The autumn of 1855 brought the final act in the great drama of the Crimean War. On the morning of September 8th the allied armies before Sebastopol were ready for the final assault. The day dawned gloriously, and by five o’clock the guards were on the march for the besieged city, and troops from all quarters pressed silently in the same direction. The supreme moment had come; the long tension of the siege was broken, and each man braced him to the fight and looked for death or glory.

The elements seemed to voice the situation. A brilliant sky gave the promise of victory, then suddenly changed to storm-clouds which burst in a furious tempest as the batteries opened fire upon the doomed city. The earth groaned and shook with the noise of cannon and the air was filled with the rattle of musketry. An hour elapsed, and then came the first shouts of victory. The French allies had captured the Malakhoff and the British had taken the Redan, the fort which three months before had repulsed the attacking force with fearful carnage and brought Lord Raglan to a despairing death. The fight raged fiercely until nightfall and ere another day dawned the Russians had retreated, leaving Sebastopol in flames.

On the morning of September 9th the tidings spread far and wide that the mighty stronghold had fallen and the power of the enemy was broken. The news was received in London with a universal outburst of rejoicing. The Tower guns proclaimed the victory, every arsenal fired its salute, and the joy-bells rang from cathedral minster to the humblest village church as the tidings spread through the land. The long night of War was over, and white-robed Peace stood on the threshold.

With the plaudits that rang through the land in honour of the victorious armies, the name of Florence Nightingale was mingled on every hand. The nation was eager to give our heroine a right royal welcome home, but she sought no great ovation, no public demonstration, and her home-coming was not to be yet. The war had ended, but the victims still remained in hospital ward and lonely hut, and as long as the wounded needed her care Florence Nightingale would not leave her post.

Meanwhile, however, the Queen and all classes of her people were eager to give proof of the nation’s gratitude to the noble woman who had come to the succour of the soldiers in their dire need. Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert were approached on the matter by Mrs. S. C. Hall as to what form of testimonial would, be most acceptable to Miss Nightingale, and Mrs. Herbert replied:—

A Committee to inaugurate such a project was formed. It was presided over by His Royal Highness the late Duke of Cambridge, and included representatives of all classes. The Hon. Mr. Sidney Herbert and Mr. S. C. Hall acted as honorary secretaries, and the latter summarised the variety of interests represented when he described the Committee as having “three dukes, nine other noblemen, the Lord Mayor, two judges, five right honourables, foremost naval and military officers, physicians, lawyers, London aldermen, dignitaries of the Church, dignitaries of Nonconformist Churches, twenty members of Parliament, and several eminent men of letters.” While no state party was omitted, none was unduly prominent. It was resolved by the Committee to devote the money subscribed to the Nightingale Fund to founding an institute for the training, sustenance, and protection of nurses and hospital attendants, to embrace the paid and the unpaid, for whom a home should be provided and a retreat for old age. A copy of the resolution was forwarded to Miss Nightingale at Scutari and she replied to Mrs. Herbert in the following letter:—

“Exposed as I am to be misinterpreted and misunderstood, in a field of action in which the work is new, complicated, and distant from many who sit in judgment on it, it is indeed an abiding support to have such sympathy and such appreciation brought home to me in the midst of labours and difficulties all but overpowering. I must add, however, that my present work is such I would never desert for any other, so long as I see room to believe that which I may do here is unfinished. May I then beg you to express to the Committee that I accept their proposals, provided I may do so on their understanding of this great uncertainty as to when it will be possible for me to carry it out?”

The gift, indeed, gave Florence Nightingale a further task to perform on her return home, but as Mr. Sidney Herbert said: “Miss Nightingale looks to her reward from this country in having a fresh field for her labours, and means of extending the good that she has already begun. A compliment cannot be paid dearer to her heart than in giving her more work to do.”

