DEPOT FIELD HOSPITAL AND STATE AGENCIES AT CITY POINT, VIRGINIA
The hospital was situated half a mile from General Grant’s
headquarters at City Point, at the junction of the James and
Appomatox Rivers, and about eight miles from Petersburg front. The
hospital camp, then under the charge of Surgeon Edward Dalton and
medical staff, was laid out with great precision. This field hospital
was divided into the 9th, 2d, 6th, 5th corps, and corps d’Afric,
and these again into divisions, avenues, and streets at right
angles,--numbered and lettered. There were many thousands of sick and
wounded in these wards, nine thousand or more at a time, I believe.
Convalescent soldiers did police, ward, nurse and kitchen duty.
There were hundreds of wards with stockade sides, covered with
canvas roofs upheld in the usual manner by ridge and tent poles,
each containing probably fifty or more bunks or cots. A perfect
system of order and policing by convalescent men was enforced, and
not a particle of refuse or any scrap was allowed to lie for a
moment upon the immaculate streets or avenues of the “Sacred Soil,”
which was generally beaten hard and dry, though in wet weather this
was a problem to try men’s souls and women’s soles too. At such
times we were obliged to wade through nearly a foot of liquid mud,
occasionally sticking fast till pulled out somehow, perhaps with the
loss of a high rubber boot.
The wards were wonders of cleanliness, considering the disadvantages
of field life, and even at that time sanitation was of a high order
and, to a great degree, prevented local diseases. Men nurses,
soldiers unfit for active duty, took pleasure in fixing up their
wards with an attempt at ornamentation, when allowed. These men well
deserved their pay, as they worked cheerfully for the government
and for their sick comrades, doing their part faithfully during the
devastations of war. They were as much needed and as necessary as
their heroic comrades in the field. I never knew of one of these
faithful, hard-working amateur nurses being guilty of neglect or
unkindness, though chronic growlers and irritable sick men were
often exasperating to the nurse’s unfailing care and patience. They
frequently conveyed some interdicted luxuries from the sutler, or
extra rations, to make life more endurable and comfortable for the
invalids. This was usually winked at by their officers. They were
generally appreciated, and little dissatisfaction or complaint could
have been expressed. Perfect discipline and sympathy seemed to
prevail.
[Illustration: SANITARY COMMISSION TENT AT CITY POINT]
During my year in this Field Hospital I did not hear of any
enforcement of severe punishment, but I remember, one day, while
riding outside of hospital lines, past a post or camp in the woods,
seeing in the distance a poor fellow hanging by his thumbs to the
branch of a tree. It was said by the men of his regiment that “the
fellow ought to have been hanged.”
Just across the road on one side of the hospital was a row of
State Agency tents. Larger tents of the Sanitary Commission,--that
magnanimous gift of the people that so often, even in the far South,
so nobly supplemented the regular hospital work and supplies,
sometimes even with its own transports and its own official corps of
workers,--headed this row. In the middle of the Agency row were the
tents of the Christian Commission, supported chiefly by churches from
all over the Northern States. They had built a large rough wooden
structure where regular services were held on Sundays and on many
evenings during the week, to the great relief and enjoyment of weary
men seeking to find a word of hope and comfort, and a change from the
monotony of ward life. Many ministers and other speakers came to look
over the work, and many of them were very interesting and earnest.
Along this extensive row of tents were the Agencies, supported by
the liberality of their several States, which also supplemented
the government in giving special care to their own individual men.
Capable men and refined women workers toiled uncomplainingly to make
hospital life more endurable for the sick.
From Petersburg front sick and wounded were daily sent to the
hospital, often on rough flat sand cars, over badly laid shaking
tracks, being brought as hastily as possible that they might receive
proper care and help. The sight of these cars, loaded with sufferers
as they lay piled like logs, waiting their turn to be carried to
the wards,--powder-stained, dust-begrimed, in ragged torn and
blood-stained uniforms, with here and there a half-severed limb
dangling from a mutilated body,--was a gruesome, sickening one, never
to be forgotten, and one which I tried not to see when unable to
render assistance.
