END OF THE WAR--RETURN HOME
(July-August 1856)
I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes.
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and _aves_ vehement.
SHAKESPEARE.
Peace was signed at Paris on March 30, 1856; but there was still work to
be done in the Crimean hospitals, and Miss Nightingale remained at
Balaclava, as we have seen, till the beginning of July. On her return to
Scutari she was occupied in winding up the affairs of her mission.
Meanwhile the nurses were already beginning to go home. The Reverend
Mother (Moore), who had come out from Bermondsey with the first party,
left the East at the end of April. She had been throughout one of the
mainstays of Miss Nightingale, who wrote to her thus from Balaclava
(April 29): "God's blessing and my love and gratitude with you, as you
well know. You know well too that I shall do everything I can for the
Sisters whom you have left me. But it will not be like you. Your wishes
will be our law. And I shall try and remain in the Crimea for their
sakes as long as we are any of us there. I do not presume to express
praise or gratitude to you, Revd. Mother, because it would look as if I
thought you had done the work not unto God but unto me. You were far
above me in fitness for the General Superintendency, both in worldly
talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual qualifications
which God values in a Superior. My being placed over you in an
unenviable reign in the East was my misfortune and not my fault."
Another of those whom Miss Nightingale described as her mainstays was
Mrs. Shaw Stewart, who served in the Crimea as Superintendent of the
nurses, successively in the "General" and in the "Castle" Hospital, and
of her Miss Nightingale wrote in terms of similarly grateful fervour. I
quote a few of these appreciations (and many more might be added),
because it has been supposed, on the strength of isolated expressions
penned in moments of vexation or despondency, that Miss Nightingale was
ungenerous in recognition of the work of others.[216] Nothing could be
further from the fact. She was, it is true, unsparing in blame wherever
she saw, or thought she saw, incompetence, or unfaithfulness, or a lack
of single-mindedness; she was also impatient of opposition; and hers was
not one of those soft natures which readily forget and forgive. But
wherever efficiency and faithful zeal were to be found, she was quick to
recognize them, and she was as unstinted in praise as in blame. Of Mrs.
Shaw Stewart, she wrote to Lady Cranworth (who had succeeded Lady
Canning in good offices towards the nurses): "Without her our Crimean
work would have come to grief--without her judgment, her devotion, her
unselfish, consistent looking to the one great end, viz. the carrying
out the work as a whole--without her untiring zeal, her watchful care of
the nurses, her accuracy in all trusts and accounts, her truth, her
faithfulness. Her praise and her reward are in higher hands than mine."
Of the same "noble, brave" lady, Miss Nightingale had written to Mrs.
Bracebridge (Nov. 4, 1855): "Faithfulness is so eminently _her_, that I
hear her Master saying, Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I
will make thee ruler over many things." I could multiply Miss
Nightingale's praises of her fellow-workers, for of every one of them
she sent home to Lady Cranworth a terse character-sketch. This was done
mainly for the sake of the professional nurses, in order that they might
be helped to find suitable situations on their return. The sketches show
how close a touch the Lady-in-Chief kept upon her staff, and they reveal
no reluctance either to criticize or to praise. It would be invidious to
particularize further than to cite Miss Nightingale's appreciation of
her third mainstay, Mrs. Roberts, who came out as a paid nurse with her
in October 1854, and served throughout the war: "Having been 23 years
Sister in St. Thomas's Hospital, her qualifications as a _nurse_ were,
of course, infinitely superior to any other of those with me. She is
indeed a surgical nurse of the first order. Her valuable services have
been recognized even and most of all by the surgeons (of Scutari, where
she has principally been and where, after Inkerman, her exertions were
unremitting). Her total superiority to all the vices of a Hospital
Nurse, her faithfulness to the work, her disinterested love of duty and
vigilant care of her patients, her power of work equal to that of _ten_,
have made her one of the most important persons of the expedition."
[216] _Stanmore_, vol. i. pp. 404-5.
II
On June 3 the Secretary of State wrote to Miss Nightingale, "as the
period is now fast approaching when your generous and disinterested
labours will cease, with the occasion which called them forth," to
inquire what arrangements should be made for her return. "In thus
contemplating," he continued, "the close of those anxious and trying
duties, which you imposed upon yourself solely with a view to alleviate
the sufferings of Her Majesty's Army in the East, and which you have
accomplished with a singleness of purpose beyond all praise, it is not
necessary for me to inform you how highly Her Majesty appreciates the
services you have rendered to Her Army; as Her Majesty has already
conveyed to you a signal proof of Her gracious approbation. But I desire
now, on behalf of my colleagues and myself, to offer you our most
cordial thanks for your humane and generous exertions. In doing so, I
feel confident that I simply express the unanimous feelings of the
people of this country."
There were things which Miss Nightingale valued more highly than the
approbation of the people. One of them was correctly surmised by Sir
Henry Storks. Writing to her from Headquarters at Scutari, on July 25,
he said:--
I have received your kind note with mingled feelings of extreme
pleasure and regret--the former, because I appreciate your good
opinion very highly; the latter, because your note is a Farewell.
It will ever be to me a source of pride and gratification to have
been associated with you in the work which you have performed with
so much devotion and with so much courage. Amidst the
acknowledgments you have received from all classes, and from many
quarters, I feel persuaded there are none more pleasing to yourself
than the grateful recognition of the poor men you came to succour
and to save. You will ever live in their remembrance, be assured of
that; for amongst the faults and vices, which ignorance has
produced, and a bad system has fostered and matured, ingratitude is
not one of the defects of the British soldier. I indulge the hope
that you will permit me hereafter to continue an acquaintance (may
I say friendship?) which I highly value and appreciate.
The gratitude of the British soldier was very dear to Miss Nightingale,
and the disposition which she ultimately made of her Crimean decorations
was characteristic. Before she left the East, the Sultan had presented
her with a diamond bracelet and a sum of money for the nurses and
hospitals, both of which presents the Queen permitted her to
accept.[217] The bracelet, with the badge given by the Queen, may be
seen to-day in the Museum of the United Service Institution, placed
there in accordance with her desire that they should be deposited "where
the soldiers could see them."
[217] _Panmure_, vol. i. p. 278.
At length it was time for Miss Nightingale, having seen off the last of
her nurses, and filed the last of her inventories and accounts, to leave
also. The Government had offered her a British man-of-war for the voyage
home. The view she was likely to take of such a proposal had been
correctly surmised in the House of Lords some weeks before. On May 5
Lord Ellesmere moved the Address on the conclusion of peace. He was
something of a poet, as well as a statesman, and this was his last
appearance in the House. In a speech, which was much admired at the
time, and which may still be read with pleasure as a specimen of the
more ornate kind of parliamentary eloquence, he paid a tribute to the
memory of Lord Raglan, and then passed by a happy transition to the
heroine of the war: "My Lords, the agony of that time has become matter
of history. The vegetation of two successive springs has obscured the
vestiges of Balaclava and 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 content to have seen her shadow as it passed, are now comparatively
deserted. She may probably be thinking how to escape, as best she may on
her return, the demonstrations of a nation's appreciation of the deeds
and motives of Florence Nightingale."
III
The offer of the man-of-war was declined; and Miss Nightingale, with her
aunt, sailed in the _Danube_ for Athens, Messina, and Marseilles. A
Queen's messenger was in attendance to help the travellers with
passports. They stayed a night in a humble hotel in Paris (August 4),
and travelling thence, as Miss Smith, she reached London next day. The
"return of Florence Nightingale is on every one's lips," said a letter
of the time, and all the newspaper-world was alert to discover her
movements. "Weary and worn as she is," wrote her aunt, "I cannot tell
you the dread she has of the receptions with which she is threatened."
It became known that on her arrival in England she would proceed at once
to her country-home. Triumphal arches, addresses from mayors and
corporations, and a carriage drawn by her neighbours were at once
suggested; but Miss Nightingale had prudently withheld information of
her time-table even from her family, and the public reception was
avoided. It had been proposed, too, that the reception should be
military. "The whole regiments" of the Coldstreams, the Grenadiers, and
the Fusiliers "would like to come, but as that was impossible, they
desired to send down their three Bands to meet her at the station and
play her home, whenever she might arrive, whether by day or by night, if
only they could find out when." But the attention even of her soldiers
was eluded. She lay lost for a night in London, and at eight o'clock
next morning she presented herself, according to a promise given to the
Bermondsey Nuns, at their Convent door. It was the first day of their
annual Retreat, and she rested with them for a few hours. Then, taking
the train, she reached her home on August 7, 1856, after nearly two
years' absence in the East, arriving at an unexpected hour, having
walked up from the little country station. "A little tinkle of the small
church bell on the hills, and a thanksgiving prayer at the little chapel
next day, were," wrote her sister, "all the innocent greeting."
Florence's spoils of war, as Lady Verney wrote to Mrs. Gaskell, arrived
in advance, and were characteristic. There was, first, William, a
one-legged sailor boy, who was ten months in her hospitals. Occupation
was found for him. Next there was Peter,[218] a little Russian prisoner
who came into hospital, and of whom, as he was an orphan, she took
charge. "One of the Lady Nurses was his theological instructor, and
asked him where he would go when he died if he were a good boy? He
answered, 'To Miss Nightingale.' Thirdly, there was a big Crimean puppy,
given her by the soldiers. He was found in a hole in the rocks near
Balaclava, and was called 'Rousch,' which is supposed to be 'soldier' in
Russian. A little Russian cat, a similar gift, died on the road; but the
three remaining are the happiest things I have seen for some time,
careering about in the intervals of school, where they are made much of,
and 'glory' is more agreeable to them than to their mistress!" But
Florence had another Crimean spoil, unknown, perhaps, to her sister,
which she accounted one of the most sacred of her possessions. It was a
bunch of grass which she had "picked out of the ground watered by our
men's blood at Inkerman."
[218] Peter Grillage afterwards became man-servant at Embley. See
Vol. II. p. 302.
IV
"If ever I live to see England again," she had written in November 1855,
"the western breezes of my hill-top home will be my first longing,
though Olympus with its snowy cap looks fair over our blue Eastern
sea." It was to Lea Hurst, then, that she went on her return. It was
there, ten years before, that she had found a fortnight's happiness in
the humble work of parish nursing and visiting, and had thought to
herself that with a continuation of such life she would be content.[219]
The aspirations of her youth were to receive, as this second Part of the
volume has shown, a larger, a fuller, and a more conspicuous attainment.
Yet it would be a mistake to regard Miss Nightingale's mission in the
Crimean War either as the summit of her attainment or the fulfilment of
her life. Rather was it a starting-point.
[219] Above, pp. 53, 64.
