THE HOSPITAL TRANSPORT.
An earnest desire now took possession of me, to be the first of the
correspondents to reach New York. The scenes just transpired had been
unparalleled in the war, and if, through me, the ---- should be the
first to make them public, it would greatly redound to my credit.
Perhaps no profession imparts an enthusiasm in any measure kindred to
that of the American Newsgatherer. I was careless of the lost lives and
imperilled interests, the suffering, the defeat: no emotions either of
the patriot or the man influenced me. I only thought of the _eclat_ of
giving the story to the world, and nurtured an insane desire to make to
Fortress Monroe, by some other than the common expedient. That this was
a paltry ambition I know; but I write what happened, and to the
completion of my sketch of a correspondent, this is necessary to be
said. I found Glumley at the old mansion referred to, and stealthily
suggested to him the seizing of an open boat, whereby we might row down
to the Fortress. He rejected it as impracticable, but was willing to
hazard a horseback ride down the Peninsula. I knew that this would not
do, and after a short time I continued my journey down the riverside,
hopeful of finding some transport or Despatch boat. I was now in Charles
City County, and the river below me was dotted with woodland islands. I
soon got upon the main road to Harrison's Point or Bar, and followed the
stream of ambulances and supply teams for more than an hour. At last we
reached a diverging lane, through which we passed to a landing, close to
a fine dwelling, whose style of architecture I may denominate, the
"Gothic run mad." An old cider-press was falling into rottenness on the
lawn; four soldiers were guarding the well, that the mob might not
exhaust its precious contents, and between some negro-huts and the brink
of the bluff, stood a cluster of broad-armed trees, beneath whose shade
the ambulance-drivers were depositing the wounded.
I have made these chapters sufficiently hideous, without venturing to
transcribe these new horrors. Suffice it to say that the men whom I now
beheld had been freshly brought from the fight of New Market, and were
suffering the first agonies of their wounds. One hour before, they had
felt all the lustiness of life and adventure. Now, they were whining
like babes, and some had expired in the ambulances. The act of lifting
them to the ground so irritated their wounds that they howled dismally,
and yet were so exhausted that after lying upon the ground awhile, they
quietly passed into sleep. Such are the hardening results of war, that
some soldiers, who were unhurt, actually refused to give a trifle of
river water from their canteens to their expiring comrades. At one time
a brutal wrangle occurred at the well, and the guard was compelled to
seek reinforcement, or the thirsty people would have massacred them.
I was now momentarily adding to my notes of the battles, and the wounded
men very readily gave me their names; for they were anxious that the
account of their misfortunes should reach their families, and I think
also, that some martial vanity lingered, even among those who were
shortly to crumble away. A longboat came in from the Galena, after a
time, and General McClellan, who had ridden down to the pier, was taken
aboard. He looked to be very hot and anxious, and while he remained
aboard the vessel, his staff dispersed themselves around the banks and
talked over the issues of the contest. As the General receded from the
strand, every sweep of the long oars was responded to from the hoarse
cannon of the battle-field, and when he climbed upon deck, the steamer
moved slowly up the narrow channel, and the signal-man in the foretop
flourished his crossed flag sturdily. Directly, the _Galena_ opened fire
from her immense pieces of ordnance, and the roar was so great that the
explosions of field-guns were fairly drowned. She fired altogether by
the direction of the signals, as nothing could be seen of the
battle-field from her decks. I ascertained afterward that she played
havoc with our own columns as well as the enemy's, but she brought hope
to the one, and terror to the other. The very name of gunboat affrighted
the Confederates, and they were assured, in this case, that the
retreating invaders, had at length reached a haven. The _Galena_ kept up
a steady fire till nightfall, and the Federals, taking courage, drove
their adversaries toward Richmond, at eve. Meanwhile the Commanding
General's escort and body-guard had encamped around us, and during the
night the teams and much of the field cannon fell back. I obtained
shelter and meals from Quartermaster Le Duke of Iowa, whose canvas was
pitched a mile or more below, and as I tossed through the watches I
heard the splashing of water in the river beneath, where the tired
soldiers were washing away the powder of the battle.