Not only were the sick and wounded from near by brought there, but
large numbers came from more southerly points of the army of the
Potomac. Many seriously or permanently injured were sent here to
wait until able to be forwarded to Washington. Some came en route on
sick furloughs, or to be discharged, or when fit returned to their
regiments in the field. Every grade of suffering or weariness found
temporary shelter and care here. All incurable cases were hurried
forward as soon as possible to make room for the multitude still
coming.
One day while I was passing through a large ward, a number of sick
and wounded men were brought in. Suddenly one of them,--a boy of
about eighteen,--stood before me at “attention.” Signs of typhoid
were only too evident, as quite wildly, he struggled to express
himself, much like the following:
“Oh, Miss, won’t you just take my name? It’s John C. Guffin; and
write to my parents and tell them about me?” Controlling himself with
an effort he continued: “And Oh, do write to my employer, Mr. Gibson,
in Albany, and now, now be quick, won’t you?”--always prepared for
such emergencies, I quickly took down these addresses,--“for in a
minute I won’t know anything, just like I was when they brought me
in.”
[Illustration: JOHN C. GUFFIN]
With a painful struggle he controlled his mind, saying: “Just
take these” (small articles) “and this little watch and wear it
until I get well.” This intense strain exhausted the last gleam of
intelligence, and he fell unconscious on a cot near by. Many weeks
he lay, raving and incoherent, till the fever had spent its malign
power. During these weeks I had many times stopped to glance at the
poor fellow, with burning fever and his eyes rolling wildly; but I
could do little for him. The soldier nurses, always kind to their
sick comrades, did all that was necessary or possible.
At this crisis Dr. O’Maugher came to me in the Maine State Agency
saying, “Do you remember the boy Guffin? Well the fever has spent
itself, and he is now lying in a critical state of exhaustion,
refusing all nourishment. I know you are over-worked, but he is at a
point when only a woman’s care can pull him through. Can you make a
place for him on your list?”
I went as soon as possible to the emaciated patient, whose mind was
not yet quite clear, though he seemed at once to have confidence in
me and wished me to stay by his side. Losing no time, I said: “Why,
John, I hear you will not eat anything, and now if you will not eat
you will certainly relapse and die.”
“I can’t eat, I can’t eat,” he continued to repeat.
“Why not?” I asked. “Why can’t you eat?”
“Why,” he said, “these ain’t John C. Guffin’s teeth, and I can’t eat,
I can’t eat.”
Here was a problem. The boy must not be forced against his own will.
“Why, my boy, that’s nonsense, because you have had a bad fever.”
He repeated, “Can’t eat, can’t eat; these ain’t my teeth, and I can’t
eat with another man’s teeth.”
Experience had taught us many devices while in our daily care of
irresponsible patients, so I replied quickly, “O, that makes no
difference, don’t you know you can eat just as well with another
man’s teeth as with your own?”--a fact painfully true to many. He
turned and looked at me very doubtfully while I repeated and urged
him to try. “Now, John, I’m going to make something real nice for
you, and you are going to eat it.”
Very soon I brought my little tray, with silver cup and spoon and a
pretty doily, in which for refined patients I had much confidence,
and which at once diverted their attention. When I sat down beside
him he said once more to me rather quietly, “Can’t eat, can’t eat.”
“Now, John, I made this just for you; it’s awfully good, taste it.”
Taking advantage of an open-mouthed objection, I slipped in a
spoonful which he was obliged to swallow, greatly to his surprise;
and so I quickly followed it with two or three more spoonfuls, and
left the little tray for him to look at, and to help him to reason
out why he could eat with another man’s teeth.