A public meeting was held at Willis’s Rooms on November 29th, 1855, to inaugurate the scheme. It was presided over by the Duke of Cambridge and addressed by the venerable Lord Lansdowne, Sir John Pakington (Lord Hampton), Monckton-Milnes (Lord Houghton), Lord Stanley (Earl of Derby), the Lord Mayor, the Marquis of Ripon, Rev. Dr. Cumming, and Dr. Gleig, the Chaplain-General. All paid eloquent tributes to the work accomplished by Miss Nightingale, but the most touching incident of the meeting was when Mr. Sidney Herbert read a letter from a friend who said: “I have just heard a pretty account from a soldier describing the comfort it was even to see Florence pass. ‘She would speak to one and another,’ he said, ‘and nod and smile to many more, but she could not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again content.’” That story brought £10,000 to the Nightingale Fund, and the soldier who had related it out of the fulness of his heart must have felt a proud man.

Public meetings in aid of the scheme were held during the ensuing months in all the principal cities and towns throughout the kingdom, and also in all parts of the Empire, including India and the colony in China. Never, I believe, has the work of any British subject been so honoured and recognised in every part of our vast dominions as that of Florence Nightingale.

Collections were made for the ‘fund’ in churches and chapels of varying creeds in all parts of the country, and concerts and sales of work were got up by enthusiastic ladies to help the subscriptions. As in the dark winter of 1854–5 everybody was doing their part to strengthen Miss Nightingale’s hands by supplying her with comforts and necessaries for the soldiers, so in the joyous winter of 1855–6 people gave of their time and money to present the heroine with means for inaugurating a scheme which should revolutionise the nursing methods of the civil and military hospitals, and render impossible the suffering and misery among the sick soldiers which had characterised the late war.

There were no more enthusiastic and grateful supporters of the Nightingale Fund than the brave “boys” of the Services. The officers and men of nearly every regiment and many of the vessels contributed a day’s pay.

Books were opened by the principal bankers throughout the kingdom, and a very handsome gift to the fund came from M. and Madame Goldschmidt (Jenny Lind), who gave a concert at Exeter Hall on March 11th, 1856, which realised nearly £2,000. M. and Madame Goldschmidt defrayed all the expenses of the concert, amounting to upwards of £500, and gave the gross receipts to the Committee. In recognition of their generosity a gift was made to M and Madame Goldschmidt of a marble bust of Queen Victoria, the result of a private subscription.

In course of time the Nightingale fund reached £44,000, and in evidence of the widespread interest which it evoked the detailed statement of the honorary secretaries may be quoted:—

General Abstract of Subscriptions to the Nightingale Fund

There is little doubt that the fund would have reached the £50,000 which the Committee had set itself to obtain if Miss Nightingale, after her return home, had not herself brought the subscription list to a close in order that public benevolence might be diverted to the fund raised to help the victims of the devastating inundations in France in 1857. Miss Nightingale had seen with great admiration the self-sacrificing work of French ladies and sisters amongst the soldiers in the Crimea, and had been supported in her own efforts by the sympathy of commanding officers of the French troops, so that it gave her peculiar pleasure to promote a fund for helping our late allies when distress came upon their country.

Meantime, the heroine whose work had evoked the great outburst of national gratitude of which the Nightingale Fund was the expression, still remained in the East, to complete her work, for though the fall of Sebastopol had brought the war to an end, the sick and wounded soldiers still lay in the hospitals, and there was an army of occupation in the Crimea pending the conclusion of the peace negotiations. None knew better than Miss Nightingale the evils which beset soldiers in camp when the exigencies of active warfare no longer occupy them, and she now divided her attention between administering to the sick and providing recreation and instruction for the convalescents and the soldiers in camp.

As soon as her health was sufficiently established after the attack of fever, she again left Scutari for the Crimea. Two new camp hospitals, known as the “Left Wing” and the “Right Wing,” consisting of huts, had been put up on the heights above Balaclava, not far from the Sanatorium, and Miss Nightingale established a staff of nurses there, and took the superintendence of the nursing department. She lived in a hut consisting of three rooms with a medical store attached, situated by the Sanatorium and conveniently near the new camp hospitals.

