Among the most zealous and untiring of the women who ministered to the
wounded men "at the front," in the long and terrible campaign of the
Army of the Potomac in 1864-5, was Miss Cornelia Hancock, of
Philadelphia. Of this lady's early history or her previous labors in the
war, we have been unable to obtain any very satisfactory information.
She had, we are told, been active in the United States General Hospitals
in Philadelphia, and had there learned what wounded men need in the way
of food and attention. She had also rendered efficient services at
Gettysburg. Of her work among the wounded men at Belle Plain and
Fredericksburg, Mr. John Vassar, one of the most efficient agents of the
Christian Commission, writes as follows:
"Miss Cornelia Hancock was the first lady who arrived at Fredericksburg
to aid in the care of the wounded. As one of the many interesting
episodes of the war, it has seemed that her good deeds should not be
unheralded. She was also among the very first to arrive at Gettysburg
after the fearful struggle, and for days and weeks ministered
unceasingly to the suffering. During the past winter she remained
constantly with the army in winter quarters, connecting herself with the
Second Division of the Second Corps. So attached were the soldiers, and
so grateful for her ministration in sickness, that they built a house
for her, in which she remained until the general order for all to leave
was given.
"When the news of Grant's battles reached the North, Miss Hancock left
Philadelphia at once for Washington. Several applications were made by
Members of Congress at the War Department for a permit for her to go to
the wounded. It was each time declined, as being unfeasible and
improper. With a woman's tact, she made application to go with one of
the surgeons then arriving, as assistant, as each surgeon was entitled
to one. The plan succeeded, and I well remember the mental ejaculation
made when I saw her at such a time on the boat. I lost sight of her at
Belle Plain, and had almost forgotten the circumstance, when, shortly
before our arrival at Fredericksburg, she passed in an ambulance. On
being assigned to a hospital of the Second Corps, I found she had
preceded me, and was earnestly at work. It was no fictitious effort, but
she had already prepared soup and farina, and was dispensing it to the
crowds of poor fellows lying thickly about.
"All day she worked, paying little attention to others, only assiduous
in her sphere. When, the next morning, I opened a new hospital at the
Methodist Church, I invited her to accompany me; she did so; and if
success and amelioration of suffering attended the effort, it was in no
small degree owing to her indefatigable labors. Within an hour from the
time one hundred and twenty had been placed in the building, she had
seen that good beef soup and coffee was administered to each, and during
the period I was there, no delicacy or nutriment attainable was wanting
to the men.
"Were any dying, she sat by to soothe their last moments, to receive the
dying message to friends at home, and when it was over to convey by
letter the sad intelligence. Let me rise ever so early, she had already
preceded me at work, and during the many long hours of the day, she
never seemed to weary or flag; in the evening, when all in her own
hospital had been fully cared for, she would go about the town with
delicacies to administer to officers who were so situated they could not
procure them. At night she sought a garret (and it was literally one)
for her rest.
"One can but feebly portray the ministrations of such a person. She
belonged to no association--had no compensation. She commanded respect,
for she was lady-like and well educated; so quiet and undemonstrative,
that her presence was hardly noticed, except by the smiling faces of the
wounded as she passed. While she supervised the cooking of the meats and
soups and coffee, all nice things were made and distributed by herself.
How the men watched for the dessert of farina and condensed milk, and
those more severely wounded for the draughts of milk punch!
"Often would she make visits to the offices of the Sanitary and
Christian Commissions, and when delicacies arrived, her men were among
the first to taste them. Oranges, lemons, pickles, soft bread and
butter, and even apple-sauce, were one or the other daily distributed.
Such unwearied attention is the more appreciated, when one remembers the
number of females who subsequently arrived, and the desultory and fitful
labor performed. Passing from one hospital to another, and bestowing
general sympathy, with small works, is not what wounded men want. It was
very soon perceptible how the men in that hospital appreciated the solid
worth of the one and the tinsel of the other.
"This imperfect recognition is but a slight testimonial to the lady-like
deportment and the untiring labors in behalf of sick and wounded
soldiers of Miss Hancock."
[Illustration: MRS. MARY MORRIS HUSBAND.
Eng. by John Sartain.]
MRS. MARY MORRIS HUSBAND.
There are some noble souls whose devotion to duty, to the welfare of the
suffering and sorrowing, and to the work which God has set before them,
is so complete that it leaves them no time to think of themselves, and
no consciousness that what they have done or are doing, is in any way
remarkable. To them it seems the most natural thing in the world to
undergo severe hardships and privations, to suffer the want of all
things, to peril health and even life itself, to endure the most intense
fatigue and loss of rest, if by so doing they may relieve another's pain
or soothe the burdened and aching heart; and with the utmost
ingenuousness, they will avow that they have done nothing worthy of
mention; that it is the poor soldier who has been the sufferer, and has
made the only sacrifices worthy of the name.
The worthy and excellent lady who is the subject of this sketch, is one
of the representative women of this class. Few, if any, have passed
through more positive hardships to serve the soldiers than she; but few
have as little consciousness of them.
Mrs. Mary Morris Husband, is a granddaughter of Robert Morris, the great
financier of our Revolutionary War, to whose abilities and patriotism it
was owing that we had a republic at all. She is, in her earnest
patriotism, well worthy of her ancestry. Her husband, a well-known and
highly respectable member of the Philadelphia bar, her two sons and
herself constituted her household at the commencement of the war, and
her quiet home in the Quaker City, was one of the pleasantest of the
many delightful homes in that city. The patriotic instincts were strong
in the family; the two sons enlisted in the army at the very beginning
of the conflict, one of them leaving his medical studies to do so; and
the mother, as soon as there was any hospital work to do was fully
prepared to take her part in it. She had been in poor health for some
years, but in her anxiety to render aid to the suffering, her own
ailings were forgotten. She was an admirable nurse and a skilful
housewife and cook, and her first efforts for the sick and wounded
soldiers in Philadelphia, were directed to the preparation of suitable
and palatable food for them, and the rendering of those attentions which
should relieve the irksomeness and discomforts of sickness in a
hospital. The hospital on Twenty-second and Wood streets, Philadelphia,
was the principal scene of these labors.
But the time had come for other and more engrossing labors for the sick
and wounded, and she was to be inducted into them by the avenue of
personal anxiety for one of her sons. In that fearful "change of base"
which resulted in the seven days' battle on the peninsula, when from the
combined influence of marsh malaria, want of food, overmarching, the
heat and fatigue of constant fighting, and the depression of spirits
incident to the unexpected retreat, more of our men fell down with
mortal sickness than were slain or wounded in the battles, one of Mrs.
Husband's sons was among the sufferers from disease, and word was sent
to her that he was at the point of death. She hastened to nurse him, and
after a great struggle and frequent relapses, he rallied and began to
recover. Meantime she had not been so wholly engrossed with her care for
him as to be neglectful of the hundreds and thousands around, who, like
him, were suffering from the deadly influences of that pestilential
climate and soil, or of the wounded who were wearing out their lives in
agony, with but scant attention or care; and every moment that could be
spared from her sick boy, was given to the other sufferers around her.
It was in this period of her work that she rendered the service to a
young soldier, now a physician of Brooklyn, New York, so graphically
described in the following extract from a letter addressed to the writer
of this sketch:
"I was prostrated by a severe attack of camp dysentery, stagnant water
and _unctuous_ bean soup not being exactly the diet for a sick person to
thrive on. I got "no better" very rapidly, till at length, one
afternoon, I lay in a kind of stupor, conscious that I was somewhere,
though where, for the life of me I could not say. As I lay in this
state, I imagined I heard my name spoken, and opening my eyes with
considerable effort, I saw bending over me a female form. I think the
astonishment restored me to perfect consciousness (though some liquor
poured into my mouth at the same time, may have been a useful adjunct).
As soon as I could collect myself sufficiently, I discovered the lady to
be a Mrs. Husband, who, with a few other ladies, had just arrived on one
of the hospital boats. Having lost my own mother when a mere child, you
may imagine the effect her tender nursing had upon me, and when she laid
her hand upon my forehead, all pain seemed to depart. I sank into a
sweet sleep, and awoke the next morning refreshed and strengthened in
mind and in body. From that moment my recovery was rapid, and in ten
days I returned to my duty."
As her son began to recover, she resolved, in her thankfulness for this
mercy, to devote herself to the care of the sick and wounded of the
army. She was on one of the hospital transports off Harrison's Landing,
when the rebels bombarded it, and though it was her first experience
"under fire," she stood her ground like a veteran, manifesting no
trepidation, but pursuing her work of caring for the sick as calmly as
if in perfect safety. Finding that she was desirous of rendering
assistance in the care of the disabled soldiers, she was assigned, we
believe, by the Sanitary Commission, to the position of Lady
Superintendent of one of the hospital transports which bore the wounded
and sick to New York. She made four trips on these vessels, and her
faithful attention to the sick, her skilful nursing, and her entire
forgetfulness of self, won for her the hearty esteem and regard of all
on board. The troops being all transferred to Acquia Creek and
Alexandria, Mrs. Husband went to Washington, and endeavored to obtain a
pass and transportation for supplies to Pope's army, then falling back,
foot by foot, in stern but unavailing resistance to Lee's strong and
triumphant force. These she was denied, but Miss Dix requested her to
take charge temporarily of the Camden Street Hospital, at Baltimore, the
matron of which had been stricken down with illness. After a few weeks'
stay here, she relinquished her position, and repaired to Antietam,
where the smoke of the great battle was just rolling off over the
heights of South Mountain. Here, at the Smoketown Hospital, where the
wounded from French's and some other divisions were gathered, she found
abundant employment, and at the request of that able surgeon and
excellent man, Dr. Vanderkieft, she remained in charge two months. Mrs.
Harris was with her here for a short time, and Miss Maria M. C. Hall,
during her entire stay. Her presence at this hospital brought perpetual
sunshine. Arduous as were her labors, for there were very many
desperately wounded, and quite as many dangerously sick, she never
manifested weariness or impatience, and even the sick and wounded men,
usually exacting, because forgetful of the great amount of labor which
their condition imposes upon the nurses, wondered that she never
manifested fatigue, and that she was able to accomplish so much as she
did. Often did they express their anxiety lest she should be compelled
from weariness and illness to leave them, but her smiling, cheerful face
reassured them. She and Miss Hall occupied for themselves and their
stores, a double hospital tent, and let the weather be what it might,
she was always at her post in the hospitals promptly at her hours, and
dispensed with a liberal hand to those who needed, the delicacies, the
stimulants, and medicines they required. She had made a flag for her
tent by sewing upon a breadth of calico a figure of a bottle cut out of
red flannel, and the bottle-flag flew to the wind at all times,
indicative of the medicines which were dispensed from the tent below. We
have endeavored to give a view of this tent, from which came daily such
quantities of delicacies, such excellent milk-punch to nourish and
support the patients whose condition was most critical, such finely
flavored flaxseed tea for the army of patients suffering from pulmonic
diseases ("_her_ flaxseed tea," says one of her boys, "was _never_
insipid"), lemonades for the feverish, and something for every needy
patient. See her as she comes out of her tent for her round of hospital
duties, a substantial comely figure, with a most benevolent and motherly
face, her hands filled with the good things she is bearing to some of
the sufferers in the hospital; she has discarded hoops, believing with
Florence Nightingale, that they are utterly incompatible with the duties
of the hospital; she has a stout serviceable apron nearly covering her
dress, and that apron is a miracle of pockets; pockets before, behind,
and on each side; deep, wide pockets, all stored full of something which
will benefit or amuse her "boys;" an apple, an orange, an interesting
book, a set of chess-men, checkers, dominoes, or puzzles, newspapers,
magazines, everything desired, comes out of those capacious pockets. As
she enters a ward, the whisper passes from one cot to another, that
"mother" is coming, and faces, weary with pain, brighten at her
approach, and sad hearts grow glad as she gives a cheerful smile to one,
says a kind word to another, administers a glass of her punch or
lemonade to a third, hands out an apple or an orange to a fourth, or a
book or game to a fifth, and relieves the hospital of the gloom which
seemed brooding over it. But not in these ways alone does she bring
comfort and happiness to these poor wounded and fever-stricken men. She
encourages them to confide to her their sorrows and troubles, and the
heart that, like the caged bird, has been bruising itself against the
bars of its cage, from grief for the suffering or sorrow of the loved
ones at home or oftener still, the soul that finds itself on the
confines of an unknown hereafter, and is filled with distress at the
thought of the world to come, pours into her attentive ear, the story of
its sorrows, and finds in her a wise and kind counsellor and friend, and
learns from her gentle teachings to trust and hope.