In the morning I retraced to head-quarters, and vainly endeavored to
learn something as to the means of going down the river. Commanders are
always anxious to grant correspondents passes after a victory; but they
wish to defer the unwelcome publication of a defeat. I was advised by
Quartermaster-General Van Vliet, however, to proceed to Harrison's Bar,
and, as I passed thither, the last day's encounters--those of "Malvern
Hills"--occurred. The scenes along the way were reiterations of terrors
already described,--creaking ambulances, staggering foot soldiers,
profane wagoners, skulking officers and privates, officious Provost
guards, defiles, pools and steeps packed with teams and cannon, wayside
houses beset with begging, gossiping, or malicious soldiers, and wavy
fields of wheat and rye thrown open to man and beast. I was amused at
one point, to see some soldiers attack a beehive that they might seize
the honey. But the insects fastened themselves upon some of the
marauders, and after indescribable cursing and struggling, the bright
nectar and comb were relinquished by the toilers, and the ravishers
gorged upon sweetness.
Harrison's Bar is simply a long wharf, extending into the river, close
by the famous mansion, where William Henry Harrison, a President of the
United States, was born, and where, for two centuries, the scions of a
fine old Virginia family have made their homestead. The house had now
become a hospital, and the wounded were being conveyed to the pier,
whence they were delivered over to some Sanitary steamers, for passage
to Northern cities. I tied my horse to the spokes of a wagon-wheel, and
asked a soldier to watch him, while I repaired to the quay. A half
drunken officer was guarding the wharf with a squad of men, and he
denied me admittance, at first, but when I had said something in
adulation of his regiment--a trick common to correspondents--he passed
me readily. The ocean steamer _Daniel Webster_ was about being cast
adrift when I stepped on board, and Colonel Ingalls, Quartermaster in
charge, who freely gave me permission to take passage in her, advised me
not to risk returning to shore. So, reluctantly, I resigned my pony,
endeared to me by a hundred adventures, and directly I was floating down
the James, with the white teams and the tattered groups of men, receding
from me, and each moment the guns of Malvern Hills growing fainter.
Away! praised be a merciful God! away from the accursed din, and terror,
and agony, of my second campaign,--away forever from the Chickahominy.
For awhile I sat meditatively in the bow of the boat, full of strange
perplexities and thankfulness. I had escaped the bullet, and fever, and
captivity, and a great success in my profession was about to be accorded
to me, but there was much work yet to be done. The rough material I had
for a grand account of the closing of the campaign; but these
fragmentary figures and notes must be wrought into narrative, and to
avail myself of their full significance, I must lose no moment of
application. I found that I was one of four correspondents on board, and
we resolved to district the boat, each correspondent taking one fourth
of the names of the sick and wounded. The spacious saloons, the clean
deck, the stairways, the gangways, the hold, the halls,--all were filled
with victims. They lay in rows upon straw beds, they limped feverishly
here and there; some were crazed from sunstroke, or gashes; and one man
that I remember counted the rivets in the boilers over the whole hundred
miles of the journey, while another,--a teamster,--whipped and cursed
his horses as if he had mistaken the motion of the boat for that of his
vehicle.
The _Daniel Webster_ was one of a series of transports supplied for the
uses of the wounded by a national committee of private citizens. Her
wood work was shining and glossy, her steel shone like mirrors, and she
was cool as Paradise. Out of the smoke, and turmoil, and suffocation of
battle these wretched men had emerged, to enjoy the blessedness,
unappreciated before, of shelter, and free air and cleanliness. There
was ice in abundance on board, and savory lemonade lay glassily around
in great buckets. Women flitted from group to group with jellies,
_bonbons_, cigars, and oranges, and the grateful eyes of the prostrate
people might have melted one to tears. These women were enthusiasts of
all ages and degrees, who proffered themselves, at the beginning of the
war, as stewardesses and nurses. From the fact that some of them were of
masculine natures, or, in the vocabulary of the times, "strong-minded,"
they were the recipients of many coarse jests, and imputations were
made upon both their modesty and their virtue. But I would that any
satirist had watched with me the good offices of these Florence
Nightingales of the West, as they tripped upon merciful errands, like
good angels, and left paths of sunshine behind them. The soldiers had
seen none of their countrywomen for months, and they followed these
ambassadors with looks half-idolatrous, half-downcast, as if consciously
unworthy of so tender regard.
