It is characteristic of Miss Nightingale’s method and dispatch that only a week elapsed from the day on which she made her great resolve to go to the help of the wounded soldiers until she had her first contingent of nurses in marching order. She was a “general” who had no parleying by the way, but worked straight for her ultimate object, and she possessed also the rare faculty of inspiring others to follow her lead. Her attention was now concentrated on procuring the right kind of nurses to accompany her to the hospital at Scutari.

Her mission was duly proclaimed from the War Office in an official intimation that “Miss Nightingale, a lady with greater practical experience of hospital administration and treatment than any other lady in this country,” had undertaken the noble and arduous work of organising and taking out nurses for the soldiers. The Times also notified that “Miss Nightingale had been appointed by Government to the office of Superintendent of Nurses at Scutari,” and subscriptions for the relief of the soldiers were solicited.

Lady Canning, writing on October 17th, 1854, immediately after Miss Nightingale’s appointment was made known, gave the following interesting description of her quiet demeanour in the midst of the general excitement: “You will be glad to hear that Government sends out a band of nurses to Scutari, and Miss Nightingale is to lead them. Her family have consented, and no one is so well fitted as she is to do such work—she has such nerve and skill, and is so gentle and wise and quiet. Even now she is in no bustle or hurry, though so much is on her hands, and such numbers of people volunteer services.”

The public naturally asked the question, “Who is Miss Nightingale?” and were answered by a descriptive and biographic account in The Examiner, which was repeated by The Times. One feels that the account must have appeared startling in days before attention had been given to the Higher Education of women, and when Girton and Newnham were not even dreams of the future. It ran that Miss Nightingale was “a young lady of singular endowments both natural and acquired. In a knowledge of the ancient languages and of the higher branches of mathematics, in general art, science, and literature, her attainments are extraordinary. There is scarcely a modern language which she does not understand, and she speaks French, German, and Italian as fluently as her native English. She has visited and studied all the various nations of Europe, and has ascended the Nile to its remotest cataract. Young (about the age of our Queen), graceful, feminine, rich, popular, she holds a singularly gentle and persuasive influence over all with whom she comes in contact. Her friends and acquaintances are of all classes and persuasions, but her happiest place is at home, in the centre of a very large band of accomplished relatives, and in simplest obedience to her admiring parents.”

The last clause would satisfy apprehensive people that a young lady of such unusual attainments was not a “revolting daughter.”

Another and more intimate description of Miss Nightingale at this period reveals to us the true and tender womanhood which learning had left untouched. “Miss Nightingale is one of those whom God forms for great ends. You cannot hear her say a few sentences—no, not even look at her, without feeling that she is an extraordinary being. Simple, intellectual, sweet, full of love and benevolence, she is a fascinating and perfect woman. She is tall and pale. Her face is exceedingly lovely; but better than all is the soul’s glory that shines through every feature so exultingly. Nothing can be sweeter than her smile. It is like a sunny day in summer.”

The euphonious name of the lady nurse who had thus suddenly risen into fame was quickly caught by the populace, and the nurses selected to accompany her were dubbed the “nightingales,” and there was much pleasantry about their singing. Mr. Punch slyly surmised that some of the “dear nightingales” going to nurse the sick soldiers would “in due time become ringdoves.” A cartoon showed a hospital ward with the male inmates beaming with content as the lady-birds hovered about them. Another illustration depicted a bird, with the head of a nurse, flying through the air carrying by one claw a jug labelled “Fomentation, Embrocation, Gruel.” It was entitled “The Jug of the Nightingale.”

Punch’s poet contributed “The Nightingale’s Song to the Sick Soldier,” which became a popular refrain, and is worthy of quotation:—

While there was a large majority to wish God-speed to the enterprise, there were also many people who considered it an improper thing for women to nurse in a military hospital, while others thought it nonsense for young ladies to attempt “to nurse soldiers when they did not even yet know what it was to nurse a baby.” Others predicted that no woman could stand the strain of work in an Eastern hospital, that the scheme would prove futile, and all the nurses be invalided home after a month’s experience.