Hers was a truly heroic spirit. Darkness, storm, or contagion, had no
terrors for her, when there was suffering to be alleviated, or anguish
to be soothed. Amid the raging storms of the severe winter of 1862-3,
she often left her tent two or three times in the night and went round
to the beds of those who were apparently near death, from the fear that
the nurses might neglect something which needed to be done for them.
When diphtheria raged in the hospital, and the nurses fearing its
contagious character, fled from the bed-sides of those suffering from
it, Mrs. Husband devoted herself to them night and day, fearless of the
exposure, and where they died of the terrible disease received and
forwarded to their friends the messages of the dying.
It is no matter of surprise that when the time came for her to leave
this hospital, where she had manifested such faithful and
self-sacrificing care and tenderness for those whom she knew only as the
defenders of her country, those whom she left, albeit unused to the
melting mood, should have wept at losing such a friend. "There were no
dry eyes in that hospital," says one who was himself one of its inmates;
"all, from the strong man ready again to enter the ranks to the poor
wreck of humanity lying on his death-bed gave evidence of their love for
her, and sorrow at her departure in copious tears." On her way home she
stopped for an hour or two at camps A and B in Frederick, Maryland,
where a considerable number of the convalescents from Antietam had been
sent, and these on discovering her, surrounded her ambulance and greeted
her most heartily, seeming almost wild with joy at seeing their kind
friend once more. After a brief stay at Philadelphia, during which she
visited the hospitals almost constantly, she hastened again to the
front, and at Falmouth early in 1863, after that fearful and disastrous
battle of Fredericksburg she found ample employment for her active and
energetic nature. As matron of Humphreys' Division Hospital (Fifth
Corps) she was constantly engaged in ministering to the comfort of the
wounded, and her solicitude for the welfare and prosperity of the men
did not end with their discharge from the hospital. The informalities or
blunders by which they too often lost their pay and were sometimes set
down as deserters attracted her attention, and so far as possible she
always procured the correction of those errors. Early in April, 1863,
she made a flying visit to Philadelphia, and thus details in a letter to
a friend, at the time the kind and amount of labor which almost always
filled up every hour of those journeys. "Left Monday evening for home,
took two discharged soldiers with me; heard that I could not get a pass
to return; so instead of going directly through, stayed in Washington
twenty-four hours, and fought a battle for a pass. I came off conqueror
of course, but not until wearied almost to death--my boys in the
meantime had gotten their pay--so I took them from the Commission Lodge
(where I had taken them on arriving) to the cars, and off for Baltimore.
There I placed them in the care of one of the gentlemen of the Relief
Associations, and arrived home at 1.30 A. M. I carried money home for
some of the boys, and had business of my own to attend to, keeping me
constantly going on Wednesday and Thursday; left at midnight (Thursday
night) for Washington, took the morning boat and arrived here this
afternoon." This record of five days of severe labor such as few men
could have gone through without utter prostration, is narrated in her
letter to her friend evidently without a thought that there was anything
extraordinary in it; yet it was in a constant succession of labors as
wearing as this that she lived for full three years of her army life.
Immediately after the battles of Chancellorsville she went to United
States Ford, but was not allowed to cross, and joined two Maine ladies
at the hospital on the north side of the Rappahannock, where they
dressed wounds until dark, slept in an ambulance, and early in the
morning went to work again, but were soon warned to leave, as it was
supposed that the house used as a hospital would be shelled. They left,
and about half a mile farther on found the hospital of the Third and
Eleventh Corps. Here the surgeon in charge urged Mrs. Husband to remain
and assist him, promising her transportation. She accordingly left her
ambulance and dressed wounds until midnight. By this time the army was
in full retreat and passing the hospital. The surgeon forgot his
promise, and taking care of himself, left her to get away as best she
could. It was pitch dark and the rain pouring in torrents. She was
finally offered a part of the front seat of an army (medicine) wagon,
and after riding two or three miles on the horrible roads the tongue of
the wagon broke, and she was compelled to sit in the drenching rain for
two or three hours till the guide could bring up an ambulance, in which
she reached Falmouth the next day.
The hospital of which she was lady matron was broken up at the time of
this battle, but she was immediately installed in the same position in
the hospital of the Third Division of the Third Corps, then filled to
overflowing with the Chancellorsville wounded. Here she remained until
compelled to move North with the army by Lee's raid into Pennsylvania in
June and July, 1863.
On the 3d of July, the day of the last and fiercest of the Gettysburg
battles, Mrs. Husband, who had been, from inability to get permission to
go to the front, passing a few anxious days at Philadelphia, started for
Gettysburg, determined to go to the aid and relief of the soldier boys,
who, she well knew, needed her services. She reached the battle-field on
the morning of the 4th by way of Westminster, in General Meade's
mail-wagon. She made her way at first to the hospital of the Third
Corps, and labored there till that as well as the other field hospitals
were broken up, when she devoted herself to the wounded in Camp
Letterman. Here she was attacked with miasmatic fever, but struggled
against it with all the energy of her nature, remaining for three weeks
ill in her tent. She was at length carried home, but as soon as she was
convalescent, went to Camp Parole at Annapolis, as agent of the Sanitary
Commission, to fill the place of Miss Clara Davis, (now Mrs. Edward
Abbott), who was prostrated by severe illness induced by her severe and
continued labors.
In December, 1863, she accepted the position of matron to her old
hospital, (Third Division of the Third Corps), then located at Brandy
Station, where she remained till General Grant's order issued on the
15th of April caused the removal of all civilians from the army.
A month had not elapsed, before the terrible slaughter of the
"Wilderness" and "Spottsylvania," had made that part of Virginia a field
of blood, and Mrs. Husband hastened to Fredericksburg where no official
now barred her progress with his "red tape" prohibitions; here she
remained till the first of June, toiling incessantly, and then moving on
to Port Royal and White House, where the same sad scenes were repeated,
and where, amid so much suffering and horror, it was difficult to banish
the feeling of depression. At White House, she took charge of the low
diet kitchen for the whole Sixth Corps, to which her division had been
transferred. The number of wounded was very large, this corps having
suffered severely in the battle of Cold Harbor, and her duties were
arduous, but she made no complaint, her heart being at rest, if she
could only do something for her brave soldier boys.
When the base was transferred to City Point, she made her way to the
Third Division, Sixth Corps' Hospital at the front, where she remained
until the Sixth Corps were ordered to the Shenandoah Valley, when she
took charge of the low diet kitchen of the Second Corps' Hospital at
City Point, and remained there until the end. Her labors among the men
in this hospital were constant and severe, but she won all hearts by
her tenderness, cheerfulness, and thoughtful consideration of the needs
of every particular ease. Each one of those under her care felt that she
was specially _his_ friend, and interesting and sometimes amusing were
the confidences imparted to her, by the poor fellows. The one bright
event of the day to all was the visit of "Mother" Husband to their ward.
The apron, with its huge pockets, always bore some welcome gift for
each, and however trifling it might be in itself, it was precious as
coming from her hands. Her friends in Philadelphia, by their constant
supplies, enabled her to dispense many articles of comfort and luxury to
the sick and wounded, which could not otherwise have been furnished.
On the 6th of May, 1865, Mrs. Husband was gratified by the sight of our
gallant army marching through Richmond. As they passed, in long array,
they recognized her, and from hundreds of the soldiers of the Second,
Third, and Sixth Corps, rang out the loud and hearty "Hurrah for Mother
Husband!" while their looks expressed their gratitude to one who had
been their firm and faithful friend in the hour of suffering and danger.
Mrs. Husband felt that she must do something more for her "boys" before
they separated and returned to their distant homes; she therefore left
Richmond immediately, and traveling with her accustomed celerity, soon
reached Philadelphia, and gathering up from her liberal friends and her
own moderate means, a sufficient sum to procure the necessary stores,
she returned with an ample supply, met the soldiers of the corps to
which she had been attached at Bailey's Cross Roads, and there spent six
or seven days in distributing to them the clothing and comforts which
they needed. Her last opportunity of seeing them was a few days later at
the grand review in Washington.
There was one class of services which Mrs. Husband rendered to the
soldiers, which we have not mentioned, and in which we believe she had
no competitor. In the autumn of 1863, her attention was called to the
injustice of the finding and sentence of a court martial, which had
tried a private soldier for some alleged offence and sentenced him to be
shot. She investigated the case and, with some difficulty, succeeded in
procuring his pardon from the President.
She began from this time to take an interest in these cases of trial by
summary court martial, and having a turn for legal investigation, to
which her early training and her husband's profession had inclined her,
and a clear judicial mind, she made each one her study, and though she
found that there were some cases in which summary punishment was
merited, yet the majority were deserving of the interposition of
executive clemency, and she became their advocate with the patient and
kind-hearted Lincoln. In scores of instances she secured, not without
much difficulty, and some abuse from officials "dressed in a little
brief authority," who disliked her keen and thorough investigation of
their proceedings, the pardon or the commutation of punishment of those
sentenced to death. Rarely, if ever, did the President turn a deaf ear
to her pleadings; for he knew that they were prompted by no sinister
motive, or simple humane impulse. Every case which she presented had
been thoroughly and carefully examined, and her knowledge of it was so
complete, that he felt he might safely trust her.
Through all these multifarious labors and toils, Mrs. Husband has
received no compensation from the Government or the Sanitary Commission.
She entered the service as a volunteer, and her necessities have been
met from her own means, and she has also given freely to the soldiers
and to their families from her not over-full purse. Her reward is in the
sublime consciousness of having been able to accomplish an amount of
good which few could equal. All over the land, in hundreds of homes, in
thousands of hearts, her name is a household word, and as the mother
looks upon her son, the wife upon her husband, the child upon its
father, blessings are breathed forth upon her through whose skilful care
and watchful nursing these loved ones are spared to be a joy and
support. The contributions and mementoes presented by her soldier boys
form a large and very interesting museum in her home. There are rings
almost numberless, carved from animal bones, shells, stone, vulcanite,
etc., miniature tablets, books, harps, etc., inlaid from trees or houses
of historic memory, minie bullets, which have traversed bone and flesh
of patient sufferers, and shot and shell which have done their part in
destroying the fortresses of the rebellion. Each memento has its
history, and all are precious in the eyes of the recipient, as a token
of the love of those whom she has watched and nursed.
Her home is the Mecca of the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, and if
any of them are sick or in distress in Philadelphia, Mother Husband
hastens at once to their relief. Late may she return to the skies; and
when at last in the glory of a ripe and beautiful old age, she lies down
to rest, a grateful people shall inscribe on her monument, "Here lies
all that was mortal of one whom all delighted to honor."
HOSPITAL TRANSPORT SERVICE.
