(A.) _May 5th._ On Sunday the _Ocean Queen_, coming up from Old Point,
grounded about five miles off the harbor, and I went down and put a few
beds and men on board to assume a footing. She had been brought to Old
Point with the intention of using her to amuse the _Merrimack_, and had
therefore been stripped of everything not necessary to the subsistence
of the small crew.
* * * * *
(M.) On the way back, at eight in the evening, found that a great part
of the army fleet, three hundred or more steamboats full of life, all
before scattered for miles about the harbor, had been collected in close
order and steam up. A number of heavy steamers swept past also, each
with a tow a quarter of a mile long, making on the dark evening a long
line of light and life. It was strange to see these floating cities melt
away; the colored lights from the rigging going out one by one, and the
bands and bugle-calls growing faint and far.
* * * * *
(A.) I had sent the _Webster_ to sea, and with Mrs. —— and sister, B.,
and some two or three others, started in the _Small_ to go to the
telegraph and mail, and to bury the body of a patient who had died in
the night. It was raining hard. When we reached the shore there was no
post-office, no telegraph,—nothing of the military station left, except
some wagons and transports. Our storehouse was a mile back. I left a
portion of our party to move the goods from it on board the barge, and
started in the _Small_ for Yorktown, to which I presumed Head-quarters
would have been moved. On getting out of the harbor, we saw that the
_Queen_ was under way. It turned out that she had been ordered to
Yorktown by the Harbor-Master. As she was lying-to, to sound the
channel, we came up with her, and I went on board, after which—the
_Small_ going ahead to feel the way—we had a magnificent sail to
Yorktown, the river so full of vessels that it was like getting up the
Thames, only the lead was constantly going, "By the mark, five! A
quarter less six!" and so on. Noble river! and a noble ship! Ahead,
above all the fleet of three hundred transports, there were a dozen
men-of-war. With our hospital flag at the fore, we slowly but boldly
passed through the squadron, and came to anchor, the biggest ship of
all, in the advance,—only one gunboat, as a picket-guard, being above
us. I went ashore with the Captain and the young men, but could find no
telegraph, and no officer of the general staff; and as many men had been
killed and wounded by the torpedo-traps,—infernal machines set by the
rebels,—we were not allowed to enter the fortified lines of Yorktown.
So, picking up a hospital cot and stretcher left by the enemy, I took
boat again to return to the ship, leaving the Captain and others ashore.
As I pulled out through the vessels at the wharf, I saw to my surprise
two small "stern-wheel" steamboats coming along-side the _Queen_, one on
each side. Hastening on board, I found that these boats were loaded with
sick men, whom an officer in charge was about to throw off upon the
_Queen_. They were the sick of regiments which had been ordered suddenly
forward last night, and which were at this very moment engaged in the
battle of Williamsburg; we could hear the roar of artillery. They had
been sent during the night by ambulances to the shore of Wormley's
Creek, where a large number had been left, the officer assured me, lying
on the ground in the rain, without food or attendance. His orders were
to take them upon the "stern-wheelers," as many as both would carry,
find the _Ocean Queen_, and put them upon her. I protested. The _Queen_
at present was a mere hulk, without beds, bedding, or food even for her
crew, and without a surgeon. It was obvious that the men were, many of
them, very ill. Some were, in fact, in a dying state.
They were largely typhoid-fever patients; and having been for
twenty-four hours without nourishment, wet from exposure to the storm,
and many of them racked by the motion of the ambulances over those
frightful swamp corduroy roads (which I described the other day) into
delirium, I was sure that many would die if they long failed to receive
most careful medical treatment, with stimulants, nourishment, and
warmth, no one of which could at that time be got for them on the
_Queen_. The officer, however, insisted. I determined to go ashore to
look for a surgeon, or if possible to find Colonel Ingalls, the
transport quartermaster, a gentleman, and a most energetic and sagacious
officer. I put the two ship's officers each at a gangway, with
instructions to let no one come on board till I returned, and to use
force, if necessary. I found a surgeon—a civilian—who was willing to
help us, and pulled back, finding to my disgust, when I reached the
ship, that the miserable first officer had given way, and every man who
could walk of the patients had been taken on board. The glorious women
had hunted out a barrel containing some Indian meal from some dark place
where it had been lost sight of, in the depths of the ship, and were
already ladling out hot gruel, which they had made of it; and the poor,
pale, emaciated, shivering wretches were lying anywhere, on the cabin
floors, crying with sobbing, trembling voices, "God bless you, Miss! God
bless you!" as it was given to them from the ship's deck-buckets. I
never saw such misery or such gratitude. My rebel stretcher came at once
in play, and, after distributing forty dollars among the half-mutinous,
superstitious, beastly Portuguese crew and pantry servants, I got them
at work bringing on the patients who were too feeble to be led on board.
