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to accommodate the increased number of students. Before it was entirely completed, the great struggle that seriously threatened for a time the preservation of the Union broke out, the students were asked by the Sisters to return home throughout the State and even other states while there was time, and the new structure served to shelter the sick and the wounded of the fratricidal war, whose suffering was eased by the gentle hands of the good Sisters turned from teachers into nurses. 9 Even before the Civil War had converted the Academy into a hospital, the Sisters of St. Ursula had begun to face serious troubles. In 1857 an epidemic of yellow fever plagued the city and repeated its devastation the next year. Enrollment fell and even those who came were allowed to leave if they wanted. Sister St. Theophile and a pupil, Bridget Shelly, fell victims to the scourge. Under such repeated misfortunes the Academy practically closed down. Bishop Odin called again for help from the Mother House in New Orleans. The Reverend Father Napoleon Perche, Chaplain of the Ursulines, later Archbishop of New Orleans, recommended Sister St. Pierre as eminently qualified to give new life to the flagging Academy. Upon her arrival, she was elected prioress and she proved to be the second foundress of St. Mary's Academy. An historian of the Order says of her, "a woman of fine religious character, zealous spirit, and sincere devoted- ness." Under her direction confidence was restored and hope sprung again. New courses were added on the eve of the Civil War and students flocked once more to the school. It was then that the new wing, destined to be used as a base hospital, was begun, two years after her coming. 10 The Civil War years were frightful years. General J. Bankhead MacGruder, C.S.A., commandeered the Convent and the Academy as a hospital. During the Battle of Galveston, the Sisters, turned nurses by circumstances, rendered heroic services and tended the wounded regard- less of faction or loyalty. "The wounded of the enemy," said General MacGruder, "were conducted to the same hospital, and the same atten- 9 Ursuline Academy of Galveston, Diamond Jt,bilee, 1847-1922, pp. 7-8. 10 Mother St. Pierre, nee Margaret Harrison, was born in Canada in 1828, of English and French parentage. She came to New Orleans with her widowed mother and made her religious profession as Sister St. Pierre on September 8, 1847. She came to Texas in 1859 and became Mother of the Ursuline Community in Galveston shortly after her arrival. She steered the Ursuline through the trying years of the Civil War and the early years of Reconstruction, and she successfully organized the Academy after the war. She died December 4, 1872. From Notes supplied to the Author by the Ursullnes in Galveston, C. A. T.
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