Among the deeds which entitle the United States Sanitary Commission to
the lasting gratitude of the American people, was the organization and
maintenance of the "Hospital Transport Service" in the Spring and Summer
of 1862. When the Army of the Potomac removed from the high lands about
Washington, to the low marshy and miasmatic region of the Peninsula, it
required but little discernment to predict that extensive sickness would
prevail among the troops; this, and the certainty of sanguinary battles
soon to ensue, which would multiply the wounded beyond all previous
precedents, were felt, by the officers of the Sanitary Commission, as
affording sufficient justification, if any were needed for making an
effort to supplement the provision of the Medical Bureau, which could
not fail to be inadequate for the coming emergency. Accordingly early in
April, 1862, Mr. F. L. Olmstead, the Secretary of the Commission, having
previously secured the sanction of the Medical Bureau, made application
to the Quartermaster-General to allow the Commission to take in hand
some of the transport steamboats of his department, of which a large
number were at that time lying idle, to fit them up and furnish them in
all respects suitable for the reception and care of sick and wounded
men, providing surgeons and other necessary attendance without cost to
Government. After tedious delays and disappointments of various
kinds--one fine large boat having been assigned, partially furnished by
the Commission, and then withdrawn--an order was at length received,
authorizing the Commission to take possession of any of the Government
transports, not in actual use, which might at that time be lying at
Alexandria. Under this authorization the Daniel Webster was assigned to
the Commission on the 25th of April, and having been fitted up, the
stores shipped, and the hospital corps for it assembled, it reached York
River on the 30th of April.
Other boats were subsequently, (several of them, very soon) assigned to
the Commission, and were successively fitted up, and after receiving
their freights of sick and wounded, sent to Washington, Philadelphia,
New York and other points with their precious cargoes, which were to be
transferred to the general hospitals. Among these vessels were the
"Ocean Queen," the "S. R. Spaulding," the "Elm City," the "Daniel
Webster," No. 2, the "Knickerbocker," the clipper ships Euterpe and St.
Mark, and the Commission chartered the "Wilson Small," and the
"Elizabeth," two small steamers, as tender and supply boats. The
Government were vacillating in their management in regard to these
vessels, often taking them from the Commission just when partially or
wholly fitted up, on the plea of requiring them for some purpose and
assigning another vessel, often poorly adapted to their service, on
board of which the labor of fitting and supplying must be again
undergone, when that too would be withdrawn.
To each of these hospital transports several ladies were assigned by the
Commission to take charge of the diet of the patients, assist in
dressing their wounds, and generally to care for their comfort and
welfare. Mr. Olmstead, and Mr. Knapp, the Assistant Secretary, had also
in their company, or as they pleasantly called them, members of their
staff, four ladies, who remained in the service, not leaving the
vicinity of the Peninsula, until the transfer of the troops to Acquia
Creek and Alexandria late in August. These ladies remained for the most
part on board the Daniel Webster, or the Wilson Small, or wherever the
headquarters of the Commission in the field might be. Their duties
consisted in nursing, preparing food for the sick and wounded, dressing
wounds, in connexion with the surgeons and medical students, and in
general, making themselves useful to the great numbers of wounded and
sick who were placed temporarily under their charge. Often they provided
them with clean beds and hospital clothing, and suitable food in
preparation for their voyage to Washington, Philadelphia, or New York.
These four ladies were Miss Katherine P. Wormeley, of Newport, R. I.,
Mrs. William P. Griffin, of New York, one of the executive board of the
Woman's Central Association of Relief, Mrs. Eliza W. Howland, wife of
Colonel (afterward General) Joseph Howland, and her sister, Miss
Georgiana Woolsey, both of New York.
Among those who were in charge of the Hospital Transports for one or
more of their trips to the cities we have named, and by their tenderness
and gentleness comforted and cheered the poor sufferers, and often by
their skilful nursing rescued them from the jaws of death, were Mrs.
George T. Strong, the wife of the Treasurer of the Commission, who made
four or five trips; Miss Harriet Douglas Whetten, who served throughout
the Peninsular Campaign as head of the Women's Department on the S. R.
Spaulding; Mrs. Laura Trotter, (now Mrs. Charles Parker) of Boston, who
occupied a similar position on the Daniel Webster; Mrs. Bailey, at the
head of the Women's Department on the Elm City; Mrs. Charlotte Bradford,
a Massachusetts lady who made several trips on the Elm City and
Knickerbocker; Miss Amy M. Bradley, whose faithful services are
elsewhere recorded; Mrs. Annie Etheridge, of the Fifth Michigan, Miss
Bradley's faithful and zealous co-worker; Miss Helen L. Gilson, who here
as well as everywhere else proved herself one of the most eminently
useful women in the service; Miss M. Gardiner, who was on several of the
steamers; Mrs. Balustier, of New York, one of the most faithful and
self-sacrificing of the ladies of the Hospital Transport service; Mrs.
Mary Morris Husband, of Philadelphia, who made four voyages, and whose
valuable services are elsewhere recited; Mrs. Bellows, the wife of the
President of the Commission, who made one voyage; Mrs. Merritt, and
several other ladies.
But let us return to the ladies who remained permanently at the
Commission's headquarters in the Peninsula. Their position and duties
were in many respects more trying and arduous than those who accompanied
the sick and wounded to the hospitals of the cities. The Daniel Webster,
which, as we have said, reached York River April 30, discharged her
stores except what would be needed for her trip to New York, and having
placed them in a store-house on shore, began to supply the sick in camp
and hospital, and to receive such patients on board as it was deemed
expedient to send to New York. These were washed, their clothing
changed, they were fed and put in good clean beds, and presently sent
off to their destination. The staff then commenced putting the Ocean
Queen, which had just been sent to them, into a similar condition of
fitness for receiving the sick and wounded. She had not, on her arrival,
a single bunk or any stores on board; and before any preparation could
be made, the regimental and brigade surgeons on shore (who never would
wait) began to send their sick and wounded on board; remonstrance was
useless, and the whole party worked with all their might to make what
provision was possible. One of the party went on shore, found a rebel
cow at pasture, shot her, skinned her with his pocket-knife, and brought
off the beef. A barrel of Indian meal, forgotten in discharging the
freight of the vessel, was discovered in the hold and made into gruel
almost by magic, and cups of it were ladled out to the poor fellows as
they tottered in, with their faces flushed with typhoid fever; by dint
of constant hard work, bunks were got up, stores brought on board, two
draught oxen left behind by Franklin's Division found and slaughtered,
and nine hundred patients having been taken on board, the vessel's
anchors were weighed and she went out to sea. This was very much the
experience of the party during their stay in the Peninsula. Hard,
constant, and hurrying work were the rule, a day of comparative rest was
the exception. Dividing themselves into small parties of two or three,
they boarded and supplied with the stores of the Commission, the boats
which the Medical officers of the army had pressed into the service
filled with wounded and sent without comfort, food or attendance, on
their way to the hospitals in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe;
superintended the shipping of patients on the steamers which returned
from the North; took account of the stores needed by these boats and saw
that they were sent on board; fitted up the new boats furnished to the
Commission by the Quartermaster's orders; received, sorted and
distributed the patients brought to the landing on freight-cars,
according to orders; fed, cleansed, and gave medical aid and nursing to
all of them, and selected nurses for those to be sent North; and when
any great emergency came did their utmost to meet it.
The amount of work actually performed was very great; but it was
performed in such a cheerful triumphant spirit, a spirit that rejoiced
so heartily in doing something to aid the nation's defenders, in
sacrificing everything that they might be saved, that it was robbed of
half its irksomeness and gloom, and most of the zealous workers retained
their health and vigor even in the miasmatic air of the bay and its
estuaries. Miss Wormeley, one of the transport corps, has supplied,
partly from her own pen, and partly from that of Miss Georgiana Woolsey,
one of her co-workers, some vivid pictures of their daily life, which,
with her permission, we here reproduce from her volume on the "United
States Sanitary Commission," published in 1863.
"The last hundred patients were brought on board" (imagine any of the
ships, it does not matter which) "late last night. Though these
night-scenes are part of our daily living, a fresh eye would find them
dramatic. We are awakened in the dead of night by a sharp steam-whistle,
and soon after feel ourselves clawed by little tugs on either side of
our big ship, bringing off the sick and wounded from the shore. And, at
once, the process of taking on hundreds of men--many of them crazed with
fever--begins. There is the bringing of the stretchers up the
side-ladder between the two boats; the stopping at the head of it, where
the names and home addresses of all who can speak are written down, and
their knapsacks and little treasures numbered and stacked; then the
placing of the stretchers on the platform; the row of anxious faces
above and below deck; the lantern held over the hold; the word given to
'Lower;' the slow-moving ropes and pulleys; the arrival at the bottom;
the turning down of the anxious faces; the lifting out of the sick man,
and the lifting him into his bed; and then the sudden change from cold,
hunger and friendlessness, into positive comfort and satisfaction,
winding up with his invariable verdict, if he can speak,--'This is just
like home!'
"We have put 'The Elm City' in order, and she began to fill up last
night. I wish you could hear the men after they are put into bed. Those
who _can_ speak, speak with a will; the others grunt, or murmur their
satisfaction. 'Well, this bed is most _too_ soft; I don't know as I
shall sleep, for thinking of it,' 'What have you got there?' 'That is
bread; wait till I put butter on it.' 'Butter, on _soft_ bread!' he
slowly ejaculates, as if not sure that he isn't Aladdin with a genie at
work upon him. Instances of such high unselfishness happen daily, that,
though I forget them daily, I feel myself strengthened in my trust in
human nature, without making any reflections about it. Last night, a man
comfortably put to bed in a middle berth (there were three tiers, and
the middle one incomparably the best) seeing me point to the upper berth
as the place to put the man on an approaching stretcher, cried out:
'Stop! put me up there. Guess I can stand h'isting better'n _him_.' It
was agony to both.
"I have a long history to tell you, one of these days, of the
gratefulness of the men. I often wish,--as I give a comfort to some poor
fellow, and see the sense of rest it gives him, and hear the favorite
speech: 'O, that's good, it's just as if mother was here,'--that the man
or woman who supplied that comfort were by to see how blessed it is.
Believe me, you may all give and work in the earnest hope that you
alleviate suffering, but none of you realize what you do; perhaps you
can't conceive of it, unless you could see your gifts _in use_. * * * *
"We are now on board 'The Knickerbocker,' unpacking and arranging
stores, and getting pantries and closets in order. I am writing on the
floor, interrupted constantly to join in a laugh. Miss ---- is sorting
socks, and pulling out the funny little balls of yarn, and big
darning-needles stuck in the toes, with which she is making a fringe
across my back. _Do_ spare us the darning-needles! Reflect upon us,
rushing in haste to the linen closet, and plunging our hands into the
bale of stockings! I certainly will make a collection of sanitary
clothing. I solemnly aver that yesterday I found a pair of drawers made
for a case of amputation at the thigh. And the slippers! Only fit for
pontoon bridges!"
This routine of fitting up the ships as they arrived, and of receiving
the men on board as they came from the front, was accompanied by
constant hard work in meeting requisitions from regiments, with
ceaseless battlings for transportation to get supplies to the front for
camps and hospitals; and was diversified by short excursions, which we
will call "special relief;" such, for instance, as the following:--
"At midnight two steamers came alongside 'The Elm City,' each with a
hundred sick, bringing word that 'The Daniel Webster No. 2' (a sidewheel
vessel, not a Commission boat) was aground at a little distance, with
two hundred more, having no one in charge of them, and nothing to eat.
Of course they had to be attended to. So, amidst the wildest and most
beautiful storm of thunder and lightning, four of us pulled off to her
in a little boat, with tea, bread, brandy, and beef-essence. (No one can
tell how it tries my nerves to go toppling round at night in little
boats, and clambering up ships' sides on little ladders). We fed
them,--the usual process. Poor fellows! they were so crazy!--And then
'The Wissahickon' came alongside to transfer them to 'The Elm City.'