Daily I fed him until he was able to take the regular hospital
diet. While convalescent, and when quite himself, we had almost a
quarrel. I wished to return the little silver watch, and he insisted
upon my keeping it, this I refused until he declared that it was not
good enough, and if I would not keep it he would send me a handsome
gold one when he reached home. At last I consented to accept it as
a keepsake from a boy friend, saying I would rather have it than a
gold one. To my great regret, while galloping with a party through
Petersburg, just after the capture, I lost it from my belt, with a
bunch of rings made from buttons, and little tokens made by the boys
from the bones of the meat in their rations.
Meanwhile I had written to his family and to his employer, Mr.
Gibson, who wrote that if the boy could be taken home he would come
for him. Immediately I wrote and explained to him what was necessary
to procure a discharge or sick furlough. The former was soon
obtained, as he was even then but a boy. Mr. Gibson came at once, and
took the lad home in a most generous manner.
When, later, I went to Albany for an interview with Governor Fenton,
I was entertained by his family; but John was not at home, and I have
never seen him since.
During this period of the great Rebellion the most terrible battles
of any recorded in modern history, were fought. After one of them,
during which the same ground had been fought over repeatedly, now
with success on the Southern side, now on the Northern, a flag of
truce was sent in from the Confederate Army, asking for a cessation
of hostilities that its soldiers might be allowed to bury their dead.
The following poem, written by Amanda T. Jones, author of “A Psychic
Autobiography,” commemorates the heart-breaking incident. It will be
found among her collected works entitled “Poems: 1854-1906.”
A REBEL FLAG OF TRUCE
Let us bury our dead:
Since we may not of vantage or victory prate;
And our army, so grand in onslaught of late,
All crippled has shrunk to its trenches instead--
For the carnage was great:
Let us bury our dead.
Let us bury our dead.
Oh, we thought to surprise you, as panting and flushed,
From our works to assault you we valiantly rushed:
But you fought like the gods, till we faltered and fled,
And the earth, how it hushed!
Let us bury our dead.
So, we bury our dead--
From the field, from the range and the crash of the gun,
From the kisses of love, from the face of the sun!
Oh, the silence they keep while we dig their last bed!
Lay them in, one by one:
So we bury our dead.
Fast we bury our dead.
All too scanty the time let us work as we may,
For the foe burns for strife, and our ranks are at bay:
On the graves we are digging what legions will tread,
Swift and eager to slay--
Though we bury our dead.
See we bury our dead!
Oh, they fought as the young and the dauntless will fight,
Who fancy their war is a war for the right!
Right or wrong, it was precious--this blood they have shed:
Surely God will requite,
And we bury our dead.
Yes, we bury our dead.
If they erred as they fought will He charge them with blame?
When their hearts beat aright and the truth was their aim?
Nay, never in vain has such offering bled!--
North or South, ’tis the same--
Fast we bury our dead.
Thus we bury our dead,
O, ye men of the North, with your banner that waves
Far and wide o’er our Southland, made rugged with graves,
Are ye verily right that so well ye have sped?
Were we wronging our slaves?
Well, we bury our dead!
Ah, we bury our dead!
And granting you all you have claimed on the whole,
Are we spoiled of our birthright and stricken in soul,
To be spurned at Heaven’s court when its records are read?
Nay, expound not the scroll,
Till we bury our dead!
Haste and bury our dead.
No time for revolving of right and of wrong
We must venture our souls with the rest of the throng
And our God must be Judge as He sits overhead,
Of the weak and the strong,
While we bury our dead.
Now peace to our dead;
Fair grow the sweet blossoms of Spring where they lie;
Hark! the musketry roars and the rifles reply.
Oh, the fight will be close and the carnage be dread!
To the ranks let us hie:
We have buried our dead.
I found plenty of work to do, and attached myself to the Ninth Corps
especially, though visiting all the wards and corps. I was invited
by Mrs. Mayhew to work with her for some weeks in the Maine State
Agency. While there I was asked later, in the absence of Miss Gilson,
of Lynn, Massachusetts, to take charge of the Corps d’Afric, but I
soon found that the work was chiefly to look after refugee negroes,
and to give them employment in laundry work, etc. Doctor Thomas
Pooley was then in charge of that corps, and is now a distinguished
oculist of Manhattan. I still see him, a very young man, resplendent
in a new uniform with bright buttons, red sash, etc., as officer of
the day.