Her work in the East did, it is true, attain some great ends, and
satisfy in some measure the aspiration of her mind and heart. "She has
done a great deed," wrote a friend in December 1854, "not less than that
of those who stood at Inkerman or advanced at the Alma; and she has made
the first move towards wiping away a reproach from this country--that
our women could not do what others do, irreproachably, and with
advantage to their fellow-creatures." She had proved that there was room
for nurses in British military hospitals. She had shown the way to a new
and high calling for women. "What Florence has done," wrote Lady Verney
to a friend (April 1856), "towards raising the standard of women's
capabilities and work is most important. It is quite curious every day
how questions arise regarding them which are answered quite differently,
even when she is not alluded to, from what they would have been 18
months ago." Lord Stanley, in the speech at Manchester already
mentioned, had made the same point. "Mark," he said, "what, by breaking
through customs and prejudices, Miss Nightingale has effected for her
sex. She has opened to them a new profession, a new sphere of
usefulness. I do not suppose that, in undertaking her mission, she
thought much of the effect which it might have on the social position of
women. Yet probably no one of those who made that question a special
study has done half as much as she towards its settlement. A claim for
more extended freedom of action, based on proved public usefulness in
the highest sense of the word, with the whole nation to look on and
bear witness, is one which must be listened to, and cannot be easily
refused." Lord Stanley was mistaken in supposing that Miss Nightingale
thought little of the effect of her mission upon the position of women;
for, though she had misgivings about "woman's missionaries," yet to make
"a better life for woman"[220] was an object very near her heart. When
she was in the Crimea, working as hard as any of the men, confronting
disease and death with the bravest of them, administering, reforming,
counselling as energetically as the best of them, this resolute woman
felt that she and her companions had raised their sex to the height of a
great occasion. "War," she wrote to her friend, Mr. Bracebridge (Nov. 4,
1855), "makes Deborahs and Absaloms and Achitophels; and when, if ever
the Magnificat has been true, has it been more true than now, every word
of it? My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God
my Saviour. For He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden." The
words, which had often been in her mouth in moments of despondency and
thwarted yearning,[221] came to her with the sense of happy fulfilment
when she had been able to act as the handmaiden of God in the service of
the sick and wounded soldiers. Her sister, understanding her better in
the years of attainment than in those of aspiration, wrote to her (Nov.
15, 1855): "What anxious work you have upon you, my Greatheart, and yet
in spite of it all have you not found your true home--the home of your
spirit?"
[220] See below, p. 385, and above, p. 102.
[221] Above, p. 94.
All this was true. Yet Miss Nightingale's Crimean mission was, in the
scheme of her life as she had planned it, and in the facts of her life
so far as failing health permitted, not so much a climax, as an episode.
It was an episode remarkable in itself, and it had given her a
world-wide reputation; but in reputation she saw nothing except an
opportunity for further work. "The abilities which she has displayed,"
said Mr. Sidney Herbert in Willis's Rooms, "cannot be allowed to
slumber. So long as she lives, her labours are marked out for her. The
diamond has shown itself, and it must not be allowed to return to the
mine." Her friend well knew that he was only expressing the feelings of
her own mind. What she sought on her return to England was to utilize
her reputation and her experience for the furtherance of her ideals. Her
experiences during the Crimean War had enlarged the scope of her work.
She had gained an insight into military administration, and had shown a
grasp of the subject, which had caused the Queen and Prince to "wish we
had her at the War Office." Her first duty, then, was to use her
experience, so far as opportunity offered, to improve the medical
administration of the Army. But the main desire of her life had been to
raise nursing to the rank of a trained calling. Her mission to the East
had not accomplished this object. It had only advertised it, and for the
rest had shown how urgently the thing needed to be done. The world
praised her achievement. She was rather conscious of its shortcoming,
and of the obstacles and difficulties with which it had been attended.
She came back from the East more resolved than ever to be a pioneer in
the reform of nursing.
But first she needed rest and seclusion. Rest, in which to recuperate
from the long strain of labours, hardships, and anxieties. Seclusion, in
which to hide herself from publicity and applause. The world praised her
self-sacrifice. She felt that she had made none. Rather had she been
privileged to attain that harmony between the soul of a human being and
its appointed work, in which, according to her philosophy, lay the union
of man with the Divine Spirit. She shrank from glory in dread of
vain-glory. "'Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me?' God might
question." "I believe," she had written to her father in 1854, shortly
before her Call to the Crimea came, "that there is, within and without
human nature, a revelation of eternal existence, eternal progress for
human nature. At the same time I believe that to do that part of this
world's work which harmonizes, accords with the idiosyncrasy of each of
us, is the means by which we may at once render this world the
habitation of the Divine Spirit in Man, and prepare for other such work
in other of the worlds which surround us. The Kingdom of Heaven is
within us. Those words seem to me the most of a revelation, of a New
Testament, of a Gospel--of any that are recorded to have been spoken by
our Saviour." Her period of rest was to be very short, as we shall
learn; but let us leave her communing silently in her chamber with such
thoughts, till another Part opens a new chapter of activity in her
life.
PART III
FOR THE HEALTH OF THE SOLDIERS
(1856-1861)
We can do no more for those who have suffered and died in their
country's service; they need our help no longer; their spirits are
with God who gave them. It remains for us to strive that their
sufferings may not have been endured in vain--to endeavour so to
learn from experience as to lessen such sufferings in future by
forethought and wise management.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (Reply to
Address from the Parishioners of East Wellow, Dec. 1856).
CHAPTER I
THE QUEEN, MISS NIGHTINGALE, AND LORD PANMURE
(August-November 1856)
To shape the whisper of a throne.--TENNYSON.
Whenever the British people have muddled through a war, there is a time
of repentance and heart-searching. England the Unready turns round
uneasily and thinks that she must now mend her ways. The lessons of the
war must be learnt. The word "efficiency" is blessed in every mouth.
Radical reforms, with a view to ensuring a better state of preparedness
next time, are canvassed, and a few of them are sometimes carried out.
And then to the hot fit, a cold fit succeeds. War and its lessons fade
into the past. Economy displaces efficiency as the favourite word. Peace
seems to be more likely than another war, and, if war should unhappily
come, it is cheerily hoped that England will again "muddle through
somehow." The spasm of reform is over, leaving the permanent _vis
inertiae_ of ministers and departments once more in undisturbed
possession. Reformers, familiar with this succession of flow and ebb,
know that they must seize the favourable moment, and more or less is
done, according as they are more or less prompt and energetic. In the
field of the Army Medical Service, where the Crimean War had exposed
deficiencies both glaring and terrible, large and far-reaching reforms
were set in motion during the years immediately following the Crimean
peace. Indeed it may be said that from this period dates the first
serious and sustained movement for the application of sanitary science
to the British Army.
That effective use was thus made of the spasm of repentance which
followed the Crimean War was due primarily and mainly to the zealous
co-operation of two individuals, the same two whose alliance formed a
principal subject of the preceding Part of this Memoir--Sidney Herbert
and Florence Nightingale. When her friend died in 1861, worn out
prematurely by unceasing labours for the British Army, Miss Nightingale
devoted to his memory an account of his work during the years 1856-1861.
In that pamphlet[222]--a model of lucidity and concision--while yet
informed with comprehensive insight, and not untouched by emotion--she
made no reference of any kind to her own share in the work. She
described the reforms, and said that in all that was done "Sidney
Herbert was head and centre." And so in many respects he was. He was the
Chairman of the Royal Commission and the Sub-Commissions. He was
afterwards Minister for War. He was from first to last the official head
of the reform movement. And he was much more than the official head. He
worked with unfailing zeal, and threw his heart and soul into the work.
Yet if Sidney Herbert had written the account, he might have said that
Florence Nightingale was the head and centre of it all. If she could
have done little without him, so also might he have done little without
her. He was in the foreground, she in the background. His was the public
voice; the words which he spoke or wrote were often the words of
Florence Nightingale. He was the practical politician who carried out
their common schemes. The initiating, the inspiring, the impelling force
was hers. And she did much more than give general impetus. Her mastery
of detail was ever at Mr. Herbert's elbow. "I never intend to tell you,"
he wrote to her when the first of the Royal Commissions in which they
co-operated was nearing its end (August 7, 1857), "how much I owe you
for all your help during the last three months, for I should never be
able to make you understand how helpless my ignorance would have been
among the Medical Philistines. God bless you!" But between two such
loyal allies and understanding friends, it were needless to apportion
the relative shares. They spoke and wrote of their working together as
"our Cabinet," "our Cabal," or "our Mess." It is the story of this
comradeship, rich in human interest, and fraught with lasting benefit to
the British Army, that is to form the main subject of this and the
following four chapters.
[222] An expansion, issued in 1862, of a memorandum, privately printed
in 1861. See below, p. 408.
II
What Miss Nightingale needed on her return from the East, and what, had
she thought only of herself, she would have taken, was a long spell of
rest. She had been through a campaign of labour and anxiety, under
conditions of strain and distress, such as might have undermined the
strongest constitution. Mr. Herbert, who was in Ireland when she
returned to England, surmised from her letters that she was overwrought,
and sent her the prescription of his Carlsbad doctor--_ni lire_, _ni
écrire_, _ni réfléchir_. After such severe tension of mind and body, a
reaction was inevitable. He sent the prescription, but he did not expect
her entirely to adopt it. "I should doubt," he wrote to her uncle, "with
a mind constituted as hers is, whether _entire_ rest, with a total
cessation from all active business, would not be a greater trial and
less effective for her restoration to health than a life of some, though
very limited and moderate, occupation." He seems to have hoped that she
might be persuaded to take up comparatively quiet nursing work in a
London hospital. Presently they met (Sept.) in the country-house of
their mutual friends, the Bracebridges, and Mr. Bracebridge thought that
Mr. Herbert was "lukewarm" on the subject of Army Reform. Perhaps it was
that he wished to consider Miss Nightingale's health and keep her free
from exciting activity. But nothing was further from her thoughts than
neutrality or passive spectatorship. She was burning for the fray, and
flung all consideration of health aside in order to devote herself to
rousing the lukewarm and organizing the resolute.
To understand the passionate devotion, the self-sacrificing ardour, with
which Miss Nightingale set to work immediately upon her return, we must
remember what she had seen in the East. She had "identified herself," as
we have heard, "with the heroic dead," and she knew that many of her
"children," as she called them, had died, not of necessity, but from
neglect. "No one," she wrote,[223] "can feel for the Army as I do. These
people who talk to us have all fed their children on the fat of the land
and dressed them in velvet and silk, while we have been away. I have had
to see my children dressed in a dirty blanket and an old pair of
regimental trousers, and to see them fed on raw salt meat, and nine
thousand of my children are lying, from causes which might have been
prevented, in their forgotten graves. But I can never forget. People
must have seen that long, long dreadful winter to know what it was."
Others might know the facts, but she _felt_ them. The strength of her
character and powers lay, however, in the combination of intense feeling
with intellectual grasp. She not only felt the neglect which had
sacrificed her children's lives, but she tabulated the causes. The facts
which had come under her eye, the figures in which she summarized and
analysed them, filled her with a passion of resentment. During her
residence in the Eastern hospitals she had seen 4600 soldiers die. And
as she studied the figures, the conclusion was irresistibly borne in
upon her that the greater number need not have died at all. Many of the
diseases to which they had succumbed were induced, and others were
aggravated, in the hospitals themselves. Her personal observation told
her that it was so; statistical inquiry proved it. "We had," she pointed
out, "during the first seven months of the Crimean campaign, a mortality
among the troops at the rate of 60 per cent per annum from _disease_
alone, a rate of mortality which exceeds that of the Great Plague in
London, and a higher ratio than the mortality in cholera to the
attacks." By a series of reforms, largely the result of Miss
Nightingale's own untiring efforts and vehement expostulations, this
terrible rate of mortality was reduced. "We had, during the last six
months of the war, a mortality among our _sick_ not much more than among
our _healthy_ guards at home, and a mortality among our troops, in the
last five months, two-thirds only of what it is among our troops at
home." It was obvious from this comparison that the mortality during the
first period was largely preventable. Here was "a complete
example--history does not afford its equal--of an army, after a great
disaster arising from neglects, having been brought into the highest
state of health and efficiency." It was the most complete experiment
ever made in army hygiene. And Miss Nightingale was filled with a
passionate desire that the lessons of the experiment should be taken to
heart by the nation; that such radical reforms should be made as would
render a repetition of the disaster and the neglects impossible in the
future. She knew that nothing short of radical reform would suffice.