Only a part of them could go in the first load. Dr. Ware, with his
constant thoughtfulness, made me go in her, to escape returning in the
small boat. Just as we pushed off, the steam gave out, and we drifted
end on to the shore. Then a boat had to put off from 'The Elm City,'
with a line to tow us up. All this time the thunder was incessant, the
rain falling in torrents, whilst every second the beautiful crimson
lightning flashed the whole scene open to us. Add to this, that there
were three men alarmingly ill, and (thinking to be but a minute in
reaching the other ship) I had not even a drop of brandy for them. Do
you wonder, therefore, that I forgot your letters?"
Or, again, the following:--
"Sixty men were heard of as lying upon the railroad without food, and no
one to look after them. Some of us got at once into the stern-wheeler
'Wissahickon,' which is the Commission's carriage, and, with provisions,
basins, towels, soap, blankets, etc., went up to the railroad bridge,
cooking tea and spreading bread and butter as we went. A tremendous
thunder-storm came up, in the midst of which the men were found, put on
freight-cars, and pushed to the landing;--fed, washed, and taken on the
tug to 'The Elm City.' Dr. Ware, in his hard working on shore, had found
fifteen other sick men without food or shelter,--there being 'no room'
in the tent-hospital. He had studied the neighborhood extensively for
shanties; found one, and put his men in it for the night. In the morning
we ran up on the tug, cooking breakfast for them as we ran, scrambling
eggs in a wash-basin over a spirit-lamp:--and such eggs! nine in ten
addled! It must be understood that wash-basins in the rear of an army
are made of _tin_."
And here is one more such story: "We were called to go on board 'The
Wissahickon,' from thence to 'The Sea-shore' and run down in the latter
to West Point, to bring off twenty-five men said to be lying there sick
and destitute. Two doctors went with us. After hunting an hour for 'The
Sea-shore' in vain, and having got as low as Cumberland, we decided
(_we_ being Mrs. Howland and I, for the doctors were new and docile, and
glad to leave the responsibility upon us women) to push on in the tug,
rather than leave the men another night on the ground, as a heavy storm
of wind and rain had been going on all the day. The pilot remonstrated,
but the captain approved; and, if the firemen had not suddenly let out
the fires, and detained us two hours, we might have got our men on
board, and returned, comfortably, soon after dark. But the delay lost us
the precious daylight. It was night before the last man was got on
board. There were fifty-six of them, ten _very_ sick ones. The boat had
a little shelter-cabin. As we were laying mattresses on the floor,
whilst the doctors were finding the men, the captain stopped us,
refusing to let us put typhoid fever below the deck, on account of the
crew, he said, and threatening to push off, at once, from the shore.
Mrs. Howland and I looked at him! I did the terrible, and she the
pathetic,--and he abandoned the contest. The return passage was rather
an anxious one. The river is much obstructed with sunken ships and
trees; the night was dark, and we had to feel our way, slackening speed
every ten minutes. If we had been alone it wouldn't have mattered; but
to have fifty men unable to move upon our hands, was too heavy a
responsibility not to make us anxious. The captain and pilot said the
boat was leaking, and remarked awfully that 'the water was six fathoms
deep about there;' but we saw their motive and were not scared. We were
safe alongside 'The Spaulding' by midnight; but Mr. Olmstead's tone of
voice, as he said, 'You don't know how glad I am to see you,' showed how
much he had been worried. And yet it was the best thing we could have
done, for three, perhaps five, of the men would have been dead before
morning. To-day (Sunday) they are living and likely to live. _Is_ this
Sunday? What days our Sundays have been! I think of you all at rest,
and the sound of church bells in your ears, with a strange, distant
feeling."
This was the general state of things at the time when the battle of Fair
Oaks was fought, June 1, 1862. All the vessels of the Commission except
"The Spaulding"--and she was hourly expected--were on the spot, and
ready. "The Elm City" happened to be full of fever cases. A vague rumor
of a battle prevailed, soon made certain by the sound of the
cannonading; and she left at once (4 A. M.) to discharge her sick at
Yorktown, and performed the great feat of getting back to White House,
cleaned, and with her beds made, before sunset of the same day. By that
time the wounded were arriving. The boats of the Commission filled up
calmly. The young men had a system by which they shipped their men; and
there was neither hurry nor confusion, as the vessels, one by one,--"The
Elm City," "The Knickerbocker," "The Daniel Webster,"--filled up and
left the landing. After them, other boats, detailed by the Government
for hospital service, came up. These boats were not under the control of
the Commission. There was no one specially appointed to take charge of
them; no one to receive the wounded at the station; no one to see that
the boats were supplied with proper stores. A frightful scene of
confusion and misery ensued. The Commission came forward to do what it
could; but it had no power, only the right of charity. It could not
control, scarcely check, the fearful confusion that prevailed, as train
after train came in, and the wounded were brought and thrust upon the
various boats. But it did nobly what it could. Night and day its members
worked: not, it must be remembered, in its own well-organized service,
but in the hard duty of making the best of a bad case. Not the smallest
preparation was found, on at least three of the boats, for the common
food of the men; and, as for sick-food, stimulants, drinks, there was
nothing of the kind on any one of the boats, and not a pail nor a cup to
distribute food, had there been any.
No one, it is believed, can tell the story, _as it occurred_, of the
next three days;--no one can tell distinctly what boats they were, on
which they lived and worked through those days and nights. They remember
scenes and sounds, but they remember nothing as a whole; and, to this
day, if they are feverish and weary, comes back the sight of men in
every condition of horror, borne, shattered and shrieking, by
thoughtless hands, who banged the stretchers against pillars and posts,
dumped them anywhere, and walked over the men without compassion.
Imagine an immense river-steamboat filled on every deck: every berth,
every square inch of room, covered with wounded men,--even the stairs
and gangways and guards filled with those who were less badly wounded;
and then imagine fifty well men, on every kind of errand, hurried and
impatient, rushing to and fro, every touch bringing agony to the poor
fellows, whilst stretcher after stretcher comes along, hoping to find an
empty place; and then imagine what it was for these people of the
Commission to keep calm themselves, and make sure that each man, on such
a boat as that, was properly refreshed and fed. Sometimes two or even
three such boats were lying side by side, full of suffering and horrors.
This was the condition of things with the subordinates. With the chiefs
it was aggravated by a wild confusion of conflicting orders from
headquarters, and conflicting authority upon the ground, until the
wonder is that _any_ method could have been obtained. But an earnest
purpose can do almost everything, and out of the struggle came daylight
at last. The first gleam of it was from a hospital tent and kitchen,
which, by the goodness and thoughtfulness of Captain (now Colonel)
Sawtelle, Assistant-Quartermaster, was pitched for the Commission, just
at the head of the wharf, and near the spot where the men arrived in the
cars. This tent (Dr. Ware gave to its preparation the only hour when he
might have rested through that long nightmare) became the strength and
the comfort of the Commission people. As the men passed it, from cars to
boat, they could be refreshed and stimulated, and from it meals were
sent to all the boats at the landing. During that dreadful battle-week,
three thousand men were fed from that tent. It was not the Vale of
Cashmere, but many dear associations cluster round it.
After the pressure was over, the Commission went back to its old
routine, but upon a new principle. A member of the Commission came down
to White House for a day or two, and afterward wrote a few words about
that work. As he saw it with a fresh eye, his letter will be given here.
He says:--
"I wish you could have been with me at White House during my late visit,
to see how much is being done by our agents there to alleviate the
sufferings of the sick and wounded soldiers. I have seen a good deal of
suffering among our volunteers, and observed the marvellous variety and
energy of the beneficence bestowed by the patriotic and philanthropic in
camp, in hospital, and on transports for the sick; but nothing has ever
impressed me so deeply as this. Perhaps I can better illustrate my
meaning by sketching a few of the daily labors of the agents of the
Commission as I saw them. The sick and wounded were usually sent down
from the front by rail, a distance of about twenty miles, over a rough
road, and in the common freight-cars. A train generally arrived at White
House at nine P. M., and another at two A. M. In order to prepare for
the reception of the sick and wounded, Mr. Olmstead, with Drs. Jenkins
and Ware, had pitched, by the side of the railway, at White House, a
large number of tents, to shelter and feed the convalescent. These tents
were their only shelter while waiting to be shipped. Among them was one
used as a kitchen and work-room, or pantry, by the ladies in our
service, who prepared beef-tea, milk-punch, and other food and comforts,
in anticipation of the arrival of the trains. By the terminus of the
railway the large Commission steamboat 'Knickerbocker' lay in the
Pamunkey, in readiness for the reception of four hundred and fifty
patients, provided with comfortable beds and a corps of devoted
surgeons, dressers, nurses, and litter-bearers. Just outside of this
vessel lay 'The Elizabeth,' a steam-barge, loaded with the hospital
stores of the Commission, and in charge of a store-keeper, always ready
to issue supplies. Outside of this again lay 'The Wilson Small,' the
headquarters of our Commission. As soon as a train arrived, the
moderately sick were selected and placed in the tents near the railroad
and fed; those more ill were carried to the upper saloon of 'The
Knickerbocker,' while the seriously ill, or badly wounded, were placed
in the lower saloon, and immediately served by the surgeons and
dressers. During the three nights that I observed the working of the
system, about seven hundred sick and wounded were provided with quarters
and ministered to in all their wants with a tender solicitude and skill
that excited my deepest admiration. To see Drs. Ware and Jenkins,
lantern in hand, passing through the trains, selecting the sick with
reference to their necessities, and the ladies following to assuage the
thirst, or arouse, by judiciously administered stimulants, the failing
strength of the brave and uncomplaining sufferers, was a spectacle of
the most touching character. If you had experienced the debilitating
influence of the Pamunkey climate, you would be filled with wonder at
the mere physical endurance of our corps, who certainly could not have
been sustained in the performance of duties, involving labor by day and
through sleepless nights, without a strong sense of their usefulness and
success.
"At Savage's Station, too, the Commission had a valuable depot, where
comfort and assistance was dispensed to the sick when changing from the
ambulances to the cars. I wish I could do justice to the subject of my
hasty narrative, or in any due measure convey to your mind the
impressions left on mine in observing, even casually, the operations in
the care of the sick at these two points.
"When we remember what was done by the same noble band of laborers after
the battles of Williamsburg and Fair Oaks, in ministering to the wants
of _thousands of wounded_, I am sure that we shall join with them in
gratitude and thankfulness that they were enabled to be there."
But the end of it all was at hand; the "change of base," of which the
Commission had some private intelligence, came to pass. The sick and
wounded were carefully gathered up from the tents and hospitals, and
sent slowly away down the winding river--"The Wilson Small" lingering as
long as possible, till the telegraph wires had been cut, and the enemy
was announced, by mounted messengers, to be at "Tunstall's;" in fact,
till the roar of the battle came nearer, and we knew that Stoneman with
his cavalry was falling back to Williamsburg, and that the enemy were
about to march into our deserted places.
"All night we sat on the deck of 'The Small' slowly moving away,
watching the constantly increasing cloud and the fire-flashes over the
trees towards the White House; watching the fading out of what had been
to us, through these strange weeks, a sort of home, where all had worked
together and been happy; a place which is sacred to some of us now for
its intense living remembrances, and for the hallowing of them all by
the memory of one who, through months of death and darkness, lived and
worked in self-abnegation, lived in and for the suffering of others, and
finally gave himself a sacrifice for them."[F]
[Footnote F: Dr. Robert Ware.]
"We are coaling here to-night ('Wilson Small,' off Norfolk, June 30th,
1862). We left White House Saturday night, and rendezvoused at West
Point. Captain Sawtelle sent us off early, with despatches for Fortress
Monroe; this gave us the special fun of being the first to come
leisurely into the panic then raging at Yorktown. 'The Small' was
instantly surrounded by terror-stricken boats; the people of the big
'St. Mark' leaned, pale, over their bulwarks, to question us. Nothing
could be more delightful than to be as calm and monosyllabic as we were.
