THE ATTEMPT TO RECAPTURE FORT SUMTER
I am confounded! Literally speechless with amazement! When I left
Washington every one said it boded no peace; it was a bad omen for
me to start; I never missed finding the trouble I went to find, and
was never late. I thought little of it. This P.M. we neared
the dock at Hilton Head and the boat came alongside and boarded us
instantly. The first word was, “The first gun is to be fired upon
Charleston this P.M. at three o’clock.” We drew out watches,
and the hands pointed three to the minute. I felt as if I should sink
through the deck. I am no fatalist, but it is so singular.
Thus wrote Clara Barton in her journal on Tuesday night, April 7,
1863, the night of her arrival at Port Royal. She had become so expert
in learning where there was to be a battle that her friends looked
upon her as a kind of stormy petrel and expected trouble as soon as
she arrived. She had come to Hilton Head in order to be on hand when
the bombardment of Charleston should occur, and the opening guns of
the bombardment were her salute as her boat, the Arogo, warped up to
the dock. Everything seemed to indicate that she had come at the very
moment when she was needed.
But the following Saturday the transports which had loaded recruits at
Hilton Head, ready to land and capture Charleston as soon as the guns
had done their work, returned to Hilton Head and brought the soldiers
back. Her diary that morning recorded that the Arogo returning would
stop off at Charleston for dispatches, but her entry that night said:
In the P.M., much to the consternation of everybody, the
transports laden with troops all hove in sight. Soon the harbor
was literally filled with ships and boats, the wharf crowded with
disembarking troops with the camp equipage they had taken with them.
What had they returned for? was the question hanging on every lip.
Conjecture was rife; all sorts of rumors were afloat; but the one
general idea seemed to prevail that the expedition “had fizzled,” if
any one knows the precise meaning and import of that term. Troops
landed all the evening and perhaps all night, and returned to the old
camping grounds. The place is alive with soldiers. No one knows why he
is here, or why he is not there; all seem disappointed and chagrined,
but no one is to blame. For my part, I am rather pleased at the turn
it has taken, as I thought from the first that we had “too few troops
to fight and too many to be killed.” I have seen worse retreats if
this be one.
“Fizzled” appears to have been a new word, but the country had abundant
opportunity to learn its essential meaning. The expedition against
Charleston was one of several that met this inglorious end, and the
flag was not raised over Sumter until 1865.
Now followed an interesting chapter in Clara Barton’s career, but
one quite different from anything she had expected when she came to
Hilton Head. After the “fizzle” in early April, the army settled down
to general inactivity. Charleston must be attacked simultaneously by
land and sea and reduced by heavy artillery fire before the infantry
could do anything. There was nothing for Clara Barton to do but to wait
for the battle which had been postponed, but was surely coming. She
distributed her perishable supplies where they would do the most good,
and looked after the comfort of such soldiers as needed her immediate
ministration. But the wounded were few in number and the sick were
in well-established hospitals where she had no occasion to offer her
services.
Moreover, she found the situation here very different from what she
had seen only a few miles from Washington. There were no muddy roads
between Hilton Head and New York Harbor. The Arogo was a shuttle moving
back and forward every few days, and in time another boat was added.
There was a regular mail service between New York and Hilton Head, and
every boat took officers and soldiers going upon, or returning from,
furloughs, and the boats from New York brought nurses and supplies. The
Sanitary Commission had its own dépôt of supplies and a liberal fund of
money from which purchases could be made of fruits and such other local
delicacies as were procurable. It is true, as Miss Barton was afterward
to learn, that the hospital management left something to be desired,
and that fewer delicacies were purchased than could have been. But
that was distinctly not her responsibility, nor did she for one moment
assume it to be such. She came into conflict with official red tape
quite soon enough in her own department, without intruding where she
did not belong. She settled down to await the time when she should be
needed for the special work that had brought her to Hilton Head. That
time came, but it did not come soon, and its delay was the occasion of
very mixed emotions on her part.
Clara Barton came to Hilton Head with a reputation already established.
She no longer needed to be introduced, nor was there any difficulty in
her procuring passes to go where she pleased, excepting as she was
sometimes refused out of consideration for her own personal safety.