[Illustration: HELEN LOUISE GILSON]
Miss Gilson had come with Mr. Fay, General Superintendent of the
Sanitary Commission, in the field, and formerly Mayor of Chelsea,
Massachusetts, and she chose to work for the Corps d’Afric. That was
quite as well conducted as any other corps. Miss Gilson was a dainty
young woman, and, while in camp, wore a short pretty dress of grey
cloth and a white kerchief tastily arranged over her dark hair and
one about her neck. She had a pure soprano voice, and frequently
sang army songs and hymns to the men, making them quite happy, and
with a sort of reverence, they seemed to find her an angel of peace.
In her earnest devotion, Miss Gilson remained too long ministering to
typhoid patients from whom she contracted the fever, and at last was
compelled to leave her chosen work and go to her home, still hoping
to recover and to return to the patients of her corps. Her strength
was not equal to the waste of that burning fever, however, and she
died in her early womanhood, a sacrifice to her benevolence and
patriotism as truly and honorably as the men who died on the field of
battle.
I returned to the Maine State Agency, and found more special cases in
the hospital than could be cared for by all the ladies. The United
States Sanitary Commission was under the direction of the late J.
Yates Peek, of Brooklyn, New York. The absence of sectarianism in
their work gave them greater freedom than was found in the work
of the “Christian Commission,” which was conducted on “religious”
principles. The latter, however, did a very large work under the
direction of the late Mr. Henry Houghton, a distinguished oculist of
Manhattan.
The large wooden chapel accommodated many hundreds, and here came
preachers from all over the country, whose churches had contributed
supplies and were anxious to know how their contributions were
applied. Some ministers, from remote localities, were a great
annoyance, having to be entertained by the Christian Commission, and
wanting to regulate their donations according to the ideas of their
own little parishes.
In the Maine State Agency the “mess” was at that time composed of
Mrs. Mayhew and her lady assistants, with two or three convalescent
officers. This pleasant party I was invited to join.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT STANWOOD]
Surgeon William O’Maugher, of the 69th New York Infantry, late
coroner of New York City, a jolly Irish gentleman, and Lieutenant
Stanwood, of Maine, with their wit and jolly talk were a great help
to us, when we sometimes actually staggered to our tents, completely
discouraged and exhausted. It was impossible to help all the sick
“Boys,” who were happy if we could give them only a pleasant word
of cheer in passing. We frequently sat on the rough seats, leaning
wearily on the plank tables supported on empty barrels; but their
Yankee and Irish jokes, after a good meal, soon raised our spirits
and we were ready to start again on the endless round among the sick.
One day at dinner, when I was particularly depressed, Doctor
O’Maugher began with an extra brogue--“Yees all think a deal of Miss
Smith, don’t yees?”
“Well, I guess we do,” said Lieutenant Stanwood, “and no one had
better say anything against her.”
“Well, if yees knew what I know about her y’d change yer mind.” I was
too tired to raise my head, and he went on: “Yees know about that
Guffin boy she tuk care of? Well, she saved his life to be sure, but
if ye knew the rist of it.”
At last I said, “What’s the matter with you, O’Maugher?”
“Well,” he went on, “do ye know whin I wanted to put a fly blisther
on the back of the boy’s head, she wouldn’t allow it, and for why do
ye think? Well, she said it would spoil his looks for a corpse.” This
of course was followed with a shout of laughter which happily relaxed
the tension of fatigue, and gave us courage to go on.
One morning when Doctor O’Maugher came to his “mess” he looked a
picture of misery. “Why, Doctor, what’s the matter?”
“Oh, it’s a poor miserable cuss of a biped I am onyway.”
“What makes you so unhappy?”
“Oh, it’s just a miserable toothache that I have.”
“Is that all? Well then, Doctor, you are only a bicusped after all.”
“Be garry, it’s right ye are,” he laughed.