* * * * * We leave at daybreak for Harrison's Bar, James River, where
our gunboats are said to be; we hope to get further up, but General Dix
warns us that it is not safe. What are we about to learn? No one here
can tell. * * * * * (Harrison's Bar, July 2d). We arrived here yesterday
to hear the thunder of the battle,[G] and to find the army just
approaching this landing; last night it was a verdant shore, to-day it
is a dusty plain. * * * * * 'The Spaulding' has passed and gone ahead of
us; her ironsides can carry her safely past the rifle-pits which line
the shore. No one can tell us as yet what work there is for us; the
wounded have not come in." * * * * *
[Footnote G: Malvern Hill.]
"_Hospital Transport 'Spaulding,' July 3d._--Reached Harrison's Bar at
11 A. M., July 1st, and were ordered to go up the James River, as far as
Carter's Landing. To do this we must pass the batteries at City Point.
We were told there was no danger if we should carry a yellow flag;
_yellow flag_ we had none, so we trusted to the _red_ Sanitary
Commission, and prepared to run it. 'The Galena' hailed us to keep
below, as we passed the battery. Shortly after, we came up with 'The
Monitor,' and the little captain, with his East India hat, trumpet in
hand, repeated the advice of 'The Galena,' and added, that if he heard
firing, he would follow us. Our cannon pointed its black muzzle at the
shore, and on we went. As we left 'The Monitor,' the captain came to me,
with his grim smile, and said, 'I'll take those mattresses you spoke
of.' We had joked, as people will, about our danger, and I had suggested
mattresses round the wheel-house, never thinking that he would try it.
But the captain was in earnest; when was he anything else? So the
contrabands brought up the mattresses, and piled them against the
wheel-house, and the pilot stood against the mast, with a mattress slung
in the rigging to protect him. In an hour we had passed the danger and
reached Carter's Landing, and there was the army, 'all that was left of
it.' * * * Over all the bank, on the lawns of that lovely spot, under
the shade of the large trees that fringed the outer park, lay hundreds
of our poor boys, brought from the battle-fields of six days. It seemed
a hopeless task even to feed them. We went first into the hospital, and
gave them refreshment all round. One man, burnt up with fever, burst
into tears when I spoke to him. I held his hand silently, and at last he
sobbed out, 'You are so kind,--I--am so weak.' We were ordered by the
surgeon in charge to station ourselves on the lawn, and wait the arrival
of the ambulances, so as to give something (we had beef-tea, soup,
brandy, etc., etc.) to the poor fellows as they arrived. * * * * * Late
that night came peremptory orders from the Quartermaster, for 'The
Spaulding' to drop down to Harrison's Landing. We took some of the
wounded with us; others went by land or ambulances, and some--it seems
incredible--walked the distance. Others were left behind and taken
prisoners; for the enemy reached Carter's Landing as we left it."
The work of the Commission upon the hospital transports was about to
close.
But before it was all over, the various vessels had made several trips
in the service of the Commission, and one voyage of "The Spaulding" must
not pass unrecorded.
"We were ordered up to City Point, under a flag of truce, to receive our
wounded men who were prisoners in Richmond. * * * * * At last the
whistle sounded and the train came in sight. The poor fellows set up a
weak cheer at the sight of the old flag, and those who had the strength
hobbled and tumbled off the train almost before it stopped. We took four
hundred and one on board. Two other vessels which accompanied us took
each two hundred more. The rebel soldiers had been kind to our men,--so
they said,--but the citizens had taken pains to insult them. One man
burst into tears as he was telling me of their misery: 'May God defend
me from such again.' God took him to Himself, poor suffering soul! He
died the next morning,--died because he would not let them take off his
arm. 'I wasn't going to let them have it in Richmond; I said I _would_
take it back to old Massachusetts.' Of course we had a hard voyage with
our poor fellows in such a condition, but, at least, they were cleaned
and well fed."
OTHER LABORS OF SOME OF THE MEMBERS OF THE HOSPITAL TRANSPORT CORPS.
Most of the ladies connected with this Hospital Transport service,
distinguished themselves in other departments of philanthropic labor for
the soldiers, often not less arduous, and sometimes not cheered by so
pleasant companionship. Miss BRADLEY, as we have seen accomplished a
noble work in connection with the Soldiers' Home at Washington, and the
Rendezvous of Distribution; Miss GILSON and Mrs. HUSBAND were active in
every good word and work; Mrs. CHARLOTTE BRADFORD succeeded Miss Bradley
in the charge of the Soldiers' Home at Washington, where she
accomplished a world of good. Mrs. W. P. GRIFFIN, though compelled by
illness contracted during her services on the Peninsula, returned with
quickened zeal and more fervid patriotism to her work in connection with
the "Woman's Central Association of Relief," in New York, of which she
was up to the close of the war one of the most active and untiring
managers. Miss HARRIET DOUGLAS WHETTEN, who after two or three voyages
back and forth in different vessels, was finally placed in charge of the
Woman's Department on board of the Spaulding, where she remained until
that vessel was given up by the Commission, and indeed continued on
board for two or three voyages after the vessel became a Government
hospital transport. Her management on board the Spaulding was admirable,
eliciting the praise of all who saw it. When the Portsmouth Grove
General Hospital in Rhode Island was opened, under the charge of Miss
Wormeley, as Lady Superintendent, that lady invited her to become her
assistant; she accepted the invitation and remained there a year, when
she was invited to become Lady Superintendent of the Carver General
Hospital, at Washington, D. C., a position of great responsibility,
which she filled with the greatest credit and success, retaining it to
the close of the war.
An intimate friend, who was long associated with her, says of her, "Miss
Whetten's absolute and untiring devotion to the sick men was beyond all
praise. She is a _born nurse_. She was perhaps less energetic and rapid
than others, but no one could quite come up to her in tender care, and
in that close watching and sympathetic knowledge about a patient which
belongs only to a true nurse. And when I say that she was less energetic
than some, I am in fact saying something to her honor. Her nature was
calmer and less energetic, but she worked as hard and for a longer time
together than any of us, and this was directly in opposition to her
habits and disposition, and was in fact a triumph over herself. She did
more than any one personally for the men--the rest of us worked more
generally--when a man's sufferings or necessities were relieved, we
thought no more about him--but she took a warm personal interest in the
individual. In the end this strain upon her feelings wore down her
spirits, but it was a feature of her success, and there must be many a
poor fellow, who if he heard her name 'would rise up and call her
blessed.'"
* * * * *
Three or four of the ladies especially connected with the headquarters
of the Commission in the Hospital Transport Service, from their
important services elsewhere, are entitled to a fuller notice. Among
these we must include the accomplished historian of the earlier work of
the Commission.
KATHERINE P. WORMELEY
Among the many of our countrywomen who have been active and ardent in
the soldier's cause, some may have devoted themselves to the service for
a longer period, but few with more earnestness and greater ability than
the lady whose name stands at the head of this sketch, and few have
entered into a greater variety of details in the prosecution of the
work.
Katherine Prescott Wormeley was born in England. Her father though
holding the rank of a Rear-Admiral in the British Navy, was a native of
Virginia. Her mother is a native of Boston, Massachusetts. Miss Wormeley
may therefore be said to be alien to her birth-place, and to be an
American in fact as in feelings. She now resides with her mother at
Newport, Rhode Island.
Miss Wormeley was among the earliest to engage in the work of procuring
supplies and aid for the volunteer soldiery. The work began in Newport
early in July, 1861. The first meeting of women was held informally at
the house of Miss Wormeley's mother. An organization was obtained, rooms
secured (being lent for the purpose), and about two thousand dollars
subscribed. The Society, which assumed the name of the "Woman's Union
Aid Society" immediately commenced the work with vigor, and shortly
forwarded to the Sanitary Commission at Washington their first cases of
clothing and supplies. Miss Wormeley remained at the head of this
society until April, 1862. It was kept in funds by private gifts, and
by the united efforts of all the churches of Newport, and the United
States Naval Academy which was removed thither from Annapolis, Maryland,
in the spring of 1861.
During the summer of 1861 several ladies (summer residents of Newport),
were in the habit of sending to Miss Wormeley many poor women, with the
request that she would furnish them with steady employment upon hospital
clothing, the ladies paying for the work. After they left, the poor
women whom they had thus benefited, felt the loss severely, and the
thought occurred to Miss Wormeley that the outfitting of a great army
must furnish much suitable work for them could it be reached.
After revolving the subject in her own mind, she wrote to
Quartermaster-General Meigs at Washington, making inquiries, and was by
him referred to the Department Quartermaster-General, Colonel D. H.
Vinton, United States Army, office of army clothing and equipage, New
York. Colonel Vinton replied in the kindest manner, stating the
difficulties of the matter, but expressing his willingness to give Miss
Wormeley a contract if she thought she could surmount them.
Miss Wormeley found her courage equal to the attempt, and succeeded far
more easily than she had expected in carrying out her plans. She engaged
rooms at a low rent, and found plenty of volunteer assistance on all
sides. Ladies labored unweariedly in cutting and distributing the work
to the applicants. Gentlemen packed the cases, and attended to the
shipments. During the winter of 1861-2 about fifty thousand army shirts
were thus made, not one of which was returned as imperfect, and she was
thus enabled to circulate in about one hundred families, a sum equal to
six thousand dollars, which helped them well through the winter.
Colonel Vinton, as was the case with other officers very generally
throughout the war, showed great kindness and appreciation of these
efforts of women. And though this contract must have given him far more
trouble than contracts with regular clothing establishments, his
goodness, which was purely benevolent, never flagged.
During all this time the work of the Women's Union Aid Society was also
carried on at Miss Wormeley's rooms, and a large number of cases were
packed and forwarded thence, either to New York or directly to
Washington. Miss Wormeley, herself, still superintended this matter, and
though an Associate Manager of the New England Women's Branch of the
Sanitary Commission, preferred this direct transmission as a saving both
of time and expense.
The Society was earnest and indefatigable in its exertions, acting
always with great promptness and energy while under the direction of
Miss Wormeley. On one occasion, as an instance, a telegraphic message
from Washington brought at night an urgent call for a supply of
bed-sacks. Early in the morning all the material in Newport was bought
up, as many sewing-machines as possible obtained, and seventy-five
bed-sacks finished and sent off that day, and as many more the following
day.
Miss Wormeley was just closing up her contract when, in April, 1862, the
"Hospital Transport Service" was organized, principally by the efforts
of Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, the General Secretary of the Sanitary
Commission. The sudden transfer of the scene of active war from the high
grounds bordering the Potomac to a low and swampy region intersected by
a network of creeks and rivers, made necessary appliances for the care
of the sick and wounded, which the Government was not at that time
prepared to furnish. Hence arose the arrangement by which certain large
steamers, chartered, but then unemployed by the Government, were
transferred to the Sanitary Commission to be fitted up as Hospital
Transports for the reception and conveyance of the sick and wounded. To
the superintendence of this work, care of the sick, and other duties of
this special service, a number of agents of the Commission, with
volunteers of both sexes, were appointed, and after protracted and
vexatious delays in procuring the first transports assembled at
Alexandria, Virginia, on the 25th of April, and embarked on the Daniel
Webster for York River, which they reached on the 30th of April.
Miss Wormeley was one of the first to become connected with this branch
of the service, and proceeded at once to her field of duty. She remained
in this employment until August of the same year, and passed through all
the horrors of the Peninsula campaign. By this, of course, is not
understood the _battles_ of the campaign, nor the army movements, but
the reception, washing, feeding, and ministering to the sick and the
wounded--scenes which are too full of horror for tongue to tell, or pen
to describe, but which must always remain indelibly impressed upon the
minds and hearts of those who were actors in them.