But not once while she was in Carolina was she asked to show her
passes. When she landed, she found provision made for her at regimental
headquarters. Colonel J. G. Elwell, of Cleveland, to whom she reported,
was laid up at this time with a broken leg. She had him for a patient
and his gratitude continued through all the subsequent years. Her
journal described him as a noble, Christian gentleman, and she found
abundant occasion to admire his manliness, his Christian character, his
affection for his wife and children, his courtesy to her, and later,
his heroism as she witnessed it upon the battle-field. The custody
of her supplies brought her into constant relations with the Chief
Quartermaster, Captain Samuel T. Lamb, for whom she cherished a regard
almost if not quite as high as that she felt for Colonel, afterward
General, Elwell. Her room was at headquarters, under the same roof with
these and other brave officers, who vied with each other in bestowing
honors and kindnesses upon her. As Colonel Elwell was incapacitated
for service, she saw him daily, and the care of her supplies gave her
scarcely less constant association with Captain Lamb. General Hunter
called upon her, paid her high compliments, issued her passes and
permits, and offered her every possible courtesy. Her request that her
cousin, Corporal Leander Poor, be transferred to the department over
which her brother David presided, met an immediate response. The nurses
from the hospital paid her an official call, and apparently spoke very
gracious words to her, for she indicates that she was pleased with
something they said or did. Different officers sent her bouquets; her
table and her window must have been rather constantly filled with
flowers. More than once the band serenaded her, and between the musical
numbers there was a complimentary address which embarrassed, even more
than it pleased her, in which a high tribute was paid “To Clara Barton,
the Florence Nightingale of America.”
The officers at headquarters had good saddle horses, and invited her to
ride with them. If there was any form of exercise which she thoroughly
enjoyed, it was horseback riding. She procured a riding-skirt and
sent for her sidesaddle, which the Arogo in due time brought to her.
So far nothing could have been more delightful. The very satisfaction
of it made her uncomfortable. She hoped that God would not hold her
accountable for misspent time, and said so in her diary.
Lest she should waste her time, she began teaching some negro boys to
read, and sought out homesick soldiers who needed comfort. Whenever
she heard of any danger or any likelihood of a battle anywhere within
reach, she conferred with Colonel Elwell about going there. He was a
religious man, and she discussed with him the interposition of Divine
Providence, and the apparent indication that she was following a Divine
call in coming to Hilton Head exactly when she did. But no field opened
immediately which called for her ministrations. She felt sometimes that
it would be a terrible mistake if she had come so far away from what
really was her duty, when she wrote: “God is great and fearfully just.
Truly it is a fearful thing to fall into His hands; His ways are past
finding out.” Still she could not feel responsible for the fact that
no great battle had occurred in her immediate vicinity. Each time the
Arogo dropped anchor, she wondered if she ought to return on her; but
each time it seemed certain that it was not going to be very long until
there was a battle. So she left the matter in God’s hands. She wrote:
“It will be wisely ordered, and I shall do all for the best in the end.
God’s will, not mine, be done. I am content. How I wish I could always
keep in full view the fact and feeling that God orders all things
precisely as they should be; all is best as it is.”
On Sunday she read Beecher’s sermons and sometimes copied religious
poetry for Colonel Elwell, who, in addition to his own disability,
had tender memories of the death of his little children, and many
solicitous thoughts for his wife.
In some respects she was having the time of her life. A little group
of women, wives of the officers, gathered at the headquarters, and
there grew up a kind of social usage. One evening when a group of
officers and officers’ wives were gathered together, one of the ladies
read a poem in honor of Clara Barton. One day, at General Hunter’s
headquarters and in his presence, Colonel Elwell presented her with
a beautiful pocket Bible on behalf of the officers. If she needed
anything to increase her fame, that need was supplied when Mr. Page,
correspondent of the New York “Tribune,” whom she remembered to have
met at the Lacy house during the battle of Fredericksburg, arrived
at Hilton Head, and he, who had seen every battle of the Army of the
Potomac except Chancellorsville, told the officers how he had heard
General Patrick, at the battle of Fredericksburg, remonstrate with
Miss Barton on account of her exposing herself to danger, saying
afterward that he expected to see her shot every minute. The band of
a neighboring regiment came over and serenaded her. Her windows were
filled with roses and orange blossoms, and she wrote in her diary: “I
do not deserve such friends as I find, and how can I deserve them? I
fear that in these later years our Heavenly Father is too merciful to
me.”
