Excavations had to be made to get a level place to sleep. So all the
bluffs around Vicksburg were catacombed to afford sleeping apartments.
No wonder there was sickness--no wonder Death held high carnival
on both sides of the lines. It was not only dangerous, but almost
impossible, to reach the little hospitals under the shadow of the guns.
Very many times driven at full speed I reached them, but it was at
great peril. How the memory of those hospital scenes comes back to me
now!
At one point I went down under the guns of the fort at one of the most
exposed places, with a carriage-load of supplies for the little fort
hospital under the bluff, just behind the heavy guns. I found when
I reached there that the position was so dangerous that it would be
madness, so the officers said, to try to get out of there till I could
go under the cover of darkness. But the afternoon was well-spent in
making lemonade and ministering to the men who had been stricken down
with fever and hardships.
The ceaseless roar of artillery, and scream of shot and shell; the
sharp whiz and whirr of small shot just over our heads; the June sun
blazing down upon us with torrid heat, and no shelter for the sick but
the white canvas tents, perched on the sides of the bluffs in places
excavated for them, the bank cutting off the circulation of air,--were
almost unbearable. How the poor fever-racked heads and fainting hearts
ached amid the ceaseless din and the dust and heat of these little camp
hospitals! One poor fellow, with parched lips and cheeks red with the
fever that was burning through every vein, said, “I got a little sleep
a while ago, and I dreamed that I was at the old spring; but just as I
was taking a good cool drink I waked up.”
I partially met his cravings for a drink from the well at the old home
by giving him generous draughts of lemonade, but when night came on I
had to leave him. Poor boy, I never knew whether he got back to the
old spring and home or not. There was no cool water there to allay his
burning thirst. One of the hardships of that long summer campaign was
the lack of good cool water. There were some springs, and a few wells
were dug; but at points water had to be hauled long distances. Think of
thousands of men to be supplied--of the thousands of horses and mules,
the great burden-bearers of the army, that must have their thirst
quenched.
Most of the water for the use in camp was hauled up from the
Mississippi River or the Yazoo, through the hot sun in barrels, and
stood in camp all day.
During that dreadful day I sat down in one of the tents for a little
while; there was a patch of weeds growing near the tent-door. I noticed
the weeds shaking as though partridges were running through them. I
called attention to the matter, which made the surgeon smile, as he
explained, “Why, those are bullets!”
“Bullets? Do bullets come so near as that?”
“Oh, yes,” he answered cheerfully; “they are flying around here quite
thick.”
“Do you consider yourself safe while in this tent? It seems to me the
bullets are coming very close.”
“It is considered very safe. The bullets fall a little short you see.”
All the while I sat there I watched the bullets coming over and
clipping through the weeds.
Three days from that time an officer was killed while sitting in the
same chair on the same spot where I had sat and watched the bullets
shaking the weeds.
A PAINFUL ACCIDENT.
The smoke of the battle-field at Shiloh had cleared away; the dead
had been buried; the wounded gathered up, and their ghastly wounds
dressed--so that the people who came crowding to the battle-field saw
little of the horror of war.
Among the multitudes who came down with supplies and words of sympathy
and encouragement was Governor Harvey of Wisconsin, a grand, loyal
man. He walked over the battle-field, the scene of the recent terrible
conflict, and through the hospitals improvised for the accommodation
of the thousands who had been wounded, and over the score and more of
steamboats where many of the wounded were quartered.
He had given his promise of support to the men who stood between the
North and the sword and torch of war. And now, with a hasty farewell to
the crowd of distinguished patriots and officers who came down to wish
him Godspeed on his return to the loyal State of Wisconsin, he stepped
upon the single plank that bridged the little space between the shore
and the boat. There were a few steps forward--a misstep--a sudden
plunge, and the flowing tide ingulfed him out of sight. There was a
moment of awful suspense--he did not rise. Men plunged into the water,
reaching out their hands in every direction to find the lost one, but
alas! he was not found till life was extinct.
The boat on which he was going to take passage was lying just above our
sanitary boat, and a number of us saw him make the misstep and fall.