The ladies, it may be observed, who were attached to the Hospital
Transport Corps at the headquarters of the Commission, were all from the
higher walks of society, women of the greatest culture and refinement,
and unaccustomed to toil or exhausting care. Yet not one of them shrank
from hardship, or revolted at any labor or exertion which could serve to
bring comfort to the sufferers under their charge.
Active and endowed with extraordinary executive ability, Miss Wormeley
was distinguished for her great usefulness during this time of fierce
trial, when the malaria of the Chickahominy swamps was prostrating its
thousands of brave men, and the battles of Williamsburg, White House,
and Fair Oaks, and the disastrous retreat to Harrison's Landing were
marked by an almost unexampled carnage.
While the necessity of exertion continued, Miss Wormeley and her
associates bore up bravely, but no sooner was this ended than nearly all
succumbed to fever, or the exhaustion of excessive and protracted
fatigue. Nevertheless, within a few days after Miss Wormeley's return
home, the Surgeon-General, passing through Newport, came to call upon
her and personally solicit her to take charge of the Woman's Department
of the Lowell General Hospital, then being organized at Portsmouth
Grove, R. I. After a brief hesitation, on account of her health, Miss
Wormeley assented to the proposal, and on the 1st of September, 1862,
went to the hospital. She was called, officially, the "Lady
Superintendent," and her duties were general; they consisted less of
actual nursing, than the organization and superintendence of her
department. Under her charge were the Female Nurses, the Diet Kitchens,
and Special diet, the Linen Department, and the Laundry, where she had a
steam Washing Machine, which was capable of washing and mangling four
thousand pieces a day.
The hospital had beds for two thousand five hundred patients. Four
friends of Miss Wormeley joined her here, and were her Assistant
Superintendents--Misses G. M. and J. S. Woolsey, Miss Harriet D.
Whetten, of New York, and Miss Sarah C. Woolsey, of New Haven. Each of
these had charge of seven Wards, and was responsible to the surgeons for
the nursing and diet of the sick men. To the exceedingly valuable
co-operation of these ladies, Miss Wormeley has, on all occasions,
attributed in a great measure the success which attended and rewarded
her services in this department of labor, as also to the kindness of the
Surgeon in charge, Dr. Lewis A. Edwards, and of his Assistants.
She remained at Portsmouth Grove a little more than a year, carrying on
the arrangements of her department with great ability and perfect
success. On holidays, through the influence of herself and her
assistants, the inmates received ample donations for the feasts
appropriate to the occasions, and at all times liberal gifts of books,
games, &c., for their instruction and entertainment. But in September,
1863, partly from family reasons, and partly because her health gave
way, she was forced to resign and return home.
From that time her labors in hospital ceased. But, in the following
December, at the suggestion of Mr. and Mrs. George Ticknor, of Boston,
and of other friends, she prepared for the Boston Sanitary Fair, a
charming volume entitled, "The United States Sanitary Commission; A
Sketch of its Purposes and its Work."
This book, owing to unavoidable hindrances, was not commenced till so
late that but eleven days were allowed for its completion. But, with her
accustomed energy, having most of her materials at hand, Miss Wormeley
commenced and finished the book within the specified time, without other
assistance than that volunteered by friends in copying and arranging
papers. Graceful in style, direct in detail, plain in statement and
logical in argument, it shows, however, no traces of hasty writing. It
met with great and deserved success, and netted some hundreds of dollars
to the fair.
Miss Wormeley attributes much of the success of her work, in all
departments, to the liberality of her friends. During the war she
received from the community of Newport, alone, over seventeen thousand
dollars, beside, large donations of brandy, wine, flannel, etc., for the
Commission and hospital use. The Newport Aid Society, which she assisted
in organizing, worked well and faithfully to the end, and rendered
valuable services to the Sanitary Commission. Since the completion of
her book, her health has not permitted her to engage in active service.
THE MISSES WOOLSEY.
We are not aware of any other instance among the women who have devoted
themselves to works of philanthropy and patriotism during the recent
war, in which four sisters have together consecrated their services to
the cause of the nation. In social position, culture, refinement, and
all that could make life pleasant, Misses Georgiana and Jane C. Woolsey,
and their married sisters, Mrs. Joseph and Mrs. Robert Howland, were
blessed above most women; and if there were any who might have deemed
themselves excused from entering upon the drudgery, the almost menial
service incident to the Hospital Transport service, to the position of
Assistant Superintendent of a crowded hospital, of nurse in field
hospitals after a great battle, or of instructors and superintendents of
freedmen and freedwomen; these ladies might have pleaded an apology for
some natural shrinking from the work, from its dissimilarity to all
their previous pursuits. But to the call of duty and patriotism, they
had no such objections to urge.
Mrs. Joseph Howland was the wife of a Colonel in the Union army, and
felt it a privilege to do something for the brave men with whom her
husband's interests were identified, and accompanying him to the camp
whenever this was permitted, she ministered to the sick or wounded men
of his command with a tenderness and gentleness which won all hearts.
When the invitation was given to her and her sister to unite with others
in the Hospital Transport service, she rejoiced at the opportunity for
wider usefulness in the cause she loved; how faithfully, earnestly, and
persistently she toiled is partially revealed in the little work
published by some of her associates, under the title of "Hospital
Transports," but was fully known only by those who shared in her labors,
and those who were the recipients of her kind attentions. One of these,
a private in the Sixteenth New York Regiment (her husband's regiment),
and who had been under her care on one of the Commission's transports at
White House, expressed his gratitude in the following graceful lines
"From old St. Paul till now
Of honorable women, not a few
Have left their golden ease, in love to do
The saintly work which Christ-like hearts pursue.
"And such an one art thou? God's fair apostle,
Bearing his love in war's horrific train;
Thy blessed feet follow its ghastly pain,
And misery and death without disdain.
"To one borne from the sullen battle's roar,
Dearer the greeting of thy gentle eyes
When he, a-weary, torn, and bleeding lies,
Than all the glory that the victors prize.
"When peace shall come and homes shall smile again,
A thousand soldier hearts, in northern climes,
Shall tell their little children in their rhymes
Of the sweet saints who blessed the old war times."
_On the Chickahominy, June 12th, 1862._
Impaired health, the result of the excessive labors of that battle
summer, prevented Mrs. Howland from further active service in the field;
but whenever her health permitted, she visited and labored in the
hospitals around Washington, and her thoughtful attention and words of
encouragement to the women nurses appointed by Miss Dix, and receiving a
paltry stipend from the Government, were most gratefully appreciated by
those self-denying, hard-working, and often sorely-tried women--many of
them the peers in culture, refinement and intellect of any lady in the
land, but treated with harshness and discourtesy by boy-surgeons, who
lacked the breeding or instincts of the gentleman. Her genuine modesty
and humility have led her, as well as her sisters, to deprecate any
notoriety or public notice of their work, which they persist in
regarding as unworthy of record; but so will it not be regarded by the
soldiers who have been rescued from inevitable death by their persistent
toil, nor by a nation grateful for the services rendered to its brave
defenders.
Mrs. Robert S. Howland was the wife of a clergyman, and an earnest
worker in the hospitals and in the Metropolitan Sanitary Fair, and her
friends believed that her over-exertion in the preparation and
attendance upon that fair, contributed to shorten a life as precious and
beautiful as was ever offered upon the altar of patriotism. Mrs. Howland
possessed rare poetic genius, and some of her effusions, suggested by
incidents of army or hospital life, are worthy of preservation as among
the choicest gems of poetry elicited by the war. "A Rainy Day in Camp,"
"A Message from the Army," etc., are poems which many of our readers
will recall with interest and pleasure. A shorter one of equal merit and
popularity, we copy not only for its brevity, but because it expresses
so fully the perfect peace which filled her heart as completely as it
did that of the subject of the poem:
IN THE HOSPITAL.
"S. S----, a Massachusetts Sergeant, worn out with heavy marches,
wounds and camp disease, died in ---- General Hospital, in
November, 1863, in 'perfect peace.' Some who witnessed daily his
wonderful sweet patience and content, through great languor and
weariness, fancied sometimes they 'could already see the brilliant
particles of a halo in the air about his head.'
"I lay me down to sleep,
With little thought or care.
Whether my waking find
Me here--or THERE!
"A bowing, burdened head,
That only asks to rest,
Unquestioning, upon
A loving Breast.
"My good right-hand forgets
Its cunning now--
To march the weary march
I know not how.
"I am not eager, bold,
Nor strong--all that is past:
I am ready NOT TO DO
At last--at last!
"My half-day's work is done,
And this is all my part;
I give a patient God
My patient heart.
"And grasp his banner still,
Though all its blue be dim;
These stripes, no less than stars.
Lead after Him."
Mrs. Howland died in the summer of 1864.
Miss Georgiana M. Woolsey, was one of the most efficient ladies
connected with the Hospital Transport service, where her constant
cheerfulness, her ready wit, her never failing resources of contrivance
and management in any emergency, made the severe labor seem light, and
by keeping up the spirits of the entire party, prevented the scenes of
suffering constantly presented from rendering them morbid or depressed.
She took the position of assistant superintendent of the Portsmouth
Grove General Hospital, in September, 1862, when her friend, Miss
Wormeley, became superintendent, and remained there till the spring of
1863, was actively engaged in the care of the wounded at Falmouth after
the battle of Chancellorsville, was on the field soon after the battle
of Gettysburg, and wrote that charming and graphic account of the labors
of herself and a friend at Gettysburg in the service of the Sanitary
Commission which was so widely circulated, and several times reprinted
in English reviews and journals. We cannot refrain from introducing it
as one of those narratives of actual philanthropic work of which we have
altogether too few.
THREE WEEKS AT GETTYSBURG.
"_July, 1863._
"DEAR ----: _What we did at Gettysburg_, for the three weeks we were
there, you will want to know. 'We,' are Mrs.[H] ---- and I, who,
happening to be on hand at the right moment, gladly fell in with the
proposition to do what we could at the Sanitary Commission Lodge after
the battle. There were, of course, the agents of the Commission, already
on the field, distributing supplies to the hospitals, and working night
and day among the wounded. I cannot pretend to tell you what was done by
all the big wheels of the concern, but only how two of the smallest ones
went round, and what turned up in the going.
[Footnote H: Her mother, Mrs. Woolsey.]
"Twenty-four hours we were in making the journey between Baltimore and
Gettysburg, places only four hours apart in ordinary running time; and
this will give you some idea of the difficulty there was in bringing up
supplies when the fighting was over, and of the delays in transporting
wounded. Coming toward the town at this crawling rate, we passed some
fields where the fences were down and the ground slightly tossed up:
'That's where Kilpatrick's Cavalry-men fought the rebels,' some one
said; 'and close by that barn a rebel soldier was found day before
yesterday, sitting dead'--no one to help, poor soul,--'near the whole
city full.' The railroad bridge broken up by the enemy, Government had
not rebuilt as yet, and we stopped two miles from the town, to find
that, as usual, just where the Government had left off the Commission
came in. There stood their temporary lodge and kitchen, and here,
hobbling out of their tents, came the wounded men who had made their
way down from the corps-hospitals, expecting to leave at once in the
return-cars.
"This is the way the thing was managed at first: The surgeons left in
care of the wounded three or four miles out from the town, went up and
down among the men in the morning, and said, 'Any of you boys who can
make your way to the cars can go to Baltimore.' So off start all who
think they feel well enough; anything better than the 'hospitals,' so
called, for the first few days after a battle. Once the men have the
surgeons' permission to go, they are off; and there may be an interval
of a day, or two days, should any of them be too weak to reach the train
in time, during which these poor fellows belong to no one,--the hospital
at one end, the railroad at the other,--with far more than a chance of
falling through between the two. The Sanitary Commission knew this would
be so of necessity, and, coming in, made a connecting link between these
two ends.