The undertaking was so new, and so much at variance with English custom and tradition, that criticism was to be expected. But Florence Nightingale was one of those lofty souls who listen to the voice within, and take little heed of the voices without. It was for her to break down the “Chinese wall” of prejudices, religious, social, and professional, and establish a precedent for all time.

In the midst of the pleasantries, satire, and condemnation she placidly pursued the work of organising her band, having indefatigable assistants in Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert. Applications were made for volunteer nurses to the few nursing institutions which existed, and advertisements were put in The Record and The Guardian. A bewildering number of fair applicants besieged the War Office, and Sidney Herbert was driven to make a little proclamation to the effect that “many ladies whose generous enthusiasm prompts them to offer services as nurses are little aware of the hardships they would have to encounter, and the horrors they would have to witness. Were all accepted who offer,” he added with a touch of grim humour, “I fear we should have not only many indifferent nurses, but many hysterical patients.”

This astute Minister was very cautious about the admission of society ladies in the guise of amateur nurses into the military hospital. He managed things with a stricter hand than did the authorities during the South African War, as illustrated by the story of a soldier in the Capetown Hospital who, when a visiting lady asked if he would like her to wash his face, replied, “Excuse me, miss, but I’ve already promised fourteen ladies as they shall wash my face!”

The first appeal for nurses did not bring satisfactory applicants. Kind, generous, and sympathetic women volunteered by the score, but Miss Nightingale and her friends felt that they were dealing with a crisis of urgency. There was no time to start ambulance classes and train candidates. It was an imperative necessity that the nurses should start without delay, and therefore they must have been already trained for the work. In the emergency Miss Nightingale applied to both Protestant and Roman Catholic institutions for volunteers. This caused a good deal of adverse criticism. The “No Popery” cry was raised, and zealous clerics inveighed against Miss Nightingale as a Puseyite who was bent on perverting the British soldier to papacy. She certainly was at the time more engaged with the bodily than with the spiritual needs of the soldiers. Nurses were required, not religious instructors.

With some of the Protestant institutions a difficulty arose in respect to the rule of strict obedience to Miss Nightingale as the Superintendent appointed by the Government. These institutions were unwilling that their members should be separated from home control. Miss Nightingale and her advisers remained firm on this point. Strict obedience was the pivot upon which the organisation would have to work, if it was to be successful. The military nurse, like the military man, must render obedience to her superior officer. The St. John’s House, one of the most important of the Protestant sisterhood, stood out for a day or two, but finally yielded the point.

The Roman Catholic bishop at once agreed to the regulations laid down, and signed a paper agreeing that the sisters of mercy joining the expedition should give entire obedience to Miss Nightingale, and that they should not enter into religious discussion except with the soldiers of their own faith. Mutual arrangement was made that the Roman Catholic sisters should attend on the soldiers of their own faith, and the Protestant sisters on those of their faith.

The position was later defined by Mr. Sidney Herbert to allay the agitation which prevailed after the band had set forth. He said: “The Roman Catholic bishop has voluntarily, and in writing, released the benevolent persons who were previously under his control from all subjection to himself. Englishmen may have the pleasure of feeling that a number of kind-hearted British women, differing in faith, but wishing to do practical good, are gone in one ship, as one corps, with one aim, without any compromise of our national Protestantism.... Thirty-eight nurses on their way to Scutari are truer successors of the Apostles shipwrecked at Melita than an equal number of cardinals. May the war teach men many such lessons.”

The thirty-eight nurses selected to accompany Miss Nightingale as the first contingent were made up of fourteen Church of England sisters, taken from St. John’s House and Miss Sellon’s Home; ten Roman Catholic sisters of mercy; three nurses selected by Lady Maria Forrester, who had first formed a plan for sending nurses to Scutari; and eleven selected from among miscellaneous applicants. Miss Nightingale’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge of Atherstone Hall, and a clergyman and courier accompanied the expedition. It started from London on the evening of October 21st, 1854.