It would have been delightful if she could only have been sure that she
was doing her duty. Surrounded by appreciative friends, bedecked with
flowers, serenaded and sung to, and with a saddled horse at her door
almost every morning and at least one officer if not a dozen eager for
the joy and honor of a ride with her, only two things disturbed her.
The first was that she still had no word from Stephen, and the other
was the feeling that, unless the Lord ordained a battle in her vicinity
before long, she ought to be back with what she called “my own army.”
Clara Barton’s diary displays utter freedom from cant. She was not
given to putting her religious feelings and emotions down on paper. But
in this period she gave much larger space to her own reflections than
was her custom when more fully occupied. She was feeling in a marked
degree the providential aspects of her own life; she was discussing
with Christian officers their plans for what Colonel Elwell called his
“soldier’s church.” Her religious nature found expression in her diary
more adequately than she had usually had time to express.
Toward the end of her period of what since has been termed her watchful
waiting, she received a letter from a friend, an editor, who felt that
the war had gone on quite long enough, and who wished her to use her
influence in favor of an immediate peace. Few people wanted peace more
than Clara Barton, but her letter in answer to this request shows an
insight into the national situation which at that time could hardly
have been expected:
HILTON HEAD, S.C., June 24th, 1863
T. W. MEIGHAN, ESQ.,
My kind friend, your welcome letter of the 6th has been some days
in hand. I did not get “frightened.” I am a _U.S. soldier_,
you know, and therefore not supposed to be susceptible to
_fear_, and, _as I am_ merely a _soldier_, and
_not_ a _statesman_, I shall make no attempt at discussing
_political_ points with you. You have spoken openly and frankly,
and I have perused your letter and considered your sentiments with
interest, and, I believe, with sincerity and candor, and, while I
observe with pain the wide difference of _opinion_ existing
between us, I cannot find it in my heart to believe it _more_
than a matter of _opinion_. I shall not take to myself more
of honesty of purpose, faithfulness of zeal, or patriotism, than I
award to you. I have not, aye! never shall forget _where I first
found you_. The soldier who has stood in the ranks of my country’s
armies, and toiled and marched and fought, and fallen and struggled
and risen, but to fall again more worn and exhausted than before,
until _my_ weak arm had greater strength than his, and could aid
him, and yet made no complaint, and only left the ranks of death when
he had no longer strength to stand up in them--is it for _me_
to rise up in judgment and accuse _this man_ of a _want of
patriotism_? True, he does not see as I see, and works in a channel
_in_ which I have no confidence, _with_ which I have no
sympathy, and _through_ which I could not go; still, I must
believe that in the end the same _results_ which would gladden my
heart would rejoice his.
Where you in prospective see _peace_, glorious, coveted
peace, and rest for our tired armies, and home and happiness and
firesides and friends for our war-worn heroes, _I_ see only the
_beginning of war_. If we should make overtures for “peace upon
any terms,” then, I fear, would follow a code of terms to which no
civilized nation could submit and present even an honorable existence
among nations. God forbid that _I_ should ask the useless
exposure of the life of _one_ man, the desolation of one more
home; I never for a moment lose sight of the mothers and sisters,
and white-haired fathers, and children moving quietly about, and
dropping the unseen, silent tear in those far-away saddened homes,
and I have too often wiped the gathering damp from pale, anxious
brows, and caught from ashy, quivering lips the last faint whispers
of home, not to realize the terrible cost of these separations;
nor has morbid sympathy been all,--out amid the smoke and fire and
thunder of our guns, with only the murky canopy above, and the bloody
ground beneath, I have wrought day after day and night after night,
my heart well-nigh to bursting with conflicting emotions, so sorry
for the necessity, so glad for the _opportunity_ of ministering
with my own hands and strength to the dying wants of the patriot
martyrs who fell for their country and mine. If my poor life could
have purchased theirs, how cheerfully and quickly would the exchange
have been made; more than this I could not do, deeper than this I
could not feel, and yet among it all it has never once been in my
heart, or on my lips, to sue to our enemies for peace. First, they
broke it without cause; last, they will not restore it without shame.