"For the first few days the worst cases only came down in ambulances
from the hospitals; hundreds of fellows hobbled along as best they could
in heat and dust, for hours, slowly toiling; and many hired farmers'
wagons, as hard as the farmers' fists themselves, and were jolted down
to the railroad, at three or four dollars the man. Think of the
disappointment of a soldier, sick, body and heart, to find, at the end
of this miserable journey, that his effort to get away, into which he
had put all his remaining stock of strength, was useless; that 'the cars
had gone,' or 'the cars were full;' that while he was coming others had
stepped down before him, and that he must turn all the weary way back
again, or sleep on the road-side till the next train 'to-morrow!' Think
what this _would_ have been, and you are ready to appreciate the relief
and comfort that _was_. No men were turned back. You fed and you
sheltered them just when no one else could have done so; and out of the
boxes and barrels of good and nourishing things, which you people at
home had supplied, we took all that was needed. Some of you sent a stove
(that is, the money to get it), some of you the beef-stock, some of you
the milk and fresh bread; and all of you would have been thankful that
you had done so, could you have seen the refreshment and comfort
received through these things.
"As soon as the men hobbled up to the tents, good hot soup was given all
round; and that over, their wounds were dressed,--for the gentlemen of
the Commission are cooks or surgeons, as occasion demands,--and,
finally, with their blankets spread over the straw, the men stretched
themselves out and were happy and contented till morning, and the next
train.
"On the day that the railroad bridge was repaired, we moved up to the
depot, close by the town, and had things in perfect order; a first-rate
camping-ground, in a large field directly by the track, with unlimited
supply of delicious cool water. Here we set up two stoves, with four
large boilers, always kept full of soup and coffee, watched by four or
five black men, who did the cooking, under our direction, and sang (not
under our direction) at the top of their voices all day,--
'Oh darkies, hab you seen my Massa?'
'When this _cruel_ war is _over_.'
Then we had three large hospital tents, holding about thirty-five each,
a large camp-meeting supply tent, where barrels of goods were stored,
and our own smaller tent, fitted up with tables, where jelly-pots, and
bottles of all kinds of good syrups, blackberry and black currant, stood
in rows. Barrels were ranged round the tent-walls; shirts, drawers,
dressing-gowns, socks, and slippers (I wish we had had more of the
latter), rags and bandages, each in its own place on one side; on the
other, boxes of tea, coffee, soft crackers, tamarinds, cherry brandy,
etc. Over the kitchen, and over this small supply-tent, we women rather
reigned, and filled up our wants by requisition on the Commission's
depot. By this time there had arrived a 'delegation' of just the right
kind from Canandaigua, New York, with surgeons' dressers and
attendants, bringing a first-rate supply of necessities and comforts for
the wounded, which they handed over to the Commission.
"Twice a day the trains left for Baltimore or Harrisburg, and twice a
day we fed all the wounded who arrived for them. Things were
systematized now, and the men came down in long ambulance trains to the
cars; baggage-cars they were, filled with straw for the wounded to lie
on, and broken open at either end to let in the air. A Government
surgeon was always present to attend to the careful lifting of the
soldiers from ambulance to car. Many of the men could get along very
nicely, holding one foot up, and taking great jumps on their crutches.
The latter were a great comfort; we had a nice supply at the Lodge; and
they traveled up and down from the tents to the cars daily. Only
occasionally did we dare let a pair go on with some very lame soldier,
who begged for them; we needed them to help the new arrivals each day,
and trusted to the men being supplied at the hospitals at the journey's
end. Pads and crutches are a standing want,--pads particularly. We
manufactured them out of the rags we had, stuffed with sawdust from
brandy-boxes; and with half a sheet and some soft straw, Mrs. ---- made
a poor dying boy as easy as his sufferings would permit. Poor young
fellow, he was so grateful to her for washing and feeding and comforting
him. He was too ill to bear the journey, and went from our tent to the
church hospital, and from the church to his grave, which would have been
coffinless but for the care of ----; for the Quartermaster's Department
was overtaxed, and for many days our dead were simply wrapped in their
blankets and put into the earth. It is a soldierly way, after all, of
lying wrapped in the old war-worn blanket,--the little dust returned to
dust.
"When the surgeons had the wounded all placed, with as much comfort as
seemed possible under the circumstances, on board the train, our detail
of men would go from car to car, with soup made of beef-stock or fresh
meat, full of potatoes, turnips, cabbage, and rice, with fresh bread
and coffee, and, when stimulants were needed, with ale, milk-punch, or
brandy. Water-pails were in great demand for use in the cars on the
journey, and also empty bottles to take the place of canteens. All our
whisky and brandy bottles were washed and filled up at the spring, and
the boys went off carefully hugging their extemporized canteens, from
which they would wet their wounds, or refresh themselves till the
journey ended. I do not think that a man of the sixteen thousand who
were transported during our stay, went from Gettysburg without a good
meal. Rebels and Unionists together, they all had it, and were pleased
and satisfied. 'Have you friends in the army, madam?' a rebel soldier,
lying on the floor of the car, said to me, as I gave him some milk.
'Yes, my brother is on ----'s staff,' 'I thought so, ma'am. You can
always tell; when people are good to soldiers they are sure to have
friends in the army,' 'We are rebels, you know, ma'am,' another said.
'Do you treat rebels _so_?' It was strange to see the good brotherly
feeling come over the soldiers, our own and the rebels, when side by
side they lay in our tents. 'Hullo, boys! this is the pleasantest way to
meet, isn't it? We are better friends when we are as close as this than
a little farther off.' And then they would go over the battles together,
'We were here,' and 'you were there,' in the friendliest way.
"After each train of cars daily, for the three weeks we were in
Gettysburg, trains of ambulances arrived too late--men who must spend
the day with us until the five P. M. cars went, and men too late for the
five P. M. train, who must spend the night till the ten A. M. cars went.
All the men who came in this way, under our own immediate and particular
attention, were given the best we had of care and food. The surgeon in
charge of our camp, with his most faithful dresser and attendants,
looked after all their wounds, which were often in a shocking state,
particularly among the rebels. Every evening and morning they were
dressed. Often the men would say, 'That feels good. I haven't had my
wound so well dressed since I was hurt. Something cool to drink is the
first thing asked for after the long, dusty drive; and pailfuls of
tamarinds and water, 'a beautiful drink,' the men used to say,
disappeared rapidly among them.
"After the men's wounds were attended to, we went round giving them
clean clothes; had basins and soap and towels, and followed these with
socks, slippers, shirts, drawers, and those coveted dressing-gowns. Such
pride as they felt in them! comparing colors, and smiling all over as
they lay in clean and comfortable rows, ready for supper,--'on dress
parade,' they used to say. And then the milk, particularly if it were
boiled and had a little whisky and sugar, and the bread, with _butter_
on it, and _jelly_ on the butter: how good it all was, and how lucky we
felt ourselves in having the immense satisfaction of distributing these
things, which all of you, hard at work in villages and cities, were
getting ready and sending off, in faith.
"Canandaigua sent cologne with its other supplies, which went right to
the noses and hearts of the men. 'That is good, now;'--'I'll take some
of that;'--'worth a penny a sniff;' 'that kinder gives one life;'--and
so on, all round the tents, as we tipped the bottles up on the clean
handkerchiefs some one had sent, and when they were gone, over squares
of cotton, on which the perfume took the place of hem,--'just as good,
ma'am.' We varied our dinners with custard and baked rice puddings,
scrambled eggs, codfish hash, corn-starch, and always as much soft
bread, tea, coffee, or milk as they wanted. Two Massachusetts boys I
especially remember for the satisfaction with which they ate their
pudding. I carried a second plateful up to the cars, after they had been
put in, and fed one of them till he was sure he had had enough. Young
fellows they were, lying side by side, one with a right and one with a
left arm gone.
"The Gettysburg women were kind and faithful to the wounded and their
friends, and the town was full to overflowing of both. The first day,
when Mrs. ---- and I reached the place, we literally begged our bread
from door to door; but the kind woman who at last gave us dinner would
take no pay for it. 'No, ma'am, I shouldn't wish to have that sin on my
soul when the war is over.' She, as well as others, had fed the
strangers flocking into town daily, sometimes over fifty of them for
each meal, and all for love and nothing for reward; and one night we
forced a reluctant confession from our hostess that she was meaning to
sleep on the floor that we might have a bed, her whole house being full.
Of course we couldn't allow this self-sacrifice, and hunted up some
other place to stay in. We did her no good, however, for we afterwards
found that the bed was given up that night to some other stranger who
arrived late and tired: 'An old lady, you know; and I couldn't let an
old lady sleep on the floor.' Such acts of kindness and self-denial were
almost entirely confined to the women.
"Few good things can be said of the Gettysburg farmers, and I only use
Scripture language in calling them 'evil beasts.' One of this kind came
creeping into our camp three weeks after the battle. He lived five miles
only from the town, and had 'never seen a rebel.' He heard we had some
of them, and had come down to see them. 'Boys,' we said,--marching him
into the tent which happened to be full of rebels that day, waiting for
the train,--'Boys, here's a man who never saw a rebel in his life, and
wants to look at you;' and there he stood with his mouth wide open, and
there they lay in rows, laughing at him, stupid old Dutchman. 'And why
haven't you seen a rebel?' Mrs. ---- said; 'why didn't you take your gun
and help to drive them out of your town?' 'A feller might'er got
hit!'--which reply was quite too much for the rebels; they roared with
laughter at him, up and down the tent.
"One woman we saw, who was by no means Dutch, and whose pluck helped to
redeem the other sex. She lived in a little house close up by the field
where the hardest fighting was done,--a red-cheeked, strong, country
girl. 'Were you frightened when the shells began flying?' 'Well, no.
You see we was all a-baking bread around here for the soldiers, and had
our dough a-rising. The neighbors they ran into their cellars, but I
couldn't leave my bread. When the first shell came in at the window and
crashed through the room, an officer came and said, 'You had better get
out of this;' but I told him I _could not_ leave my bread; and I stood
working it till the third shell came through, and then I went down
cellar; but' (triumphantly) 'I left my bread in the oven.' 'And why
didn't you go before?' 'Oh, you see, if I had, the rebels would 'a' come
in and daubed the dough all over the place.' And here she had stood, at
the risk of unwelcome plums in her loaves, while great holes (which we
saw) were made by shot and shell through and through the room in which
she was working.
"The streets of Gettysburg were filled with the battle. People thought
and talked of nothing else; even the children showed their little spites
by calling to each other, 'Here, you rebel;' and mere scraps of boys
amused themselves with percussion-caps and hammers. Hundreds of old
muskets were piled on the pavements, the men who shouldered them a week
before, lying underground now, or helping to fill the long trains of
ambulances on their way from the field. The private houses of the town
were, many of them, hospitals; the little red flags hung from the upper
windows. Beside our own men at the Lodge, we all had soldiers scattered
about whom we could help from our supplies; and nice little puddings and
jellies, or an occasional chicken, were a great treat to men condemned
by their wounds to stay in Gettysburg, and obliged to live on what the
empty town could provide. There was a colonel in a shoe-shop, a captain
just up the street, and a private round the corner whose young sister
had possessed herself of him, overcoming the military rules in some way,
and carrying him off to a little room, all by himself, where I found her
doing her best with very little. She came afterward to our tent and got
for him clean clothes, and good food, and all he wanted, and was
perfectly happy in being his cook, washerwoman, medical cadet, and
nurse. Besides such as these, we occasionally carried from our supplies
something to the churches, which were filled with sick and wounded, and
where men were dying,--men whose strong patience it was very hard to
bear,--dying with thoughts of the old home far away, saying, as last
words, for the women watching there and waiting with a patience equal in
its strength, 'Tell her I love her.'