Three of the Roman Catholic sisters who had been working at Scutari accompanied Miss Nightingale to the Crimea, and writing from the hut encampment there to some of the sisters who remained at Scutari, she says: “I want my ‘Cardinal’ (a name bestowed on a valued sister) very much up here. The sisters are all quite well and cheerful, thank God for it! They have made their hut look quite tidy, and put up with the cold and inconveniences with the utmost self-abnegation. Everything, even the ink, freezes in our hut every night.”

The sisters and their Chief had a rough experience on these Balaclava heights. One relates that their hut was far from weather-proof, and on awakening one morning they found themselves covered with snow, which had fallen heavily all night. They were consoled for those little discomforts by the arrival of a gentleman on horseback “bearing the princely present of some eggs, tied up in a handkerchief.” The benefactor was the Protestant chaplain, and the sisters returned his kindness by washing his neckties. But alas! there was no flat iron available, and the sisters, not to be beaten, smoothed out the clerical lawn with a teapot filled with boiling water!

One of the sisters was stricken by fever, and Miss Nightingale insisted on nursing her herself. While watching over the sick bed one night, she saw a rat upon the rafters over the sister’s head, and taking an umbrella, knocked it down and killed it without disturbing her patient.

Strict Protestant as Miss Nightingale was, she maintained the most cordial relations with the Roman Catholic nurses, and was deeply grateful for the loyal way in which they worked under her. When the Rev. Mother who had come out with the sisters to Scutari returned in ill-health to England, Miss Nightingale sent her a letter of farewell in which she said: “You know that I shall do everything I can for the sisters whom you have left me. I will care for them as if they were my own children. But it will not be like you. I do not presume to express praise or gratitude to you, Rev. Mother, because it would look as though I thought you had done this work, not unto God, but unto me. You were far above me in fitness for the general superintendency in worldly talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual qualifications which God values in a superior; my being placed over you was a misfortune, not my fault. What you have done for the work no one can ever say. I do not presume to give you any other tribute but my tears. But I should be glad that the Bishop of Southwark should know, and Dr. Manning [afterwards Cardinal], that you were valued here as you deserve, and that the gratitude of the army is yours.”

The roads over this mountain district where Miss Nightingale was located in the Crimea were very uneven and dangerous, and one day while driving to the hospitals she met with an accident. Her carriage was drawn by a mule, and being carelessly driven by the attendant over a large stone, was upset. Miss Nightingale suffered some injury, and one of the Sisters accompanying her was severely wounded.

To prevent the repetition of such an accident, Colonel Macmurdo presented Miss Nightingale with a specially constructed carriage for her use. It is described as “being composed of wood battens framed on the outside and basket-work. In the interior it is lined with a sort of waterproof canvas. It has a fixed head on the hind part and a canopy running the full length, with curtains at the side to enclose the interior. The front driving seat removes, and thus the whole forms a sort of small tilted waggon with a welted frame, suspended on the back part, on which to recline, and well padded round the sides. It is fitted with patent breaks to the hind wheels so as to let it go gently down the steep hills of the Turkish roads.” This is the carriage which after many vicissitudes is now preserved at Lea Hurst.

The carriage was one of the most interesting exhibits in the Nursing Section of the Victorian Era Exhibition at Earl’s Court. Its preservation and removal to this country are due to the excellent M. Soyer, who on the eve of his departure from the Crimea rescued it from the hands of some Tartar Jews. Miss Nightingale had left it behind, doubtless thinking that it had served its purpose, and being too modest to imagine that it would be of special interest to her fellow-countrymen. M. Soyer, however, saw in that old battered vehicle a precious relic for future generations, and hearing that some Jews were going to purchase it next day, along with a lot of common carts and harness, he obtained permission from Colonel Evans of the Light Infantry to buy the carriage. He afterwards sent it to England by the Argo. The sketch reproduced was taken by Mr. Landells, the artist representing The Illustrated London News in the Crimea. The carriage was an object of great public interest when it arrived at Southampton on the Argo. The Mayor took charge of it until the arrival of M. Soyer, who had the extreme pleasure of restoring it to its famous owner.