"If I could jest die, now," said one of the poor fellows to me, "with
one prayer for my country, and one for that dear young lady!"
There was one of these daughters of the good Samaritan whose face was so
full of coolness, and her robes so airy, flowing, and graceful, that it
would have been no miracle had she transmuted herself to something
divine. She was very handsome, and her features bore the imprint of that
high enthusiasm which may have animated the maid of Arc. One of the more
forward of the correspondents said to her, as she bore soothing
delicacies to the invalids, that he missed the satisfaction of being
wounded, at which she presented an orange and a cigar to each of us in
turn. Among the females on board, I remarked one, very large, angular,
and sanguine, who sat at a small table, dispensing luxuries with the
manners of a despot and the charity of a child. She had a large vessel
of boiling coffee, from which she drew spicy quantities at intervals;
and when the troops thronged around eagerly, she rebuked the more
forward, and called up some emaciated, bashful fellows, giving them
the preference. Every soldier who accepted coffee was obliged to
take a religious tract, and she gave them away with a grim satisfaction
that was infinitely amusing and interesting. I ventured to ask
this imperative person for a bottle of ink, and after some
difficulty,--arising out of a mistaken notion on her part that I was
dangerously wounded,--she vaulted over a chair, and disappeared into a
state-room. When she returned, her arms were filled with a perfect
wilderness of stationery, and having supplied each of us in turn, she
addressed herself to me in the following sententious manner:--
"See here! You reporter! (There's ink!) I want to be put in the
newspapers! Look at me! Now! Right straight! (Pens?) Here I am; thirteen
months at work; been everywhere; done good; country; church; never
noticed. Never!--Now! I want to be put in newspapers."
At this point the Imperatress was called off by some soldiers, who
presumed to draw coffee without her consent. She slapped one of them
soundly, and at once overpowered him with kindnesses, and tracts; then
she returned and gave me a photograph, representing herself with a
basket of fruit, and a quantity of good books. I took note of her name,
but unfortunately lost the memorandum, and unless she has been honored
by some more careful scribe, I fear that her labors are still
unrecognized.
During much of the trip, I wrote material parts of my report, copied
portions of my lists, and managed before dusk, to get fairly underway
with my narrative. From the deck of the steamer I beheld at five
o'clock, what I had long wished to see,--the famous island of Jamestown,
celebrated in the early annals of the New World, as the home of John
Smith, and of Nathaniel Bacon, and as the resort of the Indian Princess,
Pocahontas. A single fragment of a tower, the remnant of the Colonial
church, was the only ruin that I could see.
At seven o'clock we dropped anchor in Hampton Roads, and a boat let down
from the davits. Some of my wily compeers endeavored to fill all the
stern seats, that I might not be pulled to shore; but I swung down by a
rope, and made havoc with their shins, so that they gained nothing; the
surf beat so vehemently against the pier at Old Point, that we were
compelled to beach the boat, and I ran rapidly through the ordnance
yard to the "Hygeia House," where our agent boarded; he had gone into
the Fortress to pass the night, and when I attempted to follow him
thither, a knot of anxious idlers, who knew that I had just returned
from the battle-fields, attempted to detain me by sheer force. I dashed
rapidly up the plank walk, reached the portal, and had just vaulted into
the area, when the great gates swung to, and the tattoo beat; at the
same instant the sergeant of guard challenged me:--
"Who comes there? Stand fast! Guard prime!"
A dozen bright musket-barrels were levelled upon me, and I heard the
click of the cocks as the fingers were laid upon the triggers. When I
had explained, I was shown the Commandant's room, and hastening in that
direction, encountered Major Larrabee, my old patron of the fifth
Wisconsin regiment. He took me to the barracks, where a German officer,
commanding a battery, lodged, and the latter accommodated me with a camp
bedstead. Here I related the incidents of the engagements, and before I
concluded, the room was crowded with people. I think that I gave a
sombre narration, and the hearts of those who heard me were cast down.
Still, they lingered; for the bloody story possessed a hideous
fascination, and I was cross-examined so pertinaciously that my host
finally arose, protesting that I needed rest, and turned the party out
of the place. The old fever-dreams returned to me that night, and my
brain spun round for hours before I could close my eyes.