"There is nothing," she wrote in summarizing the neglect of sanitary
precautions at Scutari, "in the education of the Medical
Officer--nothing in the organization or powers of the Army Medical
Department--nothing in the whole Hospital procedure--nothing in the Army
Regulations which would have met the case of these Hospitals. And were a
similar necessity to arise again, especially after the lapse of a few
years of peace, the whole thing would occur over again. This is the
frightful consideration which ought to make us recall over and over
again this experience--otherwise, let bygones be bygones."[224]
[223] In a letter, dated Feb. 9, 1857, of which she kept a copy. To whom
addressed does not appear.
[224] _Notes_, sec. iii. p. viii.
But this was not the whole case. Miss Nightingale carried further the
principle, which in these days is perhaps at last coming to be
understood, that success in war depends upon preparation in peace. "You
cannot improvise an Army," says Lord Roberts. "You cannot improvise the
sanitary care of an Army in the field," said Miss Nightingale. If the
medical service in the field were deficient, if the lessons of sanitary
science were neglected in war hospitals, it was probable, she perceived,
that there were like defects at home. She put her thesis to the test of
figures, and was appalled at the verification which they supplied. The
idea had first occurred to her on meeting Dr. Farr, the statistician in
the Registrar-General's office, at dinner with her friends Colonel and
Mrs. Tulloch. Dr. Farr had talked of mortality tables in civil life, and
Miss Nightingale resolved to compare them with the death-rate in
British barracks. She found that in the Army, from the age of twenty to
thirty-five, the mortality was nearly double that which it was in civil
life. This was the case even in the Guards, who yet were select lives,
the pick of the recruits. "With our present amount of sanitary
knowledge," she wrote to Sir John McNeill (March 1, 1857), "it is as
criminal to have a mortality of 17, 19, and 20 per 1000 in the Line,
Artillery, and Guards in England, when that of Civil life is only 11 per
1000, as it would be to take 1100 men per annum out upon Salisbury Plain
and shoot them--no body of men being so much under control, none so
dependent upon their employers for health, life, and morality as the
Army." And again (March 28): "This disgraceful state of our Chatham
Hospitals, which I have been visiting lately,[225] is only one more
symptom of a system which, in the Crimea, put to death 16,000 men--the
finest experiment modern history has seen upon a large scale, viz. as to
what given number may be put to death at will by the sole agency of bad
food and bad air." She saw the facts and figures with piercing
clearness, and personal recollections gave intensity to her convictions.
She had deep pity for the victims of preventable disease, and still
deeper admiration for the uncomplaining heroism with which such
sufferings were borne. Nothing ever effaced from her mind what she had
witnessed in this sort at Scutari and in the Crimea. "We hear with
horror," she wrote, "of the loss of 400 men on board the _Birkenhead_ by
carelessness at sea; but what should we feel if we were told that 1100
men are annually doomed to death in our Army at home by causes which
might be prevented? The men in the _Birkenhead_ went down with a cheer.
So will our men fight for us to the last with a cheer. The more reason
why all the means of health which Sanitary Science has put at our
command, all the means of morality which Educational Science has given
us, should be given them." Then she turned to the Crimea, described in
the words of Sir John McNeill and Colonel Tulloch[226] the sufferings
and the endurance of the troops, and drew her moral: "Upon those who
watched, week after week and month after month, this enduring courage,
this unalterable patience, simplicity, and good strength, this voiceless
strength to suffer and be still, it has made an impression never to be
forgotten. The Anglo-Saxon on the Crimean heights has won for himself a
greater name than the Spartan at Thermopylae, as the six months'
struggle to endure was a greater proof of what man can do than the six
hours' struggle to fight. The traces of the name and sacrifice of
Iphigeneia may still be seen in Taurus; but a greater sacrifice has been
there accomplished by a 'handful' of brave men who defended that fatal
position, even to the death. And if Inkerman now bears a name like that
of Thermopylae, so is the story of those terrible trenches, through
which these men patiently and deliberately, and week after week, went,
till they returned no more, greater than that of Inkerman. Truly were
the Sebastopol trenches, to our men, like the gate of the Infernal
Regions--_Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate_. And yet these men
would refuse to report themselves sick, lest they should throw more
labour on their comrades. They would draw their blankets over their
heads and die without a word. Well may it be said that there is hardly
an example in history to compare with this long and silent fortitude.
But surely the blood of such men is calling to us from the ground, not
to avenge them, but to have mercy on their survivors![227] To that cry,
Florence Nightingale, at least, responded through every fibre of her
being. She was resolved to be "a saviour," and to press home every
lesson of the Crimean campaign.
[225] See below, p. 349.
[226] _Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Supplies of the
British Army_, pp. 2, 3.
[227] _Notes on the Army_, pp. 249-50, 507-8. The latter passage
continues with some words which Miss Nightingale had previously
written, and which I have quoted as a motto for the present
Part (p. 309).
The strength of her resolve was heightened by a sense of the
responsibility which her opportunities laid upon her. She had enjoyed
peculiar facilities for observing the whole medical history of the
campaign. She had been able to take the measure of many of the military
and medical officials; she knew which were the men from whom help might
be expected in the work of reform, and of most of such men she had the
ear and the respect. Her popular fame added to the authority with which
her experience and her services invested her. There were others who
knew, or might have known, the facts as well as she. There were few who
could exercise the same influence, and perhaps there was not one who
could judge the facts with the same disinterestedness. She was not a
politician. She had no party to defend, no officials to shield, no
susceptibilities to consider. She had nothing to gain, nothing to lose,
nothing to fear. She stood only for a cause; and, come what might, she
was resolved to fling every power of mind and body into it. Among her
private notes of 1856 I find this: "I stand at the altar of the murdered
men, and, while I live, I fight their cause."
III
The opportunity was not long in coming. For a week or two at Lea Hurst
she was engaged in such laborious, but unexciting, tasks as settling
accounts and claims with the nurses; distributing the Sultan's gift
among them; answering congratulatory addresses and the like; escaping
from public appearances;[228] and dealing with hailstorms, as her sister
called them, of miscellaneous letters. She was besieged by Vegetarians,
Spiritualists, Sectaries, and other birds of the feather that swoop down
upon conspicuous personages. With distressed gentlewomen she was a
favourite prey. "Can you find soldiers' orphans for me to educate,"
wrote one, "because I don't like leaving my sisters?" "Please find a
place for me," wrote another, "where there will be something to do not
derogatory. I am an Irish lady of family." The begging-letters were
innumerable, and the answering of these was taken over by her sister. "I
think I can now repeat the formula to perfection," she said, "and I
could write a begging-letter at the shortest notice in the character of
every individual, from a staff-officer to a costermonger, and a widow
with six children." But here Lady Verney's lively pen suggests some
little injustice. Officers did occasionally write to Miss Nightingale, I
find, to beg her "vote and interest," as it were; but of begging-letters
proper, she told Mr. Kinglake that there had never come one to her from
a soldier.[229] Mr. Kinglake, I may here say, made her acquaintance in
the spring of 1857, when her mind was full of the McNeill-Tulloch
_affaire_. She failed to make him take her view of that
controversy,[230] and her first impression of the historian-to-be of the
Crimean War was that he would write a book more brilliant than judicial.
"Though I have no doubt he is a good counsel," she wrote,[231] "he
strikes me as a very bad historian." Three years later, she wrote in a
similar strain:--
I had two hours' good conversation with Mr. Kinglake. I found him
exceedingly courteous and agreeable; looking upon the whole idea as
a work of art and emotion, and upon me as one of the colours in the
picture; upon the Chelsea Board as a safe (or rather an infallible)
authority; upon McNeill and Tulloch as interlopers; upon figures
(arithmetical) as worthless; upon assertion as proof. He was
utterly and _self-sufficiently_ in the dark as to all the real
causes of the Crimean Mortality. And you might as well try to
enlighten Sir G. Brown himself. For Lord Raglan he has an
enthusiasm which _I fully share_ but which entirely blinds Mr.
Kinglake, who besides came home long before the real distress, to
the causes of that distress. I put him in possession of some of the
materials. But I do not hope that he will, I am quite sure that he
will not, make use of them.[232]
[228] Her sister used to describe the disappointment of herself and her
mother when Florence refused to accompany them to a garden-party at
Chatsworth. The Duke of Devonshire was a great admirer of Miss
Nightingale's work, and formed a collection of newspaper cuttings
about it, which he presented to the Derby Free Library. He
presented Miss Nightingale with a silver owl, in recognition of her
wisdom, and in memory of her pet (see above, p. 160).
[229] _Invasion of the Crimea_, vol. vi. p. 426 _n._
[230] See below, p. 336.
[231] In a letter to Sir John McNeill, May 3, 1857.
[232] Letter to Edwin Chadwick, Oct. 17, 1860. He had urged her to see
Mr. Kinglake with a view to indoctrinating him with the true moral
of the Crimean muddles.
Miss Nightingale here was wrong. Mr. Kinglake made considerable use of
her materials, and drew from them and from his personal impressions an
excellent picture of the Lady-in-Chief; though on the point about which
she was concerned, the McNeill-Tulloch _affaire_, he remained of the
same opinion still.
Of Miss Nightingale's demeanour during her short holiday at home in
August 1856, there is a pleasant account in a letter from her
sister[233]:--
She is better, I think, but I quite hate the sight of the post with
its long official envelopes. She will go on as long as she has
strength doing everything which cannot be left without detriment to
the work to which she has devoted her life. I cannot conceive
anything more beautiful than her frame of mind. It is so calm, so
cheerful, so simple. The physical hardships one does not wonder at
her forgetting to speak of; but the marvel to me is how the mental
ones,--the indifference, the ignorance, the cruelty, the falsehood
she has had to encounter--never seem to ruffle her for an instant
(and never have done, Aunt Mai says). It is as if she dwelt in
another atmosphere of peace and trust in Him which nothing wicked
can dim. She speaks of these things sadly and quietly as some one
from another world might do, seeing so plainly the excuses for the
wrong-doers, while the personal part never seems to come in, and
there is such a charm about her perfect simplicity. There is not
the smallest particle of the martyr about her; she is as merry
about little things as ever, in the intervals of her great thought,
and with as much interest about the little things of home as if she
had not been wielding the management and organization of the
material and spiritual comfort of the 50,000 men passing through
hospital and out. If you heard all the evidence we have had lately
from doctors, chaplains and officers, you would not think I am
exaggerating in saying that these depended mainly upon her during
the whole of these 21 months. As to her indifference to praise, it
is most extraordinary; she just passes on and does not heed it, as
it comes in every morning in its flood--papers, music, poetry,
friends, letters, addresses.
[233] To Miss Ellen Tollet from Lea Hurst.
The addresses and presentations which she most valued came from
working-men. A case of Sheffield cutlery, presented by artisans in that
city, was always treasured, and was the subject of a specific bequest in
her will. She was much touched by an address from 1800 working-men at
Newcastle-on-Tyne. "My dear friends," she wrote in the course of her
reply (August 1856), "the things that are deepest in our hearts are
perhaps what it is most difficult to express. 'She hath done what she
could.' These words I inscribed on the tomb of one of my best helpers
when I left Scutari. It has been my endeavour, in the sight of God, to
do as she has done."
Presently there came to Lea Hurst a letter of much importance in Miss
Nightingale's life. Her friend, Sir James Clark, the Queen's physician,
wrote from Osborne (August 23, 1856) begging her to stay during the
following month at his home, Birk Hall, near Ballater. The air of
Scotland would be beneficial, he said, to her health; and there were
other reasons. The Court would shortly be moved to Balmoral. The Queen
would doubtless invite Miss Nightingale there. Meanwhile Her Majesty
knew of the present invitation; and there would be opportunity at Birk
Hall for quiet and informal talk in addition to any "command" visit at
Balmoral. Miss Nightingale heard in this letter a call hardly less
important than that to the Crimea, two years before. She had served with
the Queen's army in the East. Her services had received sympathetic
support and approbation from the Queen and the Prince. She was now to
have full opportunities for bringing to their knowledge, in personal
intercourse, what she had seen of the soldiers' sufferings, and for
enlisting their support, if she could, in what she knew to be necessary
for the prevention of such sufferings in the future. She succeeded, as
will presently appear; and she deserved her success by the thoroughness
with which she prepared herself to make the best use of her opportunity.