It was a slow and tedious process. By the blessing of God, before it was
over, B., with Dr. Ware,—the two very best men I ever saw for such an
emergency,—came with the _Elizabeth_ from Cheeseman's Creek, and the
Captain with the students from the shore. There were straw, bed-sacks
and blankets, besides stimulants and medicines, on the _Elizabeth_, and
the Captain's authority soon added all the ship's force to the working
party on her, filling beds and hoisting out bales of blankets. B. went
on shore, found a rebel cow at pasture, shot her, and brought off the
beef, with another surgeon. By ten o'clock at night, every sick man was
in a warm bed, and had received medical treatment; and beef-tea and
milk-punch had been served to all who required it. But for three of them
even the women could do nothing but pray, and close their eyes.
At half past ten, I went aboard the _Small_, intending to run to
Fortress Monroe for additional supplies. It was stormy and thick, and I
could not induce the Captain to go out till daylight. We reached Old
Point about nine, A. M. I got breakfast in the hotel, and then to
Head-quarters. While in the telegraph-room, a message was received,
which was whispered between the operators; a minute afterwards a gun was
fired, and the long roll beat; the infantry fell in on the parade, the
artillery hurried to the ramparts and manned the heavy guns, and
powder-carts were moving up the inclines. I asked, "What's all this?"
"Telegram from Newport's News that the _Merrimack_ is coming out!" She
did not come beyond Sewall's Point, however.
The boat from Baltimore brought six excellent New York surgeons,
twenty-six nurses, and ten surgical dressers (medical students). I got
them all on the _Small_, and having succeeded in obtaining the more
important supplies in limited quantities, at noon left for Yorktown. On
reaching here we found the "stern-wheelers" again along-side, and over
three hundred patients on board; many very sick indeed, some delirious,
some comatose, some fairly _in articulo_. The assistant surgeons, left
behind at the abandoned camps, are too anxious to be rid of them, so as
to move with their regiments, and have surgery of war. And as their
orders authorize it, they hurry them off to us in this style, after a
day's ride in army wagons, without springs, over such a country without
roads as I described last week. They were horribly filthy, and there was
no time to clean them, often not to undress them, as, sick and fainting,
they were lifted on board.
About noon the next day I completed a hospital organization of such
forces as I had, dividing the cabins and the upper steerage of the ship
into five wards, for the bad cases, each ward having one surgeon, two
ward-masters, and four nurses,—the two latter classes in watches;
besides these, some assistant nurses and servants, convalescent
soldiers, and contrabands. In these wards only the very sick—chiefly
cases of typhoid fever—were taken. By cutting away bulkheads, and
getting wind-sails rigged, they were fairly well ventilated. I had to
offer $200 for the repair of damages before this could be secured,
however. All the rest of the ship was the sixth ward, in which the
hernias, rheumatisms, bronchitises, lame and worn-out men were placed,
organized in squads of fifty each, with a squad-master to draw their
rations of house-diet.
To get proper food for all, decently cooked and distributed, has given
me more concern than anything else. The ship servants are brutes, and
our supply of utensils was cruelly short. Fortunately the Captain is a
good-hearted and resolute man, and the ladies—God knows what we should
have done without them!—have contrived to make some chafing-dishes with
which the kitchen is pieced out wonderfully. Just think of it for a
moment. Here were one hundred miserably sick and dying men, forced upon
us before we had been an hour on board; and tug after tug swarming round
the great ship, before we had a nail out of a box, and when there were
but ten pounds of Indian meal and two spoons to feed them with. No
account could do justice to the faithful industry of the medical
students and young men: how we all got through with it, I hardly know;
but one idea is distinct,—that every man had a good place to sleep in,
and something hot to eat daily, and that the sickest had every essential
that could have been given them in their own homes....
B. was all this time driving everything to obtain supplies, while the
sick kept coming faster than we could get anything ready for them. The
last thing essential was more beef. B. at length got hold of a couple of
draught cattle of Franklin's division, left behind in their advance by
steamboats, and while these were being killed and dressed, we filled up
to nine hundred patients.
To avoid having more pushed on board, I had the Captain heave short; so
the moment that B.'s boat came, and the beef could be hoisted up, the
steamer was under way, and before night, no doubt, was well out to sea.