That was a sad day to us all--a sad day for the Army of the
Tennessee--a sad day for the State of Wisconsin--a sad day for the
wife, a grand, noble woman, who, crushed by the heavy blow, waited in
almost speechless agony for the bringing home of her dead.
But in those heroic days women did not sit down in speechless grief
to weep over their dead, but, crushing back their tears, consecrated
themselves to the cause of humanity and their country.
Mrs. Governor Harvey was no exception to this rule. Still staggering
under this stunning blow, she consecrated herself to service in the
Sanitary Commission and to the hospital work, and in blessed and
unwearying service for others solaced her own deep grief. Who shall
know how much comfort and encouragement the presence of this fair,
beautiful, refined lady brought into the hospitals where so many
homesick and pain-weary boys lay on their beds, longing for the sight
of a woman’s face, and tender touch of a woman’s hand?
Often amid the sickening scenes of the overcrowded hospitals, I met her
on her weary round of holy service.
And at the close of the war she was active in the establishment of a
home for the orphan children of soldiers in Wisconsin.
BURSTING OF A SHELL BEHIND MY CARRIAGE.
The line of battle was so closely drawn around Vicksburg that every
camp, and hospital, and wagon-train with provisions and ammunition, was
under fire.
Every worker of the Christian and Sanitary Commissions, who ventured
out to labor with the sick and the dying, knew that the Confederate
sharpshooters at many points were within easy range, and that the
flying shot and shell, that at times almost darkened the sky, were
liable to drop in the pathway of the worker, and blot him or her out of
existence.
None but the more courageous remained on the field. Curiosity-hunters,
and bombastic dress-parade workers, fled from the scene as from a
battle-field; for in truth every inch of ground about Vicksburg was a
battle-field.
The perplexities of the service, and the dangers attending every effort
made to relieve the suffering, were so great, and the laborers in
consequence so few, that every helper was overwhelmed and overworked.
One day, coming in from a weary round, a day’s work of unusual peril
and hardship, we reached a point in the road sheltered from the enemy
by a clump of trees.
Though at no great distance from the Confederate guns, it seemed more
secure because we were out of sight of the frowning batteries.
Suddenly there was a crash in the timber, and we knew and heard no
more. We were all so stunned that we did not know that a shell,
crushing through the tops of the trees, had struck the ground in the
middle of the roadway not forty feet behind our carriage.
If it had come a moment sooner, we would all have been scattered in
fragments to the four winds.
As it was, the road was torn up so that it was impossible for teams to
pass till it was repaired; the horses fell to the earth, the driver
seemed dazed for a time, the carriage was covered with the dirt thrown
out, for an ox might have been buried in the pit that that one shell
dug out. Though it was the main thoroughfare, along which much of the
ammunition and provisions were hauled, fortunately no teams were nearer
than our own, and no one was killed or hurt.
If these lines should fall under the eyes of George, the driver, a
soldier detailed for that service, he will excuse me for saying that
he was about the worst frightened person I ever saw. That evening he
said,--
“I wish you would release me, and ask for some one else. I’d rather be
with my regiment behind the fortifications than driving around this way
all the time.”
“You’ll feel better about it in the morning, George--you will get
over the shock. And then, too, remember that those who are behind the
fortifications may be ordered at any time to make a charge, which would
be more dangerous than the work you are now doing. But think about it;
and if in the morning you would rather go back to your regiment, I will
have the change made.”
The next morning George was all right, and he continued to drive for me
until after Vicksburg was taken.
MEETING A REBEL WOMAN AT NASHVILLE.
There was great rejoicing over the fall of Fort Henry and Fort
Donelson. The gunboats and transport vessels were pressing on to
Nashville, which was occupied by the Union army soon after the fall of
Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. I went up on the first transport.
The women were mostly left behind in the scramble to get out of the
city, and they were more intense in war spirit and partisan feeling
than the men. In the heat of the excitement the chief hotel was
thronged with both parties, where I took lodgings. The women sung
ditties about Beauregard and Davis before the door of my bedroom till
midnight, at intervals.
The great parlor of the hotel was a scene of the utmost confusion,
judging from the tumult of angry voices.