The two men who had thrown light most searchingly on the defects of the
campaign, in the matter of supply and transport, were Sir John McNeill
and Colonel Tulloch. Miss Nightingale arranged to see and confer with
the former at Edinburgh on her way to Ballater. Colonel Tulloch, though
he was far distant at the time, agreed to join the conclave, and,
meanwhile, he wrote (from Killin, Sept. 6): "If H.M. should afford you
an opportunity of telling the whole truth, as I think it likely she
wishes to do from her desire to see you under another roof, without her
enquiries being noticed, perhaps you might bring to her knowledge,"
etc., etc. [various points which he deemed of special importance]. Mr.
Herbert's advice was more general. "I hope," he wrote (Sept. 9), "that
your Highland foray will do you good. I am sure it will, if you find
help and encouragement for your plans. I hope you will talk fully, and
illustrate by facts and details. They explain best. Men and women
require picture-books, just as much as children, when they are to learn
something of which they know nothing previously." She armed herself, by
study of statistics, by collection of her notes and memoranda, by
inquiries on all sides, for every occasion which the sympathetic
interest of the Queen or the Prince might give her. She felt, and others
felt, that great things might turn on her use of such occasions. The
fullest and most suggestive letter which she received was from Colonel
Lefroy. He was employed at the War Office. He knew the weaknesses of his
Chief. He knew also the strength of the Department to resist. He had
been employed, as we have heard already,[234] on a confidential mission
to the Crimea, and had formed the highest opinion of "the glorious
fidelity, the self-sacrifice, the heroic courage, and single-minded
devotion" with which Miss Nightingale had performed her duties in the
East. He looked for great results from her visit to Scotland:--
(_Colonel Lefroy to Miss Nightingale._) _August_ 28.... I never had
the good fortune to have an interview with the Queen, but I have
had several with Prince Albert. The Prince exhibited such a
remarkable knowledge of the subjects he was enquiring about, so
strong and clear and business-like a capacity that you will, I
think, find it both expedient and necessary, or rather unavoidable,
to enter into a full and unreserved communication of your
observations, and be tempted irresistibly to let fall such
suggestions as are most likely to germinate in that high latitude.
If I am correct in this impression, a similar frankness with Lord
Panmure follows. I was once amused by the Prince remarking on a
point of military education, "I have urged it over and over again;
they do not mind what I say," showing that even he cannot always
overcome the _vis inertiae_ of Departmental indifference or prevail
on people to move. It may be so in any question of medical reform.
Lord Panmure hates detail, and does not appreciate system. He can
reform but not organise. It is organisation we want, but which
arouses every instinct of resistance in the British bosom, and it
is this which can be least influenced by H.M.'s personal interest
in it. Like a rickety clumsy machine, with a pin loose here and a
tooth broken there, and a makeshift somewhere else, in which the
force of Hercules may be exhausted in a needless friction and
obscure hitches before the hands are got to move, so is our
Executive, with the Treasury, the Horse Guards, the War Department,
the Medical Department all out of gear, but all required to move
together before a result can be attained. He will be stronger than
Hercules, who gets out of it the movement we require. I think I
would recommend ... [a long statement of suggested reforms,
including "a Commission to enquire into the existing Regulations
for Hospital Administration"]. In some form or other we have almost
a right to ask at your hands an account of the trials you have gone
through, the difficulties you have encountered, and the evils you
have observed--not only because no other person ever was or can be
in such a position to give it, but because, permit me to say, no
one else is so gifted. It will be no ordinary task; and no ordinary
powers of reasoning, illustrating, grouping facts will be
requisite. Another might repeat what you told him, but the burning
conviction, the _vis viva_ of the soul cannot be imparted.... It
appears to me that either a confidential report addressed to Lord
Panmure _upon a formal request_, or evidence before such a
Commission as I have proposed above would be suitable means--the
latter the most so, as I fear that more publicity than attends
confidential reports will be necessary. I earnestly hope that your
interviews with the Queen and Lord Panmure may be the means of
leading both to interest themselves effectually in the vital
reforms required. The axe has to be laid to the root of the tree
yet.
[234] See above, p. 297.
Various friends tendered advice as to what Miss Nightingale should say
if she were to be asked what the Queen could "do for her." She might
petition to be placed in charge of the new hospital about to be built at
Netley, or to be appointed Lady Superintendent of Nurses in all military
hospitals, and so forth. Her own ideas were on the lines of Colonel
Lefroy's letter. She would, first, tell the whole truth of the campaign,
so far as it had come under her personal observation. If given any
encouragement to proceed, she would explain in general terms the kind of
remedies which she deemed essential. She would offer, if the
conversation took a suitable turn, to embody her observations and
suggestions in a written report. If further honoured by any suggestion
of Royal favour, she would ask--for herself, nothing but for the sake of
the soldiers, a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole condition of
barracks, hospitals, and the Army Medical Department.
IV
Thus armed, and thus resolved, Miss Nightingale set out for Scotland,
under her father's escort. Between father and daughter there was genuine
affection; but Mr. Nightingale was in indifferent health, and was
constitutionally of a retiring disposition. After a few days he beat a
retreat. It had been supposed that the "foray" would be short. In fact
it lasted for a month. Miss Nightingale reached Edinburgh on September
15, and, staying there a few days, took occasion to inspect the barracks
and hospitals. She left for Birk Hall on September 19, and two days
later she was introduced to the Queen and the Prince at Balmoral by Sir
James Clark. "She put before us," wrote the Prince in his diary, "all
the defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms
that are needed. We are much pleased with her; she is extremely
modest."[235] A few days later (Sept. 26) the Queen drove over from
Balmoral to Birk Hall, and Miss Nightingale had "tea and a great talk"
with Her Majesty. The impression made on the Queen has been already
recorded in her letter to the Duke of Cambridge: "I wish we had her at
the War Office." The Duke, who was not exactly a red-hot reformer, must
have been thankful that the wish of his August Relative for a new broom
did not extend to the Horse Guards. "My hopes were somewhat raised,"
wrote Miss Nightingale to Sir John McNeill (Sept. 27), "by the great
willingness of the Queen, Prince Albert, and Sir George Grey, all of
whom I have seen together and separately, to listen and to ask
questions." "I have had most satisfactory interviews," she wrote to her
Uncle Sam (Sept. 25), "with the Queen, the Prince, and Sir George Grey.
Satisfactory, that is, as far as their _will_, not as their _power_ is
concerned." Miss Nightingale is not the only impatient reformer who has
been tempted to wish that knots of red tape could be cut by a direct
exercise of the Royal Prerogative. The Prince knew "in what limits" he
and the Queen moved. Nothing could be done except through Ministers, and
the Minister for War would shortly be in attendance at Balmoral. "The
Queen," continued Miss Nightingale, "wished me to remain to see Lord
Panmure here rather than in London, because she thinks it more likely
that something might be done with him here with her to back me. I don't.
But I am obliged to succumb." So she stayed on at Birk Hall, her
"command" visit to Balmoral being postponed till Lord Panmure should
arrive. The Queen sent a good character of Miss Nightingale to the
Minister in advance. "Lord Panmure," she wrote, "will be much gratified
and struck with Miss Nightingale--her powerful, clear head, and simple,
modest manner."[236] The Queen had "accepted with great grace" the
suggestion that any letter of recommendations sent by Miss Nightingale
to Lord Panmure should be sent also to Her Majesty direct.
[235] _Life of the Prince Consort_, vol. iii. p. 503.
[236] _Panmure_, vol. ii. p. 306.
V
The point of interest among Miss Nightingale's Reform "Cabinet" now
shifted from the Queen to her Ministers. The Court had been won. "Lord
Auckland says," wrote Lady Verney to her sister, "that he hears from
Lord Clarendon that the Queen was enchanted with you." But what
impression would she make upon the less susceptible "Bison" (for so the
burly Scot, Lord Panmure, was called by Miss Nightingale and her
friends)? She had reported herself to him immediately on her return from
the East, and he had replied politely, but postponed the pleasure of an
interview. Mr. Herbert was not sure that much would come of it even in
the sympathetic air of Balmoral. "I gather," he wrote (Oct. 3), "that
upon the whole you are pleased with the result of your conversations
with the Queen and Prince Albert. I hope you will do equally well with
Panmure, tho' I am not sanguine; for, tho' he has plenty of shrewd
sense, there is a _vis inertiae_ in his resistance which is very
difficult to overcome." Sir John McNeill was more hopeful. He attached
great importance to the personal factor in Miss Nightingale's favour:--
"I anticipate considerable advantage," he wrote (Sept. 29), "from
your interview with Lord Panmure. He has seen your name in every
newspaper, and probably has no very accurate, or perhaps a very
inaccurate notion, of what sort of person Miss Florence Nightingale
is. He may perhaps think that a lady whose name is so frequently
mentioned can hardly be indifferent to popular applause and that
with so strong a hold upon the feelings of the nation, she is not
unlikely to use it for the gratification of personal ambition. If
he has such notions, he will be undeceived. He will find that
influenced by higher motives you have no desire to employ your
influence for any other purpose than to do all the good you can in
the work which you have chosen, and that the absence of personal
motive it is which gives you the courage and the right to speak
fearlessly the whole truth, and to persevere in the direct line of
duty whatever may be the difficulties or the obstacles. He will see
that you have no desire to become in any sense a rival, and that it
rests with him to make you a co-adjutor or an opponent, as he may
be willing or unwilling to promote the good which you consider it
your plain duty as far as in you lies to carry out."
Sir John's attitude to Miss Nightingale was always a little paternal,
and I think that we may perhaps read between the lines of his
well-turned sentences a hint and a caution, under the guise of an
encomium. The hint was not needed. She was entirely free from any
temptation to use her popularity for purposes of personal ambition; but
she was to show considerable skill in the use of it, as a weapon in
reserve, for furthering her public objects. Mr. Herbert and Sir John
McNeill were both right. The personal factor prevailed, as Sir John
hoped; and Miss Nightingale won the Minister, even as she had won the
Court--or seemed to win him. He promised all she asked; but it was also
as Mr. Herbert feared, and the force of passive resistance was long
maintained.
When Lord Panmure reached Balmoral, Miss Nightingale was commanded
thither. The Court Circular (Oct. 6) chronicled her attendance at church
with the Queen, and at the ball given to the gillies it was noticed that
she was seated with the Royal Family. She had an opportunity to "tell
the Prince the whole story" of her experiences in the East. Another side
of her interests also came into play on this occasion. She had talks
with Prince Albert "on metaphysics and religion." Then Lord Panmure,
following in the steps of his Sovereign, went to see Miss Nightingale
at Birk Hall, and they had long conversations. "You may like to know,"
wrote Mr. John Clark[237] (Oct. 13), "that you fairly overcame Pan. We
found him with his mane absolutely silky, and a loving sadness pervading
his whole being." "I forget whether I told you," wrote Sidney Herbert
(Nov. 2), "that the Bison wrote to me very much pleased with his
interview with you. He says that he was very much surprised at your
physical appearance, as I think you must have been with his. God bless
you!" Lord Panmure, I suspect, was one of those men who presume that any
strong-minded woman will be physically ill-favoured. At any rate Miss
Nightingale greatly impressed the Minister, even as the Queen had
predicted. In general terms, Lord Panmure seemed very favourable to Miss
Nightingale's suggestions. It was agreed that she should presently write
out her experiences with notes on necessary reforms for the information
of the Government, and in this request the Prime Minister, Lord
Palmerston, associated himself with Lord Panmure. The Minister for War
seemed well disposed towards a scheme to which she attached great
importance--the establishment of an Army Medical School. He agreed in
principle to the appointment of a Royal Commission. So she had gained,
it seemed, all she wanted, and the Minister threw in an additional point
of his own.[238] The plans for the hospital at Netley--the first General
Military Hospital--were at this time far advanced. Lord Panmure would
send the plans to Miss Nightingale, and would be much obliged for her
remarks upon them. Conversation on this and all the other subjects just
mentioned was to be resumed when they would both be in London in
November.
