They were Stephen Girard and Peter Helm.
Girard was now a man of wealth and influence, and with a brilliant
commercial career opening before him. Above all, he was a foreigner, and
unpopular in the city. Yet he did not hesitate to take the post from
which others shrank. He and Helm were regarded as doomed men, but they
did not falter from their self-imposed task. They went to work at once.
Girard chose the post of honor, which was the post of danger--the
management of the interior of the hospital. His decisive character was
at once felt. Order began to appear, medicines and nurses were procured,
and the very next day the committee were informed that the hospital had
been cleaned and reorganized, and was prepared to receive patients.
Girard opened his purse liberally, and spared no expense where money
would avail. But this was not all. Besides personally superintending the
interior of the hospital, he went about through the city seeking the
sick and conveying them to the hospital.
"In the great scarcity of help, he used frequently to receive the sick
and dying at the gate, assist in carrying them to their beds, nurse
them, receive their last messages, watch for their last breath, and
then, wrapping them in the sheet on which they had died, carry them out
to the burial ground and place them in the trench.
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