Mrs. Mayhew, a lady of much refinement, possessed a sweet soprano
voice, and a few of us formed a chapel quartette. The singing was
greatly enjoyed by the convalescents, especially as we took care to
select good old time choruses in which they joined heartily. Planed
planks on logs made tolerable seats, and a rough platform and a desk,
lighted at night with lamps or candles, completed the arrangements
of the great square room of unplaned boards, where, as Miss Nye
remarked, we sometimes literally “sat under the drippings of the
sanctuary.”
Many evenings while resting from the fatigue of the day we sat
outside the Maine Agency tent and sang army and other patriotic
songs. Mrs. Mayhew with her rare sweet voice led the singing, and
the chorus followed in our favorite songs of “Picking the Lint,”
“Tenting To-night,” “We Shall Meet but We Shall Miss Him,” “Star
Spangled Banner,” “Home, Sweet Home.” The latter, however, caused
many stealthy tears among the listening patients, so we often closed
with something cheerful like “Yankee Doodle” or “John Brown’s Body,”
etc. Owing to the quiet of the great hospital after dark the singing
could be heard all over camp.
I was urged to take charge of the 2nd corps’ diet kitchen in the
absence of Miss Hancock, which meant to direct the soldier cooks,
see to supplies, regulate hours and kitchen diet, etc., for four
hundred convalescents.
Late one morning the head cook came to me saying, “It’s time to begin
dinner, and we have nothing but one little shoulder of lamb. The
Commissary has not sent any meat or vegetables. What shall we do?”
This was a dilemma certainly. Four hundred hungry men must somehow
be fed. All through the army at every camp, I believe, a temporary
oven was set up during the halts, and excellent fresh bread was
served daily. The government also supplied the very best of coffee,
but this was not dinner. One must be equal to any emergency in the
army. Telling the cook to get out his large cauldron and put into
it the little allowance of meat to boil, I took an orderly with a
wheelbarrow, and started on a forage among the agencies.
At Maine I begged some fresh vegetables. Ohio gave some canned meat,
Indiana onions, New Jersey more canned goods. I sent the orderly
with these to the cook, directing that everything be put into
the cauldrons. We got another barrow load from the Pennsylvania,
the Christian and the Sanitary Commissions. This miscellaneous
collection, when cooked and well seasoned, made “the best stew we
ever ate,” said the satisfied four hundred.
While at this diet kitchen some one stole my journal, money, and
pass,--the latter the most serious loss, as no one could remain in
camp without written authority. Happily, and to my surprise, when I
applied to Surgeon Dalton as to what I must do, he said, “As I know
of your good work in New York, Miss Smith, I will be happy to have
you remain, but hope you will get a pass as soon as possible. The
Provost Marshall, General Patrick, has authority higher than mine.”
The General was a strict disciplinarian, and had he known that my
pass was lost he could have ordered me to “report to Washington at
once.”
Many strange things occurred in our daily work. While I was helping
at the Pennsylvania Agency, a wild-eyed, simple-minded woman found
her way to our tents. Twice before she had somehow either eluded the
guards or had worried officers into giving her a temporary pass.
She had come for “the bones of her son” who had died at White House
Landing and was supposed to have been buried there in the early
skirmishes of the war. Hoping to satisfy this persistent woman, Mrs.
Painter, whose pass gave her authority, ordered a transport to take
her with a detachment of men to the golgotha of her hopes.
We took the short sail and landed at White House Point, where it was
thought the boy might possibly have been buried, as the men had been
in a skirmish there. They tried to locate the body by driving down in
many places a long slender iron bar, but no trace of it was found.
The half-demented woman continued to declare that she would “yet
hold those dear bones in her arms.” She was finally persuaded to go
home and come another time, which was the only way of relieving the
hospital of her presence.
According to army usage everything movable might be taken from a
deserted point. The White House was still standing in good order,
with green lattice shutters, and Mrs. Painter directed the men to
take them off and bring them to our tents, and a small summer house
was added to our army property.