The women blamed the men about them. “Every man who is able to bear
arms ought to be ashamed to be seen outside of a war-camp in days like
these,” was the sharp rejoinder of a woman to her husband. I did not
hear his answer, but suppose from her reply that he said he would only
be throwing away his life.
“Throwing away your life, indeed! A man that is not true to our cause
at such a time _ought not to live_.”
Some one was sitting at the piano, and banged the keys of the
instrument in wildest fury to drown the sound of the contentions.
The next morning, in the dining-room, every Southern man and woman
gave us all a wide berth, not deigning to sit at the same end of the
dining-room.
After breakfast I went for a few minutes into the parlor. The lady
whose voice I heard in falsetto the night before followed me,
accompanied by her colored nurse-girl carrying her baby, perhaps six
months old.
I had no purpose of controversy in my heart; and so when the lady said,
“My baby is named after the best man in the world--Beauregard,” I only
smiled.
“I suppose you Yankees think you can conquer us?”
“That is what the people of the North hope to do.”
“Well, you can’t. There is not men enough in the North to conquer us;
for when you kill the men off, the women will take up arms.”
“Well, madam, there are thousands of men gathering and drilling in
the North, and they will soon be here; and it’s their firm purpose to
maintain the Union, cost what it will.”
“They’ll kill the women, will they?”
“They will _conquer the South_.”
“Contemptible hirelings! they’ll kill the women, will they?” she hissed.
“I don’t think they want to kill the women; but if that is necessary
for the maintenance of the Union, I suppose they will have to do it.”
“Wretches! wretches! They’ll kill the women, will they?” she screamed,
and her eyes blazed fire and scintillated like the eyes of a maniac.
I thought she was going to leap upon me in her fury. We were standing
facing each other; and I made up my mind that if she did assault me
that I would do my little share of fighting, and choke a little of
the treason out of her. But she changed her mind, and rushed from the
room, slamming the door after her with such force as to shake the house
to its foundations. A year after that she was playing the _rôle_ of
a Union woman, and was quite popular as a loyal Southerner among the
officers.
No one in these calm days can imagine the fiery, cruel spirit of war. I
was not afraid; the Stars and Stripes were over us, and the Union army
within call.
But what seems laughable to me now, was exceedingly exasperating and
insulting at that time. There is no question about the matter--the
Southern women, in their blind, partisan fury, prolonged the contest to
the last extreme of desperation. They could not believe defeat possible.
No longer we hear the clash of arms,
And the cannon’s fearful booming;
No longer the torch of war alarms,
Our cities and homes consuming:
The smoke of battle has cleared away,
And Peace her vigil is keeping,
Though wet with tears are the flowers we lay,
Where our gallant dead are sleeping.
VISITING HOSPITALS UNDER THE GUNS.
I came down the river with a heavy lot of supplies at the beginning
of the siege. I sent an order to the quartermaster for an ambulance.
Instead of sending the ambulance, he sent me a fine silver-mounted,
easy carriage captured at Jackson, which I afterwards found drew the
fire of the enemy.
It was reported in Vicksburg that an old, experienced general, too
crippled to ride on horseback, made his rounds in that carriage, and
the Confederates made it a target every day.
One captain of sharpshooters told Dr. Maxwell of Davenport, Iowa,
that his men had sent more than a hundred shots after that carriage,
supposing some high official was the occupant. He was very much shocked
to know that they had been shooting at a lady. In most cases the shot
fell low, but the wheels were chipped till they were quite a curiosity.
I drove out in company with Mrs. General Stone to the nearest hospital
one day. We had gone through the tents, and attended to the business
that had brought us, and were standing beside the carriage, when a
shell from Vicksburg burst near us, scattering fragments all around us.
To me the shock was terrific. I could feel my flesh crawl in the most
uncomfortable way, and every hair on my head seemed to stand upright.
“Are you so near the enemy’s guns?” I questioned.
“Oh, yes; all the hospitals are under fire. A shell burst in this
hospital a few days ago, killing one man and wounding three others.”
“It’s horrible that sick men must be placed under fire. Why don’t the
authorities remove the sick and wounded to a safe distance?” I spoke
with some spirit.