True, we _may_ never find peace by _fighting_, certainly we
never shall by _asking_. “Independence?” They always _had_
their independence till they madly threw it away; if there _be_
a chain on them to-day it is of their own riveting. I grant that our
Government has made mistakes, sore ones, too, in some instances,
but ours is a _human government_, and like _all_ human
operations liable to mistakes; only the machinery and plans of Heaven
move unerringly and we short-sighted mortals are, half our time, fain
to complain of these. I would that so much of wisdom and foresight and
strength and power fall to our rulers as would show them to-morrow
the path to victory and peace, but we shall never strengthen their
hands or incite their patriotism by deserting and upbraiding them. To
_my_ unsophisticated mind, the Government of my country _is_
my country, and the _people_ of my country, the Government of
my country as nearly as a representative system will allow. I have
taught me to look upon our “Government” as the band which the people
bind around the bundle of sticks to hold it firm, where every patriot
hand must grasp the knot the tighter, and our “Constitution” as a
symmetrical framework unsheltered and unprotected, around which the
people must rally, and brace and stay themselves among its inner
timbers, and lash and bind and nail and rivet themselves to its outer
posts, till in its sheltered strength it bids defiance to every
elemental jar,--till the winds cannot rack, the sunshine warp, or
the rains rot, and I would to Heaven that so we rallied and stood
to-day. If our Government is “_too weak_” to act vigorously and
energetically, _strengthen it till it can_. Then comes the peace
we all wait for as kings and prophets waited,--and without which, like
them, we seek and never find.
Pardon me, my good friend, I had never thought to speak at this
length, or, indeed, _any_ length upon this strangely knotted
subject, so entirely out of my line. My business is stanching blood
and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet
and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or
a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of
a political movement. I make gruel--not speeches; I write _letters
home_ for wounded soldiers, not political addresses--and again I
ask you to pardon, not so much _what_ I have said, as the fact
of my having said anything in relation to a subject of which, upon the
very nature of things, I am supposed to be profoundly ignorant.
With thanks for favors, and hoping to hear from you and yours as usual,
I remain as ever
Yours truly
CLARA BARTON
I am glad to hear from your wife and mother, and I am most thankful
for your cordial invitation to visit you, which I shall (if I have
not forfeited your friendship by my plainness of speech, which _I
pray_ I may not) accept most joyously, and I am even now rejoicing
in prospect over my anticipated visit. We are not suffering from heat
yet, and I am enjoying such horseback rides as seldom fall to the lot
of ladies, I believe. I don’t know but I should _dare ride with a
cavalry rider_ by and by, if I continue to practice. I could at
least take lessons. I have a fine new English leaping saddle on the
way to me. I hope _you will endeavor_ to see to it that the rebel
privateers shall not get hold of it. I could not sustain both the loss
and disappointment, I fear.
Love to all.
Yours
C. B.
While Miss Barton was engaged in these less strenuous occupations she
issued a requisition upon her brother in the Quartermaster’s Department
for a flatiron. She said: “My clothes are as well washed as at home,
and I have a house to iron in if I had the iron. I could be as clean
and as sleek as a kitten. Don’t you want a smooth sister enough to send
her a flatiron?”
In midsummer, hostilities began in earnest. On July 11 an assault
on Fort Wagner was begun from Morris Island, and was followed by a
bombardment, Admiral Dahlgren firing shells from his gunboats, and
General Gillmore opening with his land batteries. Then followed the
charge of the black troops under Colonel R. G. Shaw, and the long siege
in which the “swamp angel,” a two-hundred-pounder Parrott, opened fire
on Charleston. It was then that Clara Barton found what providential
leading had brought her to this place. Not from a sheltered retreat,
but under actual fire of the guns she ministered to the wounded and
the dying. All day long under a hot sun she boiled water to wash
their wounds, and by night she ministered to them, too ardent to
remember her need of sleep. The hot winds drove the sand into her
eyes, and weariness and danger were ever present. But she did her work
unterrified. She saw Colonel Elwell leading the charge, and he believed
that not only himself, but General Voris and Leggett would have died
but for her ministrations.
Follow me, if you will, through these eight months [Miss Barton said
shortly afterward]. I remember eight months of weary siege--scorched
by the sun, chilled by the waves, rocked by the tempest, buried in the
shifting sands, toiling day after day in the trenches, with the angry
fire of five forts hissing through their ranks during every day of
those weary months.
This was when your brave old regiments stood thundering at the gate
of proud rebellious Charleston.... There, frowning defiance, with
Moultrie on her left, Johnson on her right, and Wagner in front, she
stood hurling fierce death and destruction full in the faces of the
brave band who beleaguered her walls.