"Late one afternoon, too late for the cars, a train of ambulances
arrived at our Lodge with over one hundred wounded rebels, to be cared
for through the night. Only one among them seemed too weak and faint to
take anything. He was badly hurt, and failing. I went to him after his
wound was dressed, and found him lying on his blanket stretched over the
straw,--a fair-haired, blue-eyed young lieutenant, with a face innocent
enough for one of our own New England boys. I could not think of him as
a rebel; he was too near heaven for that. He wanted nothing,--had not
been willing to eat for days, his comrades said; but I coaxed him to try
a little milk gruel, made nicely with lemon and brandy; and one of the
satisfactions of our three weeks is the remembrance of the empty cup I
took away afterward, and his perfect enjoyment of that supper. 'It was
_so_ good, the best thing he had had since he was wounded,'--and he
thanked me so much, and talked about his 'good supper' for hours. Poor
fellow, he had had no care, and it was a surprise and pleasure to find
himself thought of; so, in a pleased, childlike way, he talked about it
till midnight, the attendant told me, as long as he spoke of anything;
for at midnight the change came, and from that time he only thought of
the old days before he was a soldier, when he sang hymns in his father's
church. He sang them now again in a clear, sweet voice. 'Lord, have
mercy upon me;' and then songs without words--a sort of low intoning.
His father was a Lutheran clergyman in South Carolina, one of the rebels
told us in the morning, when we went into the tent, to find him sliding
out of our care. All day long we watched him,--sometimes fighting his
battles over, often singing his Lutheran chants, till, in at the
tent-door, close to which he lay, looked a rebel soldier, just arrived
with other prisoners. He started when he saw the lieutenant, and quickly
kneeling down by him, called, 'Henry! Henry!' But Henry was looking at
some one a great way off, and could not hear him. 'Do you know this
soldier?' we said. 'Oh, yes, ma'am; and his brother is wounded and a
prisoner, too, in the cars, now.' Two or three men started after him,
found him, and half carried him from the cars to our tent. 'Henry' did
not know him, though; and he threw himself down by his side on the
straw, and for the rest of the day lay in a sort of apathy, without
speaking, except to assure himself that he could stay with his brother,
without the risk of being separated from his fellow-prisoners. And there
the brothers lay, and there we strangers sat watching and listening to
the strong, clear voice, singing, 'Lord, have mercy upon me.' The Lord
_had_ mercy; and at sunset I put my hand on the lieutenant's heart, to
find it still. All night the brother lay close against the coffin, and
in the morning went away with his comrades, leaving us to bury Henry,
having 'confidence;' but first thanking us for what we had done, and
giving us all that he had to show his gratitude,--the palmetto ornament
from his brother's cap and a button from his coat. Dr. W. read the
burial service that morning at the grave, and ---- wrote his name on the
little head-board: 'Lieutenant Rauch, Fourteenth Regiment South Carolina
Volunteers.'
"In the field where we buried him, a number of colored freedmen, working
for Government on the railroad, had their camp, and every night they
took their recreation, after the heavy work of the day was over, in
prayer-meetings. Such an 'inferior race,' you know! We went over one
night and listened for an hour, while they sang, collected under the fly
of a tent, a table in the middle where the leader sat, and benches all
round the sides for the congregation--men only,--all very black and very
earnest. They prayed with all their souls, as only black men and slaves
can; for themselves and for the dear, white people who had come over to
the meeting; and for 'Massa Lincoln,' for whom they seemed to have a
reverential affection,--some of them a sort of worship, which confused
Father Abraham and Massa Abraham in one general cry for blessings.
Whatever else they asked for, they must have strength, and comfort, and
blessing for 'Massa Lincoln.' Very little care was taken of these poor
men. Those who were ill during our stay were looked after by one of the
officers of the Commission. They were grateful for every little thing.
Mrs. ---- went into the town and hunted up several dozen bright
handkerchiefs, hemmed them, and sent them over to be distributed the
next night after meeting. They were put on the table in the tent, and
one by one, the men came up to get them. Purple, and blue, and yellow
the handkerchiefs were, and the desire of every man's heart fastened
itself on a yellow one; they politely made way for each other,
though,--one man standing back to let another pass up first, although he
ran the risk of seeing the particular pumpkin-color that riveted his
eyes taken from before them. When the distribution is over, each man
tied his head up in his handkerchief, and they sang one more hymn,
keeping time all round, with blue and purple and yellow nods, and
thanking and blessing the white people in 'their basket and in their
store,' as much as if the cotton handkerchiefs had all been gold leaf.
One man came over to our tent next day, to say, 'Missus, was it you who
sent me that present? I never had anything so beautiful in all my life
before;' and he only had a blue one, too.
"Among our wounded soldiers one night, came an elderly man, sick,
wounded, and crazy, singing and talking about home. We did what we could
for him, and pleased him greatly with a present of a red flannel shirt,
drawers, and red calico dressing-gown, all of which he needed, and in
which he dressed himself up, and then wrote a letter to his wife, made
it into a little book with gingham covers, and gave it to one of the
gentlemen to mail for him. The next morning he was sent on with the
company from the Lodge; and that evening two tired women came into our
camp--his wife and sister, who hurried on from their home to meet him,
arriving just too late. Fortunately we had the queer little gingham book
to identify him by, and when some one said, 'It is the man, you know,
who screamed so,' the poor wife was certain about him. He had been crazy
before the war, but not for two years, now, she said. He had been
fretting for home since he was hurt; and when the doctor told him there
was no chance of his being sent there, he lost heart, and wrote to his
wife to come and carry him away. It seemed almost hopeless for two lone
women, who had never been out of their own little town, to succeed in
finding a soldier among so many, sent in so many different directions;
but we helped them as we could, and started them on their journey the
next morning, back on their track, to use their common sense and Yankee
privilege of questioning.
"A week after, Mrs. ---- had a letter full of gratitude, and saying that
the husband was found and secured for _home_. That same night we had had
in our tents two fathers, with their wounded sons, and a nice old German
mother with her boy. She had come in from Wisconsin, and brought with
her a patchwork bed-quilt for her son, thinking he might have lost his
blanket; and there he laid all covered up in his quilt, looking so
homelike, and feeling so, too, no doubt, with his good old mother close
at his side. She seemed bright and happy,--had three sons in the
Army,--one had been killed,--this one wounded; yet she was so pleased
with the tents, and the care she saw taken there of the soldiers, that,
while taking her tea from a barrel-head as table, she said, 'Indeed, if
_she_ was a man, she'd be a soldier too, right off.'
"For this temporary sheltering and feeding of all these wounded men,
Government could make no provision. There was nothing for them, if too
late for the cars, except the open field and hunger, in preparation for
their fatiguing journey. It is expected when the cars are ready that the
men will be promptly sent to meet them, and Government cannot provide
for mistakes and delays; so that, but for the Sanitary Commission's
Lodge and comfortable supplies, for which the wounded are indebted to
the hard workers at home, men badly hurt must have suffered night and
day, while waiting for the 'next train.' We had on an average sixty of
such men each night for three weeks under our care,--sometimes one
hundred, sometimes only thirty; and with the 'delegation,' and the help
of other gentlemen volunteers, who all worked devotedly for the men, the
whole thing was a great success, and you and all of us can't help being
thankful that we had a share, however small, in making it so. Sixteen
thousand good meals were given; hundreds of men kept through the day,
and twelve hundred sheltered at night, their wounds dressed, their
supper and breakfast secured--rebels and all. You will not, I am sure,
regret that these most wretched men, these 'enemies,' 'sick and in
prison,' were helped and cared for through your supplies, though,
certainly, they were not in your minds when you packed your barrels and
boxes. The clothing we reserved for our own men, except now and then
when a shivering rebel needed it; but in feeding them we could make no
distinctions.
"Our three weeks were coming to an end; the work of transporting the
wounded was nearly over; twice daily we had filled and emptied our
tents, and twice fed the trains before the long journey. The men came in
slowly at the last,--a lieutenant, all the way from Oregon, being among
the very latest. He came down from the corps hospitals (now greatly
improved), having lost one foot, poor fellow, dressed in a full suit of
the Commission's cotton clothes, just as bright and as cheerful as the
first man, and all the men that we received had been. We never heard a
complaint. 'Would he like a little rice soup?' 'Well, no, thank you,
ma'am;' hesitating and polite. 'You have a long ride before you, and had
better take a little; I'll just bring it and you can try.' So the good,
thick soup came. He took a very little in the spoon to please me, and
afterwards the whole cupful to please himself. He 'did not think it was
this kind of soup I meant. He had some in camp, and did not think he
cared for any more; his "cook" was a very small boy, though, who just
put some meat in a little water and stirred it round.' 'Would you like a
handkerchief?' and I produced our last one, with a hem and cologne too.
'Oh, yes; that is what I need; I have lost mine, and was just borrowing
this gentleman's.' So the lieutenant, the last man, was made
comfortable, thanks to all of you, though he had but one foot to carry
him on his long journey home.
"Four thousand soldiers, too badly hurt to be moved, were still left in
Gettysburg, cared for kindly and well at the large, new Government
hospital, with a Sanitary Commission attachment.
"Our work was over, our tents were struck, and we came away after a
flourish of trumpets from two military bands who filed down to our door,
and gave us a farewell 'Red, white, and blue.'"
One who knows Miss Woolsey well says of her, "Her sense, energy,
lightness, and quickness of action; her thorough knowledge of the work,
her amazing yet simple resources, her shy humility which made her regard
her own work with impatience, almost with contempt--all this and much
else make her memory a source of strength and tenderness which nothing
can take away." Elsewhere, the same writer adds, "Strength and
sweetness, sound practical sense, deep humility, merriment, playfulness,
a most ready wit, an educated intelligence--were among her
characteristics. Her _work_ I consider to have been better than any
which I saw in the service. It was thorough, but accomplished rapidly.
She saw a need before others saw it, and she supplied it often by some
ingenious contrivance which answered every purpose, though no one but
Georgy would ever have dreamt of it. Her pity for the sufferings of the
men was something pathetic in itself, but it was never morbid, never
unwise, never derived from her own shock at the sight, always practical
and healthy." Miss Woolsey remained in the service through the war, a
part of the time in charge of hospitals, but during Grant's great
campaign of the spring, summer, and autumn of 1864, she was most
effectively engaged at the front, or rather at the great depots for the
wounded, at Belle Plain, Port Royal, Fredericksburg, White House, and
City Point. Miss Jane S. Woolsey, also served in general hospitals as
lady superintendent until the close of the war, and afterward
transferred her efforts to the work among the Freedmen at Richmond,
Virginia.
A cousin of these ladies, Miss Sarah C. Woolsey, daughter of President
Woolsey of Yale College, was also engaged during the greater part of the
war in hospital and other philanthropic labors for the soldiers. She was
for ten months assistant superintendent of the Portsmouth Grove General
Hospital, and her winning manners, her tender and skilful care of the
patients, and her unwearied efforts to do them good, made her a general
favorite.
ANNA MARIA ROSS.
Anna Maria Ross, the subject of this sketch, was a native of
Philadelphia, in which city the greater part of her life was spent, and
in which, on the 22d of December, 1863, she passed to her eternal rest.
It was a very beautiful life of which we have now to speak--a life of
earnest activity in every work of benevolence and Christian kindness.
She had gathered about her, in her native city, scores of devoted
friends, who loved her in life, and mourned her in death with the
sentiments of a true bereavement.
Miss Ross was patriotic by inheritance, as well as through personal
loyalty. Her maternal relatives were largely identified with the war of
American Independence. Her mother's uncle, Jacob Root, held a captain's
commission in the Continental army, and it is related of her great
grandmother that she served voluntarily as a moulder in an establishment
where bullets were manufactured to be used in the cause of freedom.