“You forget,” said the surgeon, “that General Johnson’s army is near,
and that we are forced to draw in our lines. We would rather take the
risk of a random shell than to risk being between two contending armies
during a battle.”
That was quite another view of the matter, and now I was brought face
to face with the facts of the situation. If I visited the hospitals
I must do it under fire. I had been under fire before, but only for
an hour. To go out day after day under a rain of lead was quite a
different thing.
I went back to the Sanitary boat at the Yazoo Landing in a very
thoughtful mood. The muddy, sluggish stream was well named Yazoo,
meaning the River of Death.
That night was spent in prayer. The next morning I arose with a courage
born of faith. I seemed immortal; not a bullet had been moulded that
could hit me.
I went out to my work without a fear. My carriage was struck time and
again, and bullets whizzed past me, but never a feeling of fear crept
into my heart. I was “under the shadow of His wings, and he covered me
with His feathers.”
Mrs. General Stone, whose husband commanded the right wing of the army,
and who now lives at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, camped with her father out
on the bluffs. She invited me to leave the sluggish river with its
miasma, and come up and stay with her; and I accepted the invitation.
She had a beautiful tent put up beside her own; and as the lizards were
very abundant, the feet of our cots were put in jars of water, and we
tucked up the covers about us so as to keep them off of our beds. We
could hear their little feet scratching as they raced after each other
over the tents.
The soldiers got used to them, but somehow we women shrank from contact
with anything so nearly akin to the serpent family.
Night and day the battle went on. The shells with their burning fuses
would sail up into mid-air like stars of the first magnitude, and burst
into a shower of sparks and fragments, setting the heavens ablaze with
their scintillation, and jarring the foundations of the earth with the
thunder of their explosions.
We became so accustomed to the horrid sounds of war that the absence or
abatement of it would awaken us out of our sleep.
EXHIBITIONS OF MOTHER-LOVE.
TO WHAT LENGTHS AFFECTIONS WOULD CARRY WOMEN IN THE WAR.
War brought heavy burdens of anxiety and sorrow to the women on both
sides of the lines during the terrible struggle of 1861-1865. The
anxious waiting for news from the battle-field, the heart-breaking
scrutiny of the list of wounded and killed, cannot, with their sorrows,
be measured by words and phrases.
One Philadelphia mother, whose husband and son were in the war,
received news that her son had been killed in one of the smaller
battles of Virginia. She determined to recover the body, and bring it
home for burial. After many delays and hindrances, she reached the
regiment of which he was a member. She had walked three miles to get
there, and had left the casket she had brought down at the station,
where fire had destroyed everything but the track.
The soldiers brought up the coffin, and the next morning exhumed
the body. They had wrapped him carefully in his blanket, and marked
the spot with a rough board, on which they had carved his name and
regiment and company with their knives. When they lifted him out, and
laid him at her feet, she recognized him at once.
“Yes, this is my boy,” she said, pushing the damp hair back from his
fair young face.
The soldiers, who were glad to render the heart-broken mother any
service they could, carried the coffin down to the railroad track,
where the station had once stood, and instructed her how to “flag a
train;” and assuring her that “a train might come at any time,” they
left her there with her dead.
There was no human dwelling in sight. She seated herself on her son’s
coffin, beside the charred timbers and ashes, to await the coming of
the train. Behind her was the little valley where the Union troops
were stationed to guard an important pass. On either side of her were
mountains that rose majestically, that might be infested with wild
beasts and creeping things. Before her was a little brook and the bands
of iron along its banks that rendered it possible to make the journey
through that mountain gorge by rail. The afternoon wore away, but no
train came; the shades of night closed her in, but no sound of wheels
greeted her ears.
She built a little fire so as to signal the train. The sharp notes
of the night birds, the fighting of the wildcats on the side of the
mountain, the mysterious noises in the air, the sound of stealthy
footsteps near her,--all fell with fearful distinctness on her ears;
for every nerve was strained to its utmost tension. But no train came
to relieve her weary vigil. Her garments were wet with the dews of
night; and she added wood to the smouldering fire, for the cheerful
blaze comforted her.