After Miss Nightingale received the gift of this convenient vehicle, she redoubled her exertions on behalf of the soldiers still remaining in the Crimea. The winter was severe and snow lay thick on the ground, but it did not deter her from constantly visiting the camp hospitals, and she was known to stand for hours at the top of a bleak rocky mountain near the hospitals, giving her instructions while the snow was falling heavily. Then in the bleak dark night she would return down the perilous mountain road with no escort save the driver. Her friends remonstrated and begged her to avoid such risk and exposure, but she answered by a smile, which seemed to say, “You may be right, but I have faith.” M. Soyer was so impressed by the danger that Miss Nightingale was incurring, that he addressed, as he relates, “a letter to a noble duchess, who I knew had much influence with her.” I am afraid, however, that neither the solicitous M. Soyer nor the “noble duchess” deterred Miss Nightingale from following what she felt to be the path of duty.

During this period she was much engaged in promoting schemes for the education and recreation of the convalescent soldiers and those forming the army of occupation. She formed classes, established little libraries or “reading huts,” which were supplied with books and periodicals sent by friends at home. Queen Victoria contributed literature and the Duchess of Kent sent Miss Nightingale a useful assortment of books for the men. All the reading huts were numerously and constantly attended, and Miss Nightingale remarked in her after report that the behaviour of the men was “uniformly quiet and well-bred.”

Lectures and schoolrooms were established for the men, both at Scutari and in the Crimea, by various officers and chaplains, and in these Miss Nightingale took a deep interest and was herself instrumental in establishing a café at Inkerman, to serve as a counter-attraction to the canteens where so much drunkenness prevailed. As she had ministered to the bodily needs of the men while sickness reigned, now she tried to promote their mental and moral good by providing them with rational means of occupation and amusement.

With solicitous womanly thought for the wives and mothers at home, Miss Nightingale had from the first encouraged the men to keep up communication with their families by supplying those in hospital with stationery, and stamps and writing materials were now at her instance supplied to the convalescent and other reading huts. In the first months of the war the men had been allowed to send any letters to Miss Nightingale’s quarters in the Barrack Hospital to be stamped, and many a reckless lad who had run away and enlisted was by her gentle persuasions prevailed upon to write home and report himself.

Often she herself had the painful duty of writing to wives and mothers to tell of the death of their dear ones, and several of these letters were published by the recipients in journals of the time, and are full of that thoughtful practical help which distinguished all the Lady-in-Chief’s efforts. She would send home little mementoes, the last book perhaps which the dying man had read, and would tell the bereaved women how to apply for their widow’s allowance, send papers for them to fill up, and in cases of doubtful identity would sift matters to the bottom to discover whether such or such a man was among the slain.

Another matter of concern with Miss Nightingale was to induce the men to send their pay home to their families. For this purpose she formed at Scutari an extempore money order office in which she received, four afternoons in the month, the money of any soldier who desired to send it home to his family. Each month about £1,000 was sent home in small sums of twenty or thirty shillings, which were, by Post Office orders obtained in England, sent to their respective recipients. “This money,” as Miss Nightingale says, “was literally so much rescued from the canteen and drunkenness.”

Following her initiative, the Government during the last months that the army remained in the East established money order offices at Constantinople, Scutari, Balaclava and headquarters, Crimea, and in the course of about six months, from January 30th to July 26th, 1856, no less than £71,000 was sent home by the men. “Who will say after this,” writes Miss Nightingale, “that the soldier must needs be reckless, drunken, or disorderly?” But it may be added that Miss Nightingale’s presence in the Crimea during the months which followed victory, when “Tommy” was in an exulting state of mind and ready to drink healths recklessly, and make each day an anniversary of the fall of Sebastopol, had a great moral effect on the men.