[237] Son of Sir James, whom he succeeded in the baronetcy; married to
Charlotte Coltman. There was afterwards a family connection with
the Nightingales, as Lady Clark's nephew, Mr. William Coltman,
married Miss Nightingale's cousin, Bertha Smith.
[238] Which, however, may not improbably have been suggested to him by
the Queen. For Her Majesty's initiative and keen interest in the
matter of the Netley Hospital, see _Life of the Prince Consort_,
vol. iii. pp. 227, 491.
VI
When news of the spoils, which Miss Nightingale had brought back from
her Highland "foray," reached her little "Cabinet" of reformers, their
hopes ran high, and arrangements were promptly made for meetings and
consultations. The Lady-in-Chief broke her journey southwards at
Edinburgh, in order to confer again with Sir John McNeill. On October 15
she was back at Lea Hurst, and entered into correspondence with other of
the confederates. On November 2, she came to London, making her
headquarters at the Burlington in Old Burlington Street, the favourite
hostelry at this time of her family: a house which came to be known
among those behind the scenes as "The Little War Office." She drew up
lists of an ideal Royal Commission, and circulated it among her allies
for their suggestions, and, in the case of those whom she proposed to
nominate, for their consent. One of these latter was her friend and
physician at Scutari, Dr. Sutherland. "I have just received your
letter," he wrote (Nov. 12), "and am led to believe that there must be a
foundation of truth under the old myth about the Amazon women somewhere
to the East of Scutari. All I can say is that if you had been queen of
that respectable body in old days, Alexander the Great would have had
rather a bad chance. Your project has developed itself far better than I
expected, and I think I see a way of doing good and therefore I shall
serve on the Commission. _Get Alexander_. Nobody else if you cannot. He
is our man. I am to meet you to-night at Sir James Clark's to dinner,
and shall be very glad to talk over the subject further." Dr. Sutherland
assumed, it will be seen, that the Amazon would carry him in; and she
did. Over Dr. Alexander there was a stiff fight. Miss Nightingale had
been greatly impressed in the Crimea by his skill, fearlessness, and
activity. He had now received an appointment in Canada, and Lord Panmure
objected to recalling him; but Mr. Herbert made his own acceptance of
the Chairmanship conditional on the appointment of Dr. Alexander, "the
ablest and most effective man with our Army."[239] Sir James Clark's
consent to serve was doubtless secured at the dinner just mentioned. Sir
James Ranald Martin was also willing, and he had a candidate of his own.
"Farr," he wrote to Colonel Tulloch (Nov. 11), "ought to be a member. I
wish you would take an early opportunity of bringing the question
before Miss Nightingale with all the force of which you are capable."
She was already in correspondence with Dr. William Farr; they had a link
in their common passion for statistics. She did not succeed in carrying
him on to the Commission, but they collaborated in the preparation of
statistical evidence for it. Then she approached Sir Henry Storks, who
was willing to serve. She hoped to be able to include her friend Colonel
Lefroy also, but there she failed. That Sidney Herbert was the Chairman
of her choice goes without saying. The other appointment to which she
naturally attached vital importance was that of a secretary, and her
choice fell upon Dr. Graham Balfour.[240] Having settled the
Commissioners, Miss Nightingale proceeded to draft their Instructions,
and this draft also she circulated for criticism and advice.
[239] _Stanmore_, vol. ii. p. 121.
[240] Thomas Graham Balfour (1813-1891), M.D. of Edinburgh; compiler of
the first four volumes of _Statistics of the British Army_;
assistant-surgeon to the Grenadier Guards.
She was now ready for the promised interview with Lord Panmure. On the
morning of the fateful day, Sir James Clark wrote to her: "I think it
would be well when you see Lord Panmure to make him understand that the
enquiry is intended as, and must comprehend, an investigation into the
whole Medical Department of the Army, and everything regarding the
health of the Army." A needless reminder to her who had everything cut
and dried in that sense long before! "I long to hear," wrote Mr.
Herbert, "what results you obtain from the Bison." Miss Nightingale
preserved her note of the results written at the time, and it is so
characteristic of her humour that I print it very nearly _in extenso_:--
[_Nov._ 16.] My "Pan" here for three hours. Wrote down--
_President_--Mr. Herbert }
General Storks } Jury.
Colonel Lefroy }
Dr. A. Smith }
Dr. McLachlan } Army Doctors.
Dr. Brown }
Dr. Sutherland }
Dr. Martin } Civil Doctors.
Dr. Farr }
_Secretary_--Dr. Balfour Army Doctor.
Will have Drs. balanced. Not fair: two soldiers reckon as against
Civil element. Whenever I represented it (I did not know old "Pan"
was so sharp), he offered to take off Col. Lefroy! So I had to
knock under.
Won't bring back Alexander from Canada. Will have three Army
Doctors. So, like a sensible General in retreat, I named [Dr.
Joseph] Brown, Surgeon Major, Grenadier Guards, therefore not
wedded to Dr. Smith, an old Peninsular and Reformer. Left Lord P.
his McLachlan, who will do less harm than a better man. He has
generously struck out Milton.[241] Seeing him in such a "coming on
disposition," I was so good as to leave him Dr. Smith, the more so
as I could not help it.
Have a tough fight of it: Dr. Balfour as Secretary. Pan amazed at
my condescension in naming a Military Doctor; so I concealed the
fact of the man being a dangerous animal and obstinate innovator.
Failed in one point. Unfairly. Pan told Sir J. Clark he was to be
on. Won't have him now. Sir J. Clark has become interested.
Agreeable to the Queen to have him--just as well to have Her on our
side....
Besides things Ld. P. finds convenient to forget, has really an
inconveniently bad memory as to names, facts, dates, and numbers.
Hope I know what discipline is too well, having had the honour of
holding H.M.'s Commission, to have a better memory than my Chief.
Pan has four Army Doctors really, therefore according to his principle
I have _a right to_ four Civilians.
* * * * *
_Instructions_: general and comprehensive, comprising the whole
Army Medical Department, and the health of the Army, at home and
abroad. Semi-official letter from Secretary of State on Memorandum
from President giving details. Smith, equal parts lachrymose and
threatening, will say, "I did not understand that we were to
inquire into this."
My master jealous. Does not wish it to be supposed he takes
suggestions from me, which crime indeed very unjust to impute to
him.
You must drag it through. If not you, no one else.
* * * * *
(1) Col. Lefroy to be instructed by Lord P. to draw up scheme and
estimate for Army Medical School, appendix to his own Military
Education.--_I won._
(2) Netley Hospital plans to be privately reported on by Sutherland
and me to Lord P.--_I won._
(3) Commissariat to be put on same footing as Indian.--_I lost_.
(4) Camp at Aldershot to "do for" themselves--kill cattle, bake
bread, build, drain, shoe-make, tailor, &c.--_Lord P. will
consider_: quite agrees; means "will do nothing."
(5) Sir J. Hall not to be made Director-General while Lord P. in
office.--_I won._
(6) Colonel Tulloch to be knighted.--_I lost_ (unless I can make
Col. T. accept an agreement, which I shan't).[242]
(7) About Statistics, Lord P. said (i.) the strength of these
regiments averaged only 200, (ii.) denied the mortality, (iii.)
said that statistics prove anything.--And I, a soldier, must not
know better than my Chief.
(8) Lord P. contradicted everything--so that I retain the most
sanguine expectations of success.
[241] Mr. Milton had been sent out to Scutari by the War Office to
assist the Purveyor-in-Chief, and Miss Nightingale considered that
he had dealt only in official "whitewash."
[242] On this subject, see below, p. 338.
A good three hours' work! But many months were to elapse before Lord
Panmure's promise to appoint a Commission was fulfilled. It will be
convenient, however, to anticipate the course of events in one respect,
and to finish here the story of the _personnel_ of the Commission. Lord
Panmure at once wrote to Mr. Herbert, asking him to accept the
Chairmanship: "I wrote to Panmure," he sent word to Miss Nightingale
from Wilton (Nov. 25), "as agreed between us, as _suaviter_ as I could
as to the _modo_, but _in re_ trying to name the Commission and define
the Instructions. I hope I shall hear to-morrow from him, and I will let
you know how the land lies the moment I get any sign from him. Supposing
that he yields, it will be a task of great labour and difficulty, but
one well worth undertaking with a fair prospect of attaining an immense
good, even if we do not get all we want. If he stands out, we must hold
another Council for which I will run up." The text of Mr. Herbert's
letter to Lord Panmure has been printed elsewhere.[243] On the matter of
_personnel_, he suggested General Storks and Colonel Lefroy; two army
doctors, one of whom he insisted should be Dr. Alexander; two civil
doctors, one of whom should be Sir James Clark; a sanitary authority,
Dr. Sutherland; and, lastly, a good examining lawyer. The Commission,
as ultimately appointed, consisted of Mr. Herbert (_Chairman_), Mr.
Augustus Stafford, M.P., General Storks, Dr. A. Smith, Dr. T. Alexander,
Sir T. Phillips, Sir J. Ranald Martin, Sir James Clark, and Dr. J.
Sutherland, with Dr. Graham Balfour as Secretary. If the reader will
compare the ten names resulting from Miss Nightingale's bargaining with
Lord Panmure, it will be seen that there were four changes. She lost one
friend, Colonel Lefroy, but gained another, Mr. Stafford. She gained Dr.
Alexander in place of Dr. McLachlan, and Sir James Clark in place of Dr.
Brown. Dr. Farr was struck off in favour of Mr. Herbert's "good
examining lawyer," Sir T. Phillips. He was the one dark horse; and,
before the Commission sat, Miss Nightingale was asked to meet him. "We
propose an irregular _mess_," wrote Mrs. Herbert to her (May 12, '57),
"as Sidney thinks Sir T. Phillips wants cramming." There was on the
Commission only one upholder of the old régime, Dr. Andrew Smith.
[243] _Stanmore_, vol. ii. pp. 119-122.
Had the facts recited in this chapter been known at the time, Miss
Nightingale's opponents might have found some warrant for a suggestion
that she had packed the Commission. But she and Mr. Herbert packed it
only in the public interest. In discussions about women's rights it is
sometimes said that women need no other opportunities for influence than
such as have always been within their reach. Miss Nightingale, who was
in favour of Female Suffrage, would hardly have gained more influence by
the possession of a vote. But then very few women, and not many men,
have the opportunities, the industry, the mental grasp, and the strength
of will which in combination were the secret of "the Nightingale power."
Lord Panmure delayed his formal reply to Mr. Herbert's letter of
conditions, but sent a short note meanwhile of a friendly character. Mr.
Herbert at once forwarded it to Miss Nightingale (Nov. 30, '56), and
said: "I hope the note augurs well.... All I can promise is to do my
best, and to postpone all other business to this one object till it is
achieved. I shall require great assistance from and thro' you. I shall
like to see all that you are writing as it goes on, if you see no
objection. It would probably tell me much, and lead me to question, and
so learn more." Thus, then, three months after her return from the
Crimean War, broken in bodily health, was this indomitable woman thrown
into the maelstrom of work which will be described in the next chapter.