As the night wore on, all nature seemed at rest. The night birds ceased
their calls, the wildcats climbed higher up the mountain, and the
whippoorwill ceased its mournful song. But this was even more terrible,
as every remaining sound was more distinct. The rustling of a leaf or a
noise in the bushes sent the blood hurrying to her heart.
At last gray streaks of light began to climb above the mountain in the
east, and were tinged with purple and orange, and soon the white light
of day fell about her; but it was not till late in the afternoon of the
second day that a train came, and her weary vigil ended. For twenty-six
hours she had been alone with her dead.
She reached Washington without delay, and before boarding the train
for Philadelphia saw the coffin of her son put on board. But when she
reached Philadelphia she found that by some mistake the remains had
been left at Baltimore. She telegraphed back, and waited in the station
till they were brought to her, and then followed them to her own house.
Afterward her husband was killed; and she went to the front again, and
secured his body, and brought it home for interment. Who shall measure
the anguish of the women who watched at home till there was one dead in
almost every house?
A mother in Maine received the news that her only son had been wounded
and taken prisoner, and had been sent to Richmond. “I am going to
him,” she said. Her husband and neighbors tried to dissuade her.
On her journey toward the front she called on Governor Andrew of
Massachusetts. “My dear madam,” he said, “I can do nothing for you. The
only thing I could do would be to give you a letter of introduction to
President Lincoln.”
“Well, give me that.”
When she reached Washington she called on the President, and after
a weary waiting was shown into his presence. “Why, madam,” said the
great-hearted Lincoln, “I can do nothing for you. If he were within our
own lines, I would give you a pass, but I cannot send you to Richmond.
At the best, I could only get you beyond our own pickets.”
“Then, please give me a pass beyond your pickets.”
This was done, and she passed the Union lines to fall into the hands of
the Confederate pickets. The latter refused to allow her to proceed.
“I am going right on to Richmond. Shoot if you will.” And she
started on. They did not shoot, but took her into camp, and from the
headquarters of that command she was sent on to Richmond.
When she reached the hospital where her son lay, the surgeon refused to
allow her to see him.
“I must see him! I’m sure it will do him good to see his mother!”
As soon as the son saw her, he cried out,--
“There is my mother! I knew she would come. I’ll get well now.” And
sure enough he did.
THE SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG.
For days there had been unusual activity in the camp. The Fourth of
July was to be celebrated by a general bombardment; and if there
were signs of yielding, a sharp assault and an attempt to capture
the city would be made. The besieged party was not in ignorance of
what was going on. The pickets and sharpshooters, and the soldiers
at points where the fortifications touched each other, had given the
whole programme of a grand Fourth of July celebration in boastful
proclamations. Everything was at fever-heat on the 3d of July, though
the firing was kept up at the usual rate till about one or two P.M.
Suddenly all firing ceased. The silence could almost be felt. There
had been pauses before, lasting an hour or more, during interviews
under a flag of truce. But as the afternoon slowly wore away, and the
firing was not resumed, the excitement became intense. Later, it was
reported that General Grant and General Pemberton had met under a
great spreading oak-tree just inside the Union lines, and that General
Grant had made his terms known in the memorable phrase “_unconditional
surrender_.”
It was a sad hour for Pemberton. His army was starving; his ammunition
and his fighting force were so diminished that to continue the siege
seemed madness. And yet he had held out so long hoping help might
come--it might now be near him--that it was hard to surrender. His was
a fearful struggle. Not many words passed between these two men as they
stood there, a little apart from their staff officers. Later, the time
of the surrender was fixed at 9 A.M. on the Fourth of July, which was
the next morning. The news flew through the camp at lightning speed.
Soon everybody, sick and well, knew that Vicksburg had surrendered. The
firing had ceased, but on both sides every man stood at his post.
There was little sleep for any of us that night; the stillness was so
unusual and impressive, and the excitement so intense, that sleep fled.
The morning of the Fourth dawned fair and beautiful. Very early in the
morning, in company with Dr. Maxwell and Mrs. General Stone, I drove
out to General Logan’s headquarters, whence the army was to begin the
triumphant march into the city.