Our heroine has ever been one of those who shunned the glare of publicity, and it was characteristic of her that she set forth with her devoted band under cover of night. Only a few relations and friends stood on the platform of the terminus on that October evening when Florence Nightingale bade farewell to home and kindred and started on her great mission, the magnitude and difficulty of which she had yet to discover. Quietly dressed in black, plain as a Quakeress, she was yet a striking figure. As the last hand-shake was given and the last farewells said her beautiful face retained its calm demeanour and was illumined by a sweet smile. Ever thoughtful for others, her chief wish was to spare her nearest and dearest, who had yielded a hesitating consent to her undertaking, from anxiety. None knew better than herself the perils which lay in those far-off Eastern hospitals.

Early next morning the “Angel Band,” as Kinglake so beautifully termed Miss Nightingale and her nurses, landed at Boulogne, where a reception awaited them which was in marked contrast to the quiet and almost secret departure from London the night before. France was our ally; her sons had fallen in the recent battle of the Alma beside our own, and here was a band of English sisters, Protestant and Roman Catholic, united in a common errand of mercy passing through her land to the relief of the sick and wounded. It was a circumstance to arouse French enthusiasm, and when Miss Nightingale and her nurses stepped ashore they were met by a stalwart company of Boulogne fishwives, a merry and picturesque band in snowy caps and gay petticoats, who seized trunks and bags and almost fought for the privilege of carrying the luggage of les sœurs to the railway station. They would accept no pay, not a sou, and they bustled along with their brawny arms swinging to straps and handles, or with boxes hoisted on their broad backs, chattering of “Pierre” or of “Jacques” out at the war, and praying the bon Dieu that if he suffered the sisters might tend him. The tears streamed down many of the old and weather-beaten cheeks when they said adieu. They claimed but one reward, a shake of the hand, and then as the train steamed out of the station they waved their hands and cried Vive les sœurs!

They proceeded to Paris and made a passing stay at the mother-house of the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, where Miss Nightingale was no stranger. The good sisters were overwhelmed with joy to receive her, and delighted to have the opportunity of entertaining the company. Before leaving Paris Miss Nightingale called on her friend Lady Canning, who, in a letter, October 24th, 1854, says: “To-day we are appointed to go to St. Cloud, and I have had to rush about after bonnets, etc. It is horrid to be given to frivolities just now, when one is hearing all the horrors from the Crimea, and in the expectation of more.... Miss Nightingale came to see me—very happy and stout-hearted, and with an ample stock of nurses.” When, after a short rest in Paris, Miss Nightingale and her band set out for Marseilles, the port of embarkation, they met with the utmost attention as they travelled. Porters declined to be tipped and hotel proprietors would make no charges. It was an honour to serve les bonnes sœurs.

At Marseilles they embarked for Constantinople in the Vectis, a steamer of the Peninsular line. Alas! the elements showed no more favour to the “Angel Band” than they did to St. Paul in the same seas. The passage was a terrible one. A hurricane blew straight against the Vectis in the Mediterranean, and for a time the ship was in danger. The company reached Malta on October 31st, and after a brief stay set sail for Scutari. Miss Nightingale arrived at the scene of her labours on November 4th, the day before the battle of Inkerman. What that victory meant in the tale of suffering and wounded men even the hospital authorities then formed no adequate conjecture. Never surely did a band of women arriving in an unknown land meet such a gigantic task.

The sufferers already in hospital had heard of the coming of the sisters, but the news seemed too good to be true, and when Miss Nightingale went her first round of the wards, accompanied by members of her devoted band, “Tommy’s” heart was full. One poor fellow burst into tears as he cried, “I can’t help it, I can’t indeed, when I see them. Only think of English women coming out here to nurse us! It seems so homelike and comfortable.”