The story of Carrie Cutter’s brief life is perhaps best described by her brother, Dr. John C. Cutter, who wrote a letter that appeared in the March, 14, 1895, edition of the New Berne Daily Journal in order to correct an error that appeared on page 20 of the Business Directory of the City of New Berne, N.C.: To Which is Added Historical and Statistical Matter of Interest, which stated- “Among the interments of the cemetery appear the graves of Charles E. Coledge, a private of the 25th Massachusetts Artillery, and Miss Carrie E. Cutter also of that State. They are buried side by side. The records show that they were betrothed and that she was buried by him at her own request and by authority of the Secretary of War. The interments were originally made at Roanoke Island, and the dates of death in the early part of 1862. The story goes that she dropped dead upon his grave, but for this latter fact I cannot vouch. The United States has furnished her with a soldier’s headstone–this being the only instance in which it has been given.”

The picture below of her grave was taken at the New Bern National Cemetery at 1711 National Avenue. Carrie Cutter is buried in Section 10, grave 1698 while Charles E. Coledge is the man buried next to her in grave 1697. Is Charles E. Coledge really Charles Plummer Tidd? We’ll come back to that later.

Dr. Cutter’s letter to the editor appears below.

Having arrived in town for the purpose of visiting the National Cemetery here located, my attention was called to certain statements in the “New Berne City Directory, 1893,” concerning my late sister, Miss Carrie E. Cutter, nurse, 21st regiment, Mass. Vols.​ Miss Carrie E. Cutter, daughter of Surgeon Calvin Cutter, author of Cutter’s School Physiologies, was born in New Hampshire, July 28th, 1843. She was educated at Prof. Russell’s private seminary at Lancaster, Mass., at Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, Mass., and at a private German school in Pennsylvania. In April, 1861, she was on the eve of her departure for three years’ tour and study in Europe, when the outset of the civil war wrecked her plans.​ The writer’s most vivid remembrance of her was as she distributed New Testaments to the volunteers drawn up on the railway platform of his native town on the morning of their departure for camp. She was lithe, well formed, fine featured, with gray eyes and light brown hair. A few weeks later her father was commissioned as surgeon of the 21st regiment, Mass. Vols., going into camp in July, 1861.​ In the month of October, 1861, at her earnest, repeated requests, she was permitted to join her father in camp at the Naval Academy, Annapolis. When the Burnside Expedition was ready to sail, her elderly lady companion, Mrs. Studley, decided not to go forward. Miss Carrie was permitted to proceed with the officers of the 21st regiment, on the steamship Northerner. She witnessed the horrors of those severe wintry gales off Hatteras, where so many found watery graves.​ During the action at Roanoke Island, Feb. 8th, she was on board the Northerner caring for a dying scout — a man who enlisted from her home town, Charles Plummer Tidd. This scout had lived in my father’s family from 1860 to the time of his enlistment in the 21st regiment in July 1861. Tidd’s fiance lived in Kansas. My mother has often told me my sister was never engaged to Plummer Tidd. The romance about Charles E. Coledge, as given in the New Berne City Directory, has no foundation. In fact, Plummer Tidd died and was buried at Ashby’s Harbor. My sister was unable to be present at the interment.​ After the action at Roanoke Island, Miss Carrie went ashore and labored untiringly in the care of the sick and the wounded. Being able to use the German language she had especial charge of three young Germans, who in their delirium had forgotten the English language. As the result of her exertions, her privations, and the climate influences, she was indisposed when she sailed on the Northerner for the mouth of the Neuse River. While the battle of New Berne was raging, the fever assumed an alarming state. Her father was unable to reach her until the 19th. When hope for recovery had vanished she requested “to be buried with the brave soldier on Roanoke Island.” She passed away in her cabin on the U.S.S. Northerner early in the morning of March 24, 1862. Had she lived till July, 1862, she would have been nineteen years of age.​ By order of Gen. Burnside, her remains were forwarded on a special steamer to Roanoke Island where she was buried with the military honors bestowed upon a colonel. At her request she was interred by the side of her friend, Orderly Sergeant Charles Plummer Tidd. Her father, owing to duties, was unable to accompany the remains to the island. When the National Cemetery was established at New Berne, by order of the secretary of war, her remains were removed to New Berne. Her name is inscribed in enduring bronze on the soldiers’ monument erected in her home town, Warren, Massachusetts. The United States has furnished her with a soldier’s headstone — this being the only instance in which it has been given to a woman.​

John C. Cutter, M.D.
Late of the Imperial Japanese Service

According to the regimental historian Charles F. Walcott on March 24, 1862- “Miss Carrie E. Cutter, the Florence Nightingale of the 21st, died of spotted fever on board the steamer “Northerner,” in Newbern harbor, aged nineteen years and eight months. Miss Cutter, an intellectual, refined, and delicate woman, the daughter of our surgeon, had embarked on the ” Northerner” with us at Annapolis, and had accompanied the regiment since that time. A blessing to the regiment, she had bravely and patiently endured the discomforts of the crowded steamer, — a thousand times greater to her, the only woman on board, than to any of us, and with constant, unremitting devotion had added her gentle, womanly care to her father’s wise and faithful energy in helping and nursing our sick and wounded men. Her body was carried to Roanoke Island and buried by the side of that of her admired friend, Sergeant Charles Plummer Tidd, the heroic companion of John Brown, whose eyes she had closed so sadly during the battle of Roanoke Island.” He also notes that on March 31st, Second Lieutenant Charles Coolidge, of Company E, a good officer and estimable man, died of typhoid fever, after a short sickness.