But it was work for the salvation of the British Army. She "stood at the
altar of the murdered men"; and she shrank from no self-sacrifice.
CHAPTER II
SOWING THE SEED
(Nov. 1856-Aug. 1857)
You have sown the seed, and the harvest will come. God will give
the increase.--SIR JOHN MCNEILL (_Letter to Florence Nightingale_,
on her "Notes affecting the Health of the British Army").
The power of passive resistance wielded by a Department, and the
reluctance or the inability of an easy-going Minister to withstand it,
are unintelligible to those who are not themselves part of an
administrative machine, and they are exasperating to those who are
possessed of an impetuous temper and a resolute will. The Royal
Commission on the health of the Army had been settled "in principle"
between Lord Panmure and Miss Nightingale at their interview on Nov. 16,
1856, and a week later the Minister had received Mr. Herbert's
conditional acceptance of the chairmanship. It was not till May 5, 1857,
that the Royal Warrant actually setting up the Commission was issued.
Throughout the six months of delay, Mr. Herbert and Miss Nightingale
were busily employed in endeavours to persuade or coerce the Secretary
of State into granting the Commission effective powers; the War Office
and the Army Medical Department were as busily counter-working in the
hope of so restricting its scope that any recommendations it might make
would be of a "harmless" character.[244] There is no reason, I think, to
suspect Lord Panmure of insincerity, but he was not the man to force the
pace.
[244] See _Stanmore_, vol. ii. p. 124.
* * * * *
There were moments during the months of delay when Miss Nightingale's
patience was exhausted, and there was one moment when her spirit for
the fight quailed and she thought of taking service in a civil hospital.
Lord Panmure from time to time was afflicted by the gout--"in the
hands," Mr. Herbert said to Miss Nightingale, "and this explains his not
writing." "His gout is always _handy_," she retorted. Then there was the
call of the birds to be shot and the stags to be stalked. "But the Bison
himself is bullyable, remember that." This was the word which she
constantly passed round among her allies. At one time she pressed Mr.
Herbert to issue an ultimatum. Let him renounce the chairmanship
forthwith, unless Lord Panmure put an end peremptorily to the delays and
gave a pledge that the recommendations of the Commission should be acted
upon. Mr. Herbert and her other friends were for a more cautious policy,
and she was overborne. "If you can get us out of the old, miry rut,"
wrote Sir John McNeill (Dec. 19, 1856), "and put us fairly on the rail,
though the plant may be defective and the speed small, we shall go on
improving. Do not allow yourself to be discouraged by delays." She was
not in the end discouraged, but she was not the woman to sit still under
the delays. She remembered her own _mot d'ordre_; and if she did not
"bully the Bison," I imagine that she sometimes administered a feline
stroke or two. In December Lord Panmure asked leave to come to her quiet
room in Burlington Street for a talk. And the talk was quiet, too, I
doubt not, for Miss Nightingale, sometimes biting in private letters,
was never vehement in conversation. But she could be quietly emphatic.
She was fully conscious of the strength of a weapon which she held in
reserve. That weapon was her popularity, and the command, which she
could use, if she chose, of the ear of the press and the public. Lord
Panmure must have been conscious of this factor in the case also. It had
been settled at Balmoral, again "in principle," that Miss Nightingale
was to prepare a Report embodying the results of her experience and
thought. If she and the Minister remained on good terms, if she felt
assured that the Army in medical and sanitary matters would be reformed
from within, her Report would remain confidential. But if she were not
so persuaded, there was nothing to prevent her from heading a popular
agitation for reform from without. This was her weapon for "bullying
the Bison." In a note of self-communing, written during some moment of
disappointment, she reproaches herself with having been "a bad mother"
to the heroic dead, but pledges herself to continue the fight to the
end. She had "begun at the highest, my Sovereign," and had proceeded to
work through the politicians. If all else failed, she would make a last
appeal, "like Cobden with the Corn Law," to the country. "Three months
from this day," she wrote in one of her letters of incitement to Mr.
Herbert, "I publish my experience of the Crimean Campaign, and my
suggestions for improvement, unless there has been a fair and tangible
pledge by that time for reform."
II
Miss Nightingale's exasperation was increased by the attitude of the
Government towards the report of the "Chelsea Board." The
McNeill-Tulloch _affaire_, which filled a large space in public
attention at the time, requires only a brief notice here; the dramatic
aspect of the now forgotten scene at Chelsea is admirably presented by
Kinglake who, however, is not to be accepted as an unbiased authority on
the merits of the dispute.[245] Sir John McNeill and Colonel Tulloch, it
will be remembered,[246] had been sent out to the East in 1855 to
inquire into the transport and commissariat arrangements of the
campaign. Their Report, issued in January 1856, was the one official
document among the pile produced by the Crimean War which brought
responsibility directly home to specified individuals. Every one
remembers the story of Lord Melbourne's protest when he had accidentally
heard a rousing evangelical sermon with a direct "application": "Things
have come to a pretty pass," he said, "when religion is allowed to
invade the sphere of private life." Something of the same indignant
remonstrance was rife when a Report on the Crimean muddle presumed to
invade the sphere of personal responsibility. The impugned officers
raised an outcry, and the Government appointed an examining Board of
other officers to report on the Report which had reported them. This
Board--called after the "Chelsea" Hospital where it sat--removed all
blame from individuals, and found in July 1856 that the true cause of
the Crimean muddle was the failure of the Treasury to send out, at the
proper moment, a particular consignment of pressed hay. Miss Nightingale
had many a gibe at this ridiculous mouse; and, many years later, Sir
John McNeill rebuked "the levity" which referred "the fatal privations
so heroically endured by the troops to so ludicrously inadequate a
cause."[247] Some months were next occupied in the drafting, by the
Treasury officials, of an explanation of the regrettable incident of the
hay. The Government acquiesced, and the affair seemed to be over. And so
it would have been, but for two factors--the press and public opinion.
The _Times_ led a spirited attack upon the Chelsea Board, and public
opinion espoused the cause of Sir John McNeill and Colonel Tulloch.
Their Report had been set aside, and Lord Panmure had omitted even to
thank them for their labours. Sir John remained contemptuously silent,
but Colonel Tulloch, who was of a warmer temper, was vigorous in
self-defence and rejoinder. In several large towns sympathy was
expressed with the slighted Commissioners--a movement which Miss
Nightingale and her family, through friends in various places, did
something to advance. Complimentary addresses were sent to the
Commissioners from the Mayor and Citizens of Bath, of Birmingham, of
Liverpool, of Manchester and of Preston, as also from the Company of
Merchants of the City of Edinburgh.[248] Noting this movement of public
opinion, which was beginning to be reflected in the House of Commons,
Lord Panmure bethought himself of doing something. His expedient was
signally ill-judged. He had "the honour to acquaint" the Commissioners
"that Her Majesty's Government have decided to mark the services
rendered by you in the discharge of your duties in the Crimea, by
tendering to each of you the sum of £1000." This pecuniary estimate of
their services was promptly refused by each of them. "To accept it,"
wrote Mrs. Tulloch, "is almost the only thing I could not pardon in my
husband, but, thank God, he feels as I do on the subject." Miss
Nightingale was equally indignant, but her political instinct was not at
fault. "I am _glad_," she wrote in reply to Mrs. Tulloch (Feb. 20),
"that they have been such _fools_! I am sure the British Lion will
sympathise in this insult, and if it does not, then it is a degraded
beast." She proceeded to rouse the beast. She told Mr. Herbert about the
Government's offer, and he concurred in her view. It was decided to
raise the whole subject in the House of Commons. On March 12, 1857, Mr.
Herbert moved a Humble Address to the Crown praying that Her Majesty
might be pleased to confer some signal mark of favour upon Sir John
McNeill and Colonel Tulloch. The Prime Minister, noting the course of
the debate, accepted the motion, which was agreed to without a division.
"Victory!" wrote Miss Nightingale in her diary; "Milnes came in to tell
us." She thought she had lost in her round with Lord Panmure about
Colonel Tulloch (above, p. 331); but she won after all. He was created
K.C.B., and Sir John, who was already G.C.B., was sworn of the Privy
Council. This episode, which in its initial stages exasperated Miss
Nightingale so much that she was half inclined to throw up the fight,
ended by giving her fresh spirit and encouragement. Her _mot d'ordre_
had come true: the "Bison" had proved bullyable--by parliamentary
pressure. "I direct my letter," she wrote to the now Right Honourable
Sir John McNeill (May 12), "with a great deal of pleasure. I consider
that you and Sir Alexander Tulloch have been borne on the arms of the
people--a much higher triumph than a mere gift of honours by the Crown.
The poor Crown has been worsted. I am sorry for it. But it was not our
fault."[249]
[245] In chap. ix. of vol. vi. Kinglake accepts the finding of the
Chelsea, Board as the last word on the dispute. For the other
side, see Sir Alexander Tulloch's _Crimean Commission and the
Chelsea Board_, 2nd ed., with preface by Sir John McNeill (1880).
[246] See above, p. 257.
[247] Preface to Tulloch's _Crimean Commission_, etc., 1880, p. xiii.
[248] For these addresses, see a pamphlet printed at Edinburgh in 1857,
entitled _Addresses Presented to Sir John McNeill, G.C.B., and
Colonel Tulloch, with their Answers_.
[249] Twenty years later another reparation was made. Sir Theodore
Martin, in his _Life of the Prince Consort_, had taken an
unfavourable view of the McNeill-Tulloch report. In the fifth
edition he revised the passage. "It is almost more than we could
have hoped," wrote Lady Tulloch, in telling Miss Nightingale of the
revision; "I say _we_, knowing how much interest you took in the
matter." "I give you joy," replied Miss Nightingale (Feb. 23,
1878); "I give you both joy, for this crowning recognition of one
of the noblest labours ever, done on earth. You yourself cannot
cling to it more than I do: hardly so much in one sense, for I saw
how Sir John McNeill and Sir A. Tulloch's reporting was the
salvation of the Army in the Crimea. Without them everything that
happened would have been considered 'all right.' ... I look back
upon those twenty years as if they were yesterday, but also as if
they were a thousand years. Success be with us and the noble dead."
A copy of this letter was sent to Sir John McNeill, who replied
(March 25): "It was kind of you to copy it for me. There is no one,
dead or alive, whose testimony I could value so highly with regard
to the matters in question as I do Miss Florence Nightingale's. Her
favourable opinion is very precious to me, not only because she
knew more, and was intellectually more capable of forming a correct
judgment than any one else who visited that strange scene, but
because my regard and affection for her is such as would make it
very painful to me to find that she had reason to think in any
degree less favourably of our services than she did formerly. Her
letter is very characteristic, and therefore to me very precious."
III
It was her friend Mr. Milnes who had suggested that Miss Nightingale
should go a little outside her "Cabinet" and increase her influence by
extending the range of her parliamentary acquaintances. "Before the
Estimates come on," he had written (Feb. 1857), "you should surely have
some people in the House who know what you want." And again: "You should
know Lord Stanley; he is the best man you could get in the House in
whatever you wish to be done. Come and dine with him here on Sunday."
Mr. Milnes was right about Lord Stanley.[250] His public appreciation of
Miss Nightingale has been mentioned already. He was not enthusiastic
about many persons or things, but Miss Nightingale and her work were
among the number. On now making her personal acquaintance, he sat, as it
were, at her feet; he told her that he lived in hopes of being allowed
to receive "future instructions" from her; he sent her early copies of
papers and bills likely to interest her, and asked questions in the
House of Commons which she suggested. When presently he became a
Secretary for State they were to be associated in important work.
