
sympathize with the battle-stricken;
sense, skill, and experience to make
her a treasure beyond all price.”
In Beyond all Price, Dr.
Schriber has done an admirable work
of historical fiction, weaving a
story of an independent young woman
with a stormy past trying to give
meaning to her life by dedicating
herself to the union cause as a
regimental nurse, a matron in fact—a
“matron of mercy”. After a broken
marriage to a nomadic slick talker
named Leath who wanted her to be the
madame of a whorehouse in
Cincinnati, she goes into hiding for
a brief time in a seedy part of
Pittsburgh where she has a roommate
who dies of an opium overdose—a
down-on-her luck actress who worked
with Nellie at a downtown theatre.
At the outbreak of war in 1861,
Nellie wisely chooses to escape this
dismal existence and finds her way
into the service of the Roundheads.
A good deal of the content of
Beyond all Price is based on
actual historical events. Dr.
Schriber has done her homework and I
enjoyed helping her fill in some
additional details to the story by
some of my own research! As her
Civil War years had better
documentation, it is understandable
that the majority of the book has a
backdrop of the Civil War. The
story has a good transition though
into post-Civil War life for Nellie
in Louisville, Kentucky, Nashville
and Paris, Tennessee. She remarries
a cavalry and railroad man named
George W. Earnest.
Sadly, her fate
at a young age is prophetic. In
The Golden Era, a San Francisco
newspaper article from March 30,
1862, Col. Leasure, the commander of
the Roundheads, was quoted as
saying:
“I believe she
wishes to die at her post, sooner or
later, to the end that she may lay
down a life in the service of her
country that has been a burden to
her”.
To that end, Nellie died at her post
13 years after the Civil War at the
much too young age of 40.
Because of her questionable
pre-Civil War background and
character, the story has a very
believable villain who dislikes
Nellie from the start, Reverend
Robert Audley Browne, the “fire and
brimstone” Roundhead pastor. Let’s
just be frank here and say he does
not come across as a nice fellow!
He is stubborn with this negative
attitude and this ultimately leads
to Nellie’s downfall with the
regiment. This in spite of Nellie
nursing Rev. Browne back to health
after he had fallen ill with coastal
malaria in South Carolina. Based on
Dr. Schriber’s research of Browne’s
written letters to his wife, he
suspected an affair between Col.
Leasure and Nellie, though this was
never corroborated. Historically,
Rev. Browne was very vocal and
adamant regarding his disapproval of
Nellie (though countless soldiers
that she cared for would say
otherwise!).
One of my favorite parts of the book
is Dr. Schriber’s telling of
Nellie’s experiences with plantation
slaves that were just recently
enjoying their freedom.
Interestingly, the banter between
the freed slaves raises an
interesting issue that is often
misunderstood—the slaves were not in
a position to just walk up and leave
with their new found freedom. This
was also freedom prior to Lincoln’s
emancipation proclamation. The
plantation under union occupation
offered security and the familiarity
of what they had known for
generations. They were comfortable
with that, and this particular
southern plantation owner in
Beaufort before union occupation was
not cruel to them. There is a very
believable wiseness and “street
sense” of the old slave characters
though they do not read or write.
Dr. Schriber does not sugar coat the
carnage of war either, very
descriptive and grisly at times but
necessary as the weapons of the
Civil War were indeed very
destructive. There is high
contrast and interesting swing at
times between stomach churning gore
and Nellie’s penchant for cats.
Cats you say? Nellie is a cat
magnet and whether she really was or
not based on history, Dr. Schriber
makes Nellie a believable and
devoted “cat person”. Considering
Dr. Schriber’s book company,
Katzenhaus Books, a few cats weaving
their way through Nellie’s skirts is
not unexpected….. I fully enjoyed
the book, heartily recommend it and
look forward to release next month.