After the war was over Clara Barton wrote a poem (found at the end of this post) honoring the many women who risked and gave their lives during the war nursing soldiers. But what of the fate of Charles Plummer Tidd and are he and Second Lieutenant Charles Coolidge/Coledge one and the same. It is not unusual for names of soldiers to be misspelled. Tidd is shown on the left below and views of the headstone of Charles Coledge, which sits next to Carrie Cutter’s in the cemetery, are shown in the center and to the right. There is no Charles Plummer Tidd buried in the New Bern National Cemetery. It has been speculated that given his relationship to John Brown and his participation in the Harper’s Ferry raid that he was buried in the cemetery under an assumed name for fear his headstone would be desecrated. Lieutenant Charles Coolidge died on March 29th in New Bern and is buried in Troy, New Hampshire. Therefore, Coolidge and Coledge are not the same person. In addition, there is no record of a Charles Coledge in the Soldiers and Sailors database. The only thing we do know about Coledge is that he died on February 7, 1862, which would fit with him dying near Roanoke Island. From the regimental history we know that Charles Tidd mustered into Company K of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry on August 23, 1861, under the assumed name of Charles Plummer. He never saw battle and died on February 7, 1862, aboard the steamer Northerner while being nursed by his friend Carrie Cutter. It is highly probable that Charles Plummer Tidd is buried under the Charles Coledge headstone.

Sources

The History of Milford by George A Ramsdell, page 227-228, 1901 Link

History of the Twenty-First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers in the War for the Preservation of the Union 1861-1865 by Charles F. Walcott, pages 82-83. Link

Clara Barton’s Poem from the NPS website– “The Women Who Went to the Field” immortalizing Carrie Cutter and many other women who risked and gave their lives in service during the war. She read the poem during a reception on November 18, 1892, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D. C. for the Potomac Relief Corps, a unit of the National Woman’s Relief Corps.

The women who went to the field, you say,

The women who went to the field; and pray

What did they go for? just to be in the way!-

They’d not know the difference betwixt work and play,

What did they know about war anyway?

What could they do? – of what use could they be?

They would scream at the sight of a gun, don’t you see?

Just fancy them round where the bugle notes play,

And the long roll is bidding us on to the fray.

Imagine their skirts ‘mong artillery wheels,

And watch for their flutter as they flee ‘cross the fields

When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;-

They never will wait for the answering shot.

They would faint at the first drop of blood, in their sight.

What fun for us boys,-(ere we enter the fight;)

They might pick some lint, and tear up some sheets,

And make us some jellies, and send on their sweets,

And knit some soft socks for Uncle Sam’s shoes,

And write us some letters, and tell us the news.

And thus it was settled by common consent,

That husbands, or brothers, or whoever went,

That the place for the women was in their own homes,

There to patiently wait until victory comes.

But later, it chanced, just how no one knew,

That the lines slipped a bit, and some ‘gan to crowd through;

And they went, – where did they go? – Ah; where did they not?

Show us the battle, – the field, – or the spot

Where the groans of the wounded rang out on the air

That her ear caught it not, and her hand was not there,

Who wiped the death sweat from the cold, clammy brow,

And sent home the message; – “‘T is well with him now”?

Who watched in the tents, whilst the fever fires burned,

And the pain-tossing limbs in agony turned,

And wet the parched tongue, calmed delirium’s strife

Till the dying lips murmured, ” My Mother,” ” My Wife”!

And who were they all? – They were many, my men:

Their record was kept by no tabular pen:

They exist in traditions from father to son.

Who recalls, in dim memory, now here and there one.-

A few names where writ, and by chance live to-day;

But’s a perishing record fast fading away.

Of those we recall, there are scarcely a score,

Dix, Dame, Bickerdyke, – Edson, Harvey and Moore,

Fales, Wittenmeyer, Gilson, Safford and Lee,

And poor Cutter dead in the sands of the sea;

And Frances D. Gage, our “Aunt Fanny” of old,

Whose voice rang for freedom when freedom was sold.

And Husband, and Etheridge, and Harlan and Case,

Livermore, Alcott, Hancock and Chase,

And Turner, and Hawley, and Potter and Hall,

Ah! the list grows apace, as they come at the call:

Did these women quail at the sight of a gun?

Will some soldier tell us of one he saw run?

Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,

At Pittsburgh and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?

And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,

And her calm, stately presence gave strength to his men.

And Marie of Logan; she went with them too;

A bride, scarcely more than a sweetheart, ’tis true.

Her young cheek grows pale when the bold troopers ride.

Where the “Black Eagle” soars, she is close at his side,

She staunches his blood, cools the fever-burnt breath,

And the wave of her hand stays the Angel of Death;

She nurses him back, and restores once again

To both army and state the brave leader of men.

She has smoothed his black plumes and laid them to sleep,

Whilst the angels above them their high vigils keep:

And she sits here alone, with the snow on her brow –

Your cheers for her comrades! Three cheers for her now.

And these were the women who went to the war:

The women of question; what did they go for?

Because in their hearts God had planted the seed

Of pity for woe, and help for its need;

They saw, in high purpose, a duty to do,

And the armor of right broke the barriers through.

Uninvited, unaided, unsanctioned ofttimes,

With pass, or without it, they pressed on the lines;

They pressed, they implored, till they ran the lines through,

And this was the “running” the men saw them do.

‘T was a hampered work, its worth largely lost;

‘T was hindrance, and pain, and effort, and cost:

But through these came knowledge, – knowledge is power.-

And never again in the deadliest hour

Of war or of peace shall we be so beset

To accomplish the purpose our spirits have met.

And what would they do if war came again?

The scarlet cross floats where all was blank then.

They would bind on their “brassards” and march to the fray,

And the man liveth not who could say to them nay;

They would stand with you now, as they stood with you then,

The nurses, consolers, and saviours of men.