[250] Better known to the world as the 15th Earl of Derby; Secretary of
State for India (1858-9); Foreign Secretary (1867-8); Foreign
Secretary under Disraeli (1874-8); Colonial Secretary under
Gladstone (1882-5).
Miss Nightingale, for all her impetuosity of spirit, had plenty of tact,
and knew how to adjust the means to her several ends. In the spring of
1857, an expeditionary force was being dispatched to China, and she was
very anxious that the health of her "children," the British troops,
should be better cared for than it was, at sea or on land, in the
Crimean Campaign. Her ally, Sir James Clark, was on friendly terms with
her opponent, Dr. Andrew Smith. So she used her ally to coax her enemy.
"I had a very satisfactory conversation with Dr. Smith," reported Sir
James. "I find he has attended to almost everything I suggested--the
ventilation of the ships, the diet of the troops; and they are to have
fresh meat and vegetables during the whole voyage and while on the
station when it is possible. Nothing seems to be forgotten or neglected
on Smith's part, and the Duke of Cambridge backed our recommendations.
So that the disasters of the Crimea are already telling for the benefit
of the soldiers."
In the fight over the Netley Hospital, Miss Nightingale was defeated by
Lord Panmure on the main issue; but she had some success in minor
matters; and, though on the main issue she lost in the particular case,
she won the day for the future. She was a pioneer in this country in
advocating the "pavilion" system of hospital construction, which she had
studied in France. Well-known examples of it are the Herbert Hospital at
Woolwich, and St. Thomas's at Westminster. The plans for the Netley
Hospital, which Lord Panmure sent her, were laid on the old "corridor"
lines, and she instantly condemned the plans on that and other grounds.
Into this cause, as into everything that she took up, she flung herself
with full energy. She consulted all the best authorities, she collected
information at home and abroad, she drew up memoranda, she prepared
alternative plans. Lord Panmure did not dispute that her alternative
might, in the abstract, be better, but pleaded that in this case the
cost of alteration, now that the foundations were already laid, would be
too great. Besides, there were susceptibilities--his own and other
people's--to be considered. Miss Nightingale thereupon appealed to the
Prime Minister. "If Miss Nightingale's suggestions are good," he wrote
to Lord Panmure (Nov. 30, 1856), "it will be worth while to alter our
intended arrangement of the building rather than have an imperfect
Hospital."[251] Determining to press her advantage, Miss Nightingale
went down to Embley in the Christmas vacation, and dined and slept at
Broadlands. How great was the impression she made upon Lord Palmerston
is shown by the peremptory letter which he next addressed to Lord
Panmure (Jan. 17). It has been printed _in extenso_ elsewhere[252]; and
a sentence or two will here suffice. "I am bound to say she has left on
my mind at present a conviction that the plan is fundamentally wrong,
and that it would be better to pull down and rebuild all that has been
built. She brought hither the ground-plan and elevation of the proposed
Netley Hospital, and the ground-plan of the last new Military Hospital
at Paris, which she says has been adopted as the model for the Hospital
at Aldershot." (The reader will note, I doubt not, Miss Nightingale's
diplomatic touch; she only asked Lord Panmure to do at Netley what he
himself was doing at Aldershot.) "It seems to me," continued Lord
Palmerston most characteristically, "that at Netley all consideration of
what would best tend to the comfort and recovery of the patients has
been sacrificed to the vanity of the architect, whose sole object has
been to make a building which should cut a dash when looked at from the
Southampton River.... Pray, therefore, for the present, stop all further
progress in the work till the matter can be duly considered." But even
the most peremptory of Prime Ministers are not all-powerful. Lord
Panmure immediately replied that the step ordered by his Chief "would
involve us in great difficulties, as it would entail a rupture of all
our extensive contracts, not to mention the reflections which it must
cast on all concerned in the planning of those designs on which we have
worked.... Many of Miss Nightingale's suggestions in the Report signed
by herself and Dr. Sutherland can be carried out by alterations, but the
total abandonment of the plan will be a most serious affair."[253] It
appears from Miss Nightingale's papers that the War Office's estimate of
the cost was £70,000; and these 70,000 reasons, combined with the
argument from _amour propre_, caused Lord Panmure to win. Though ever
reluctant to acknowledge defeat till she had fired her last shot, Miss
Nightingale knew when she was finally beaten on one ground and she then
made a stand on another. Foiled in her attempt to improve the Hospital
root and branch, she used in good part the opportunities which Lord
Panmure gave her of patching up "the patient," as she called it, so far
as was still possible. The corridor was thrown more open; more
window-space was given to the wards; borrowed lights and odd corners
were abolished; the appurtenances were separated; and the ventilation
was improved.[254] With regard to the future, Miss Nightingale in her
private Report, and in almost identical words the Royal Commission in
its public Report, recommended "that all plans for the original
construction of Hospitals be submitted to competent sanitary authorities
before such plans are finally approved," and "that all new Hospitals be
constructed in separate pavilions, in order to prevent a large number of
sick from being agglomerated under one roof." This recommendation was
stoutly opposed by medical officers of the old school. "Poor Andrew
Smith," wrote Mr. Herbert during a sitting of the Royal Commission,
"swallowed some bitter pills to-day, including Pavilions." The bitter
pill, administered by Miss Nightingale, is now the recognized
prescription in the building of Hospitals.
[251] _Panmure Papers_, vol. ii. p. 321.
[252] _Ibid_. vol. ii. pp. 332-4.
[253] _Ibid_. vol. ii. p. 338.
[254] _Panmure Papers_, vol. ii. pp. 401, 405.
IV
This fight for the pavilion was only an incident in Miss Nightingale's
work during the latter part of 1856 and earlier part of 1857. Her main
work was preparation for the Royal Commission. This involved heavy
correspondence, many travels, and close application. Until August 1857,
she resided principally in London, at the Burlington Hotel; but in the
spring she had spent some weeks, within easy distance of London, at
Combe Hurst, the home of her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Smith;
and in April, a fortnight in Edinburgh, in order to confer with Sir John
McNeill. She prepared for the Royal Commission by writing her own
Report. The suggestion had been made at Balmoral in October 1856; but
Lord Panmure, who seldom did to-day what could be put off till
to-morrow, did not write his official instructions until February 1857.
In asking her "further assistance and advice," he said: "Your personal
experience and observation, during the late War, must have furnished you
with much important information relating not only to the medical care
and treatment of the sick and wounded, but also to the sanatory
requirements of the Army generally." She had, it will be observed,
carried her point, that the Report was to be of general scope. "I now
have the honour to ask you," continued the letter, "to favour me with
the results of that experience, on matters of so much importance to Her
Majesty's Army. I need hardly add that, should you do so, they will meet
with the most attentive consideration, and that I shall endeavour to
further, so far as it lies in my power, the large and generous views
which you entertain on this important subject."
The Report which Miss Nightingale wrote in response to this
request--entitled _Notes affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital
Administration of the British Army_--is, I suppose, the least known, but
it is the most remarkable, of her works. It is little known because it
was never published. As in the end she extracted a Royal Commission from
Lord Panmure, and as the Commission was followed by practical measures,
she did not feel the necessity of appealing to the public. The War
Office itself did not print her Report, and thus it never became
generally known how much of the Report of the subsequent Royal
Commission, and how many of the administrative reforms consequent upon
it, were in fact the work of Miss Nightingale. But at her own expense
she printed the _Notes_ for private circulation among influential
people, and upon all who read it the work created, as well it might, a
profound impression. Kinglake describes it as "a treasury of authentic
statement and wise disquisition, affording a complete elucidation of the
causes which had brought about failure, whilst also showing the means by
which, in the wars of the future, our country might best hope to compass
the truly sacred task of providing for the health of its troops."[255]
Sir John McNeill, who read the proofs of the _Notes_ as they passed
through the press, was impressed equally with the vigour of the style
and the cogency of the reasoning. "Be assured," he wrote, "that the
Report will detract nothing from your reputation but, on the contrary,
that it will greatly add to it, and make it very plain why you have been
placed where you stand in the estimation of the country. No other person
could have written it." Of another batch of the proofs, he said: "It
flows on so naturally, it gives so clearly the impression of being the
genuine expression of earnest conviction, it has so much the character
of good, sincere enlightened conversation on a subject which is
thoroughly understood and appreciated, and so little the appearance of
having been 'got up' or of pretension of any kind, literary or artistic,
that you ought to be very cautious how you alter it in any respect that
would at all detract from the unambitious and perfectly natural, but, at
the same time, clear and vigorous, enunciation of important truths and
wise propositions." And again: "It does not signify much what Lord
Panmure thinks or proposes or objects to. You have set up a Landmark
which neither he nor any other man or body of men can remove. Permanent
progress has been made, though but small, and your ideas and plans will
be pirated and claimed as their own by men who now disparage them." When
the book was finally printed, and a copy of the volume sent to him, Sir
John McNeill thought the same. "A few days ago," he wrote (Nov. 18,
1858), "I read a passage to one of the most admired essayists of our
time[256] without telling him what I was reading from. When I had done
he said, 'That is perfect, whose is that?' I bade him guess. He said,
'There are not many men in England who could have done it. I think I
know them all, but I cannot quite bring it home with confidence to any
of them. It may be some new writer.' I said it was, and then I told him
who it was. So much for the manner of the thing, which you care little
about. But for the matter: after a very careful study of the whole, I am
fully satisfied that it is a mine of facts and inferences which will
furnish materials for every scheme that is likely to be built up on
that ground for several generations. No man or woman can henceforth
pretend to deal with the subject without mastering these volumes and, if
honest, without referring to them.... Regarded as a whole, I think it
contains a body of information and instruction, such as no one else so
far as I know has ever brought to bear upon any similar subject. I
regard it as a gift to the Army, and to the country altogether
priceless."
[255] Vol. vi. p. 367.
[256] Perhaps Abraham Hayward; see his opinion of Miss Nightingale's
writing, quoted below, p. 408. The passage read out by Sir
J. McNeill may have been that cited above, p. 242; or perhaps
that cited on p. 317.
These estimates, given respectively by the literary historian of the
Crimean War and by the man of affairs who had probed most deeply into
the Crimean muddle, will be confirmed, I am confident, by any competent
reader of Miss Nightingale's _Notes_.[257] The wide range of the book,
and its mastery of detail on a great variety of subjects, are as
remarkable as its firm and consistent grasp of general principles. The
key-note is struck in the Preface. The question of Army Hospitals is
shown to be part of wider questions involving the health and efficiency
of the Army at large. Defects, similar to those which occasioned so high
a rate of mortality among the sick in Hospital during the war, were the
cause why so many healthy men came into Hospital at all. Those who fell
before Sebastopol by disease were above seven times the number of those
who fell by the enemy. A large number fell from preventable causes; but
the causes could only be prevented in the future by the adoption of new
systems. The bad health of the British Army in peace was shown to be
hardly less appalling than was the mortality during the Crimean War. The
only way to prevent a recurrence of such disasters was to improve the
sanitary conditions of the soldier's life during peace, and during peace
to organize and maintain General Hospitals in practical efficiency. The
necessity of reorganization, and the application of sanitary science to
the Army generally, are the two principles of which Miss Nightingale
never loses sight in any of the branches of her subject. There is an
Introductory Chapter giving the history of the health of the British
armies in previous campaigns, and the book then contains twenty
sections. The first six of these deal under different heads with the
medical history of the Crimean War. Then come three sections dealing
with the organization of Regimental and General Hospitals. The remainder
of the book takes wider scope, discussing, in succession, the Need of
Sanitary Officials in connection with the Army; the Necessity of a
Statistical Department; the Education, Employment and Promotion of
Medical Officers; Soldiers' Pay and Stoppages; the Dieting and Cooking
of the Army; the Commissariat; Washing and Canteens; Soldiers' Wives;
the Construction of Army Hospitals; and the Mortality of Armies in Peace
and War. A twentieth section gives, after the manner of Royal
Commissions, a summary of Defects and Suggestions. There are also
various Appendices, Supplementary Notes, Diagrams and Illustrations. The
first volume of the book consists of 830 octavo pages, some numbered in
Roman numerals. The pages thus numbered were an after-thought. The main
body of the book was ready for press in August 1857, but it was not
desirable that the Nightingale Report should forestall, even in private
circulation, the publication of the Royal Commission's Report. A final
appendix to the latter Report contained a mass of official
correspondence on the care of the sick and wounded during the Crimean
War. Miss Nightingale pounced upon this, and prefixed to several of her
sections a classified abstract of the principal documents. "A masterly
analysis," wrote Sir John McNeill, when she sent him the proofs; "it is
conclusive, because it is quite fair, and nothing could be more fatal to
false pretension." Sometimes Miss Nightingale could not deny herself an
ironical comment[258]; but the mere collocation of facts and utterances,
as she arranged them, in deadly parallel, is more effective even than
her sarcasm.