The Treaty of Peace was signed at Paris on March 30th, 1856, and the final evacuation of the Crimea took place on the following July 12th, on which day General Codrington formally gave up Sebastopol and Balaclava to the Russians. Not until all the hospitals were closed, and the last remnant of the British army was under sailing orders for home, did Florence Nightingale quit the scene of her labours. Just before leaving the Crimea, she was amazed to find that some fifty or sixty women, who had followed their husbands to the Crimea without leave, but had been allowed to remain because they were useful, were actually left behind before Sebastopol when their husbands’ regiments had sailed. The poor women gathered around Miss Nightingale’s hut in great distress, and she managed to induce the authorities to send them home on a British ship.

Miss Nightingale’s last act before leaving the Crimea was to order, at her own expense, the erection of a monument to the dead. It took the form of a monster white marble cross twenty feet high, and was placed on the peak of a mountain near the Sanatorium above Balaclava, and dedicated to the memory of the fallen brave, and to those sisters of her “Angel Band” who slept their last sleep in that far-away Eastern land. She caused it to be inscribed with the words,

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Gospodi pomilori nass.

The “Nightingale Cross,” as the monument came to be called, strikes the eye of the mariner as he crosses the Black Sea, and to the British sailor it must ever be an object to stir a chivalrous feeling for the noble woman who thus honoured the brave dead.

On her way home from the Crimea, Miss Nightingale called at Scutari, that place of appalling memories, and saw the final closing of the hospitals. The Barrack Hospital had now been taken back by the Turkish authorities, but the suite of rooms which Miss Nightingale had occupied in the southern tower were preserved as she left them, and kept so for some years.

The Sultan had been an admiring witness of Miss Nightingale’s labours, and presented her with a magnificent diamond bracelet as a farewell gift and a mark of his estimation of her devotion.

Before leaving the Crimea Miss Nightingale had received from Queen Victoria a beautiful jewel, for which the Prince Consort made the design. It consists of a St. George’s Cross in red enamel, on a white field, representative of England. On the cross are the letters V.R., surmounted by a crown in diamonds. A band of black enamel, inscribed in gold letters with the words “Blessed are the merciful,” surrounds the cross. Palm leaves, in green enamel, form a framework for the shield, and on the blue enamel ribbon which confines the palms is inscribed in letters of gold “Crimea.” On the back of the jewel is an inscription written by Queen Victoria, recording that the gift was made in memory of services rendered to her “brave army” by Florence Nightingale. The following letter accompanied the gift.

The Government did not forget to officially acknowledge the work of the Lady-in-Chief, and when the Treaty of Peace was under consideration in the spring of 1856, Lord Ellesmere paid the following eloquent tribute to her services:—

“My Lords, the agony of that time has become a matter of history. The vegetation of two successive springs has obscured the vestiges of Balaclava and of Inkerman. Strong voices now answer to the roll-call, and sturdy forms now cluster round the colours. The ranks are full, the hospitals are empty. The angel of mercy still lingers to the last on the scene of her labours; but her mission is all but accomplished. Those long arcades of Scutari, in which dying men sat up to catch the sound of her footstep or the flutter of her dress, and fell back on the pillow content to have seen her shadow as it passed, are now comparatively deserted. She may be thinking how to escape, as best she may, on her return, the demonstration of a nation’s appreciation of the deeds and motives of Florence Nightingale.”

Lord Ellesmere had correctly guessed Miss Nightingale’s desire to escape a public demonstration. She declined the Government’s offer of a British man-of-war to convey her home, and, embarking at Scutari on a French vessel, sailed for Marseilles. She passed through France at night, halted in Paris to visit her old friends, the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and then, accompanied by her aunt, Mrs. Smith, and travelling incognito as “Miss Smith,” proceeded to Boulogne and sailed for dear old England. What a life-time of memories had been crowded into those twenty-one months which had elapsed since she had left on her great mission!