I then went on board the _Small_ to drop down, quite ill for the time
from want of sleep and from fatigue. A few hours' rest and a quiet
dinner brought me all right, however, and at sunset I set out with B. to
look after the sick ashore.
* * * * *
One of the strange effects, upon all concerned as workers on these
hospital ships, in the heart of all misery and pain, and part of it,
seems to have been the quieting of all excitement of feeling and of
expression,—a sort of apparent stoicism granted for the occasion. A
slight illustration of this quietness, which was characteristic of most
of the hospital party, is given in the following passage from a letter
of one of the ladies on the _Ocean Queen_:—
"It seems a strange thing that the sight of such misery, such death in
life, should have been accepted by us all so quietly as it was. We were
simply eyes and hands for those three days. Great, strong men were dying
about us; in nearly every ward some one was going. Yesterday one of the
students called me to go with him and say whether I had taken the name
of a dead man in the forward cabin the day he came in. He was a strong,
handsome fellow, raving mad when brought in, and lying now, the day
after, with pink cheeks and peaceful look. I had tried to get his name,
and once he seemed to understand, and screeched out at the top of his
voice, 'John H. Miller,' but whether it was his own name or that of some
friend he wanted, I don't know; we could not find out. All the record I
had of him was from my diet-list: 'Miller,—forward cabin, port side,
number 119. Beef-tea and punch.'
"Last night Dr. Ware came to me to know how much floor-room we had. The
immense saloon of the aft cabin was filled with mattresses so thickly
placed that there was hardly stepping-room between them, and as I swung
my lantern along the rows of pale faces, it showed me another strong man
dead. N. had been working hard over him, but it was useless. He opened
his eyes when she called 'Henry' clearly in his ear, and gave her a
chance to pour brandy down his throat; but all did no good; he died
quietly while she was helping some one else, and my lantern showed him
gone. We are changed by all this contact with terror, else how could I
deliberately turn my lantern on his face, and say to the doctor behind
me, 'Is that man dead?' and then stand coolly while he examined him,
listened, and pronounced him 'dead.' I could not have quietly said a
year ago, 'That will make one more bed, then, Doctor.' Sick men were
waiting on deck in the cold, though, and every few feet of cabin floor
were precious. So they took the dead man out, and put him to sleep in
his coffin on deck. We had to climb over another soldier lying up there
quiet as he, to get at the blankets to keep the living warm."
The business of feeding men by hundreds at short notice, in confined
spaces, and with the aid of very limited cooking facilities, is one
which can hardly be appreciated by those who have only heard, not seen,
how it is accomplished. It takes good heads as well as good hearts,
strong will as well as strong limbs, to avoid ruinous confusion. After a
battle, when men are brought in so rapidly that they have to be piled in
almost without reference to their being human beings, and every one
raving for drink first and then for nourishment, it requires strong
nerves to be able to attend to them properly. Habit and system are the
two great aids,—or rather system first of all, if possible; though
system in such cases grows out of experience. Happily system has ruled
in the work of the Sanitary Commission, and such success as has attended
its operations is chiefly due to this, as every one must have observed
who had an opportunity to witness the difference between its doings and
those having the same end in view, but carried on without well-studied
or sufficiently comprehensive plans.
But in these Atlantic Floating Hospitals the difficulties were very
great. The desideratum is a practicable diet, simple yet nourishing,
abundant and not injurious; always ready, yet varied enough to avoid the
danger of satiety, which is ever threatening the sick man, whose chance
of recovery may hang on his ability to eat his food with relish. In this
arduous part of the Hospital Transport duty, the ladies were able to be
especially useful; their sympathy and good judgment coming constantly in
play, and the supply of fruits, jellies, and a variety of delicacies
being generally so liberal as to afford full scope to their powers. But
in dealing with hundreds and thousands of men, many of whom are not
particularly in danger, but yet obliged to lie in beds for wounds to
heal, it is necessary to provide on a scale so large as puts mere
delicacies, or the ordinary resources of the sick-room, quite out of the
question. It is utterly futile to attempt treating each one of four or
five hundred patients as if we had him alone in a private family; and
patients, as well as nurses and friends, must learn this after very
little experience. But it is practicable here, as elsewhere, to
accomplish much that is beneficial and comfortable by judicious system
firmly carried out. To avoid collisions, and vain attempts to perform
impossibilities, after a short experience, but careful study of what was
really needed, rules were established which proved in practice nearly
perfect in the matter of preventing delay and disappointment, while the
result satisfied the patients in general quite as well as we can hope to
satisfy sick men who have fitful appetites. As the suggestion may prove
applicable to other cases, the established routine is given in full in
the Appendix (B.)