[257] This opinion is supported by an estimate of the _Notes_ in a paper
which came into my hands as this book was going to press. "This
work (the _Notes_) constitutes in my opinion one of the most
valuable contributions ever made to hospital organization and
administration in time of war. Had the conclusions which she
reached been heeded in the Civil War in America or in the Boer War
in South Africa, or in the Spanish-American War, hundreds of
thousands of lives might have been saved" (_Hurd_, as cited in
Bibliography B, No. 47, p. 76).
[258] See the passage quoted above, p. 288.
Lord Panmure's instructions to Miss Nightingale of February 1857 were
afterwards supplemented by a request that she would submit a
Confidential Report on "The Introduction of Female Nursing into Military
Hospitals in Peace and in War." The request had an amusing sequel. "You
directed me last week," she wrote to Lord Panmure (May 3), "to make
suggestions to yourself as to the organization of Female Nursing in Army
Hospitals. The Director-General, Army Medical Department, directed, last
week, the expulsion of all female nurses but two from the Woolwich
Artillery Hospitals.... I have a little pencil composition, to be
'dedicated, with permission, to your Lordship,' exhibiting the order
emanating from the Secretary of State to introduce nurses, and a
simultaneous order from the Army Medical Board to turn them out. I
enclose a memorandum (merely tentative and experimental) as to the
duties of nurses. I cannot expect the Secretary of State to enter into
the details. Perhaps I may ask to hear his decision as to the ultimate
steps to be taken."[259] The tentative memorandum was afterwards
expanded into a treatise, forming the second volume (pp. 184) of the
_Notes_. Its title--_Subsidiary Notes as to the Introduction of Female
Nursing into Military Hospitals in Peace and War_--hardly describes the
scope of the volume, which is, in fact almost a treatise on Nursing at
large. "I read the _Subsidiary Notes_ first," wrote Mrs. Gaskell (Dec.
31, 1858). "It was so interesting I could not leave it. I finished it at
one long morning sitting--hardly stirring between breakfast and dinner.
I cannot tell you how much I like it, and for such numbers of reasons.
First, because you know of a varnish which is as good or better than
black-lead for grates[260] (only I wonder what it is). Next because of
the little sentences of real deep wisdom which from their depth and true
foundation may be real helps in every direction and to every person; and
for the quiet continual devout references to God which make the book a
holy one."
[259] _Panmure_, vol. ii. p. 381, where, in following pages, the
Memorandum is also printed.
[260] "Even black-lead is unnecessary, as a varnish now obtainable looks
better," _Subsidiary Notes_, p. 22.
As the work of a single hand, and that the hand of a woman in delicate
health, the writing of Miss Nightingale's _Notes on the British Army_,
in the space of six months, is an astonishing _tour de force_. Only the
most intense application, assisted by great power of brain and will,
could have accomplished it. She had no staff of secretaries. Mr. Arthur
Hugh Clough, then employed in the Education Office, gave her some help,
out of office hours, with the proofs; and her faithful Aunt Mai did some
copying and correspondence. But for the most part everything was written
in her own hand, and not for one moment did she allow herself any
relaxation. Nor were the _Notes_ the only work of the same months. She
prepared also (with some assistance from Mr. Bracebridge), and issued,
in 1857, the masterly _Statement to Subscribers_ which has been quoted
frequently in the foregoing Part of this Memoir. "Why do you do all
this," wrote Mr. Herbert (Jan. 16), "with your own hands? I wish you
could be turned into a cross-country squire like me for a few weeks."
V
One peculiar advantage Miss Nightingale enjoyed in the preparation of
her _Notes_, which, however, added as greatly to her labour as to their
effectiveness and authority. Experts of many kinds were willing and
eager to help her. There were in all branches of the public service
broad-minded men who knew alike the needs and the difficulties of
reform, and who recognized in her an invaluable ally. Just as in the
East, reformers in difficulty "went to Miss Nightingale," so now
officials and officers--some openly, others with careful
secrecy--approached her with hints and offers of assistance, or
sometimes with petition that she would come and help them. Thus Sir John
Liddell, Director-General of the Navy Medical Department, hearing what
was on foot, begged her "to take up the sailors," and to "introduce
female nurses into naval hospitals." She inspected Haslar Hospital at
his request (Jan. 1857), and he consulted her on the plans for a Naval
Hospital at Woolwich. "I return with many thanks," he wrote (Feb. 17),
"your very clever Report on the Construction of Hospitals [a section of
her _Notes_], from which I mean to profit largely in both our new and
old buildings; but as you have only allowed me the privilege of reading
your Report privately, I trust that when you see your notions carried
out in our Hospitals you will not reproach me with being a plagiarist
without conscience." Sir John in return supplied her with facts which
she needed about naval stores, dietaries, and statistics. He also
escorted her on a visit of inspection to Chatham, a military, as well as
a naval, station. She was received on all sides with the utmost
consideration, and a Military Medical Officer gave her free access to
everything. Dr. Andrew Smith was exceeding wrath when he learnt that she
had been prying into his domain there. The Medical Officer wrote to her
explaining that he had misunderstood the case, imagining that her visit
had official sanction on the military, as well as on the naval side, and
begging her, in fear and trembling, to treat everything he had said and
shown as strictly secret. The main object of her inspection of Barracks
and Hospitals was to collect data for her Report, but sometimes she was
able to effect a stroke of reform by the way and at once. She was
invited to inspect Chelsea Military Hospital by Dr. McLachlan, the
Principal Medical Officer. She went, marked many defects, and wrote to
him on the subject. He concurred in what she said, explained that
"reform moves slowly in old establishments, obstruction coming from
sources least expected," and hoped that she might be able to exercise "a
little pressure from without." The chairman of the Board was Mr. Robert
Lowe, at that time Vice-President of the Board of Trade and
Paymaster-General. She sought an introduction to Mr. Lowe, who "had much
pleasure in calling upon her." The sequel is told in a letter from Dr.
McLachlan: "If you have not already been made acquainted with it, I am
sure you will be glad to learn that all the really important points
mentioned in your letter to me some time ago have been conceded. Mr.
Lowe's perseverance carried the Treasury. The men are to have flannel
vests and drawers, knives, forks, spoons, plates, &c., &c." And Mr. Lowe
himself, who could be soft sometimes, wrote to her with regard to "the
improvements which you were good enough to suggest," that he was "happy
to believe that the flannel is a very great comfort to the poor old
men." Many Crimean veterans were afterwards Chelsea pensioners, and I
have given some of their recollections of Miss Nightingale in an earlier
chapter. They probably did not know that they owed their hospital
comforts at home to the same woman's touch that had tended them at
Scutari or in the Crimea. Miss Nightingale, during these months,
inspected also the leading Civil Hospitals in London. Many of them had
appointed her an Honorary Life Governor in recognition of her services
during the war.
Military officers also tendered their assistance. "Ask questions," says
a letter from Wellington Barracks addressed to a friend of Miss
Nightingale, "until you arrive at what you want. It is a pleasure to
assist that excellent lady in her noble work": "I was quite charmed,"
wrote an officer from Aldershot, "with the opportunity of again
communicating with Miss Nightingale. She is the most single-minded and
benevolent person I ever met, and is truly the wonder of her sex. Do,
pray, convey to her my desire to place my humble services and experience
at her disposal whenever and however she may desire." Within the War
Office itself, she had influential friends. Sir Henry Storks was in
frequent correspondence with her, and sent for her criticism drafts of
new Regulations. Colonel Lefroy had, in accordance with her
suggestion,[261] been instructed by Lord Panmure to draft a Scheme for a
School of Military Medicine and Surgery. Miss Nightingale's notes on
this Draft (Nov. 1856) include suggestions which might have come from
some Royal Commission of our own day. She urges that the Board of
Examiners should consist of the teachers. She suggests that the teachers
in hospitals should not be doctors of eminence; "a man with an eminent
practice rarely becomes an eminent teacher; many good men may be found
to take the position of teachers at a moderate salary." She forestalled
the idea of Imperial inter-change, of which the War Office of to-day
says much. "A most important part of this School," she writes, would be
to afford opportunities for study and comparison to Medical Officers
from the Colonies. Like Dr. McLachlan at Chelsea, Colonel Lefroy at the
War Office sometimes "came to Miss Nightingale." He told her of a
certain military hospital which was very much overcrowded. The Principal
Medical Officer had represented the case to Headquarters and demanded
extra accommodation, but in vain: "a letter from Miss Nightingale might
lead to better things." Colonel Lefroy was helpful in another matter.
Miss Nightingale was a pioneer, as we have heard during the account of
her work in the East, in devising means for encouraging the better
employment of the private soldier's leisure, and for promoting his
intelligent recreation. And this effort, commenced by her among the
soldiers on service during the Crimean War, was continued upon her
return to England. To the initiative and generosity of Florence
Nightingale, the establishment of soldiers' reading-rooms is due. Her
friend, Mr. Sabin, who had been the principal chaplain at Scutari, was
now stationed at Aldershot, and Miss Nightingale concerted measures with
him for continuing there the experiment which they had made in the
East.[262] After much negotiation, permission was obtained from the
military authorities to use one of the canteens as a reading-room, and
on June 17, 1857, "Divisional Reading-Room, H Canteen, Aldershot Camp"
was opened. The funds were provided by Miss Nightingale. The experiment
was so much appreciated by the soldiers that she determined to enlarge
it. She invoked the good offices of Colonel Lefroy, who wrote to her on
August 19 as follows: "A propitious moment offered itself yesterday, and
I asked the Chief whether I was at liberty to accept the offer of 'a
private person' to contribute to the amusement of the Soldiers, and the
improvement of their Reading-rooms. He laughed, having probably a shrewd
suspicion of the identity of the unknown, and gave leave. I am now
therefore quite at your service.... There will be no difficulty in
finding means of applying any funds you will supply, and I have but one
regret in the matter, viz. that a duty so essential to the moral
improvement of the soldier should be left to private benevolence. I
should like to print Milton's IXth Sonnet[263] on everything you give
us." Miss Nightingale herself had no taste for publicity or praise. She
loved to do good by stealth, and most of her influence was exerted
behind the scenes.
[261] See above, p. 330.
[262] See above, p. 281.
[263] _To a Virtuous Young Lady_:--
Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen
That labour up the hill of heavenly Truth,
The better part with Mary and with Ruth
Chosen thou hast, etc. etc.