Sumter, the watch-dog, that stood before her door, lay maimed and
bleeding at her feet, pierced with shot and torn with shell, the tidal
waves lapping his wounds. Still there was danger in his growl and
death in his bite.”[10]
One summer afternoon our brave little army was drawn up among the
island sands and formed in line of march. For hours we watched. Dim
twilight came, then the darkness for which they had waited, while the
gloom and stillness of death settled down on the gathered forces of
Morris Island. Then we pressed forward and watched again. A long line
of phosphorescent light streamed and shot along the waves ever surging
on our right.
I remember so well these islands, when the guns and the gunners, the
muskets and musketeers, struggled for place and foothold among the
shifting sands. I remember the first swarthy regiments with their
unsoldierly tread, and the soldierly bearing and noble brows of the
patient philanthropists who volunteered to lead them. I can see again
the scarlet flow of blood as it rolled over the black limbs beneath
my hands and the great heave of the heart before it grew still. And I
remember Wagner and its six hundred dead, and the great-souled martyr
that lay there with them when the charge was ended and the guns were
cold.
Vividly she went on to describe the siege of Fort Wagner from Morris
Island, thus:
I saw the bayonets glisten. The “swamp angel” threw her bursting
bombs, the fleet thundered its cannonade, and the dark line of blue
trailed its way in the dark line of belching walls of Wagner. I saw
them on, up, and over the parapets into the jaws of death, and heard
the clang of the death-dealing sabers as they grappled with the foe.
I saw the ambulances laden down with agony, and the wounded, slowly
crawling to me down the tide-washed beach, Voris and Cumminger gasping
in their blood. And I heard the deafening clatter of the hoofs of
“Old Sam” as Elwell madly galloped up under the walls of the fort for
orders. I heard the tender, wailing fife, the muffled drum and the
last shots as the pitiful little graves grew thick in the shifting
sands.
Of this experience General Elwell afterward wrote:
I was shot with an Enfield cartridge within one hundred and fifty
yards of the fort and so disabled that I could not go forward. I was
in an awful predicament, perfectly exposed to canister from Wagner
and shell from Gregg and Sumter in front, and the enfilade from James
Island. I tried to dig a trench in the sand with my saber, into which
I might crawl, but the dry sand would fall back in place about as fast
as I could scrape it out with my narrow implement. Failing in this, on
all fours I crawled toward the lee of the beach, which was but a few
yards off.... A charge of canister all around me aroused my reverie
to thoughts of action. I abandoned the idea of taking the fort and
ordered a retreat of myself, which I undertook to execute in a most
unmartial manner on my hands and knees spread out like a turtle.
After working my way for a half-hour and making perhaps two hundred
yards, two boys of the 62d Ohio found me and carried me to our first
parallel, where had been arranged an extempore hospital. After resting
awhile I was put on the horse of my lieutenant-colonel, from which he
had been shot that night, and started for the lower end of the island
one and a half miles off, where better hospital arrangements had been
prepared. Oh, what an awful ride that was! But I got there at last, by
midnight. I had been on duty for forty-two hours without sleep under
the most trying circumstances and my soul longed for sleep, which I
got in this wise: an army blanket was doubled and laid on the soft
side of a plank with an overcoat for a pillow, on which I laid my
worn-out body.
And such a sleep! I dreamed that I heard the shouts of my boys in
victory, that the rebellion was broken, that the Union was saved, and
that I was at my old home and that my dear wife was trying to soothe
my pain....
My sleepy emotions awoke me and a dear, blessed woman was bathing my
temples and fanning my fevered face. Clara Barton was there, an angel
of mercy doing all in mortal power to assuage the miseries of the
unfortunate soldiers.
While she was still under fire, but after the stress of the first
assault, she found time to send a little note which enables us to
identify with certainty her headquarters. Her work was not done in
the shelter of any of the base hospitals in the general region of
Charleston, it was with the advance hospital and under fire.
The midsummer campaign left Clara Barton desperately sick. She came
very near to laying down her life with the brave men for whose sake
she had freely risked it. What with her own sickness and the strenuous
nature of her service, there is only a single line in her diary (on
Thanksgiving Day) between July 23 and December 1. On July 22 she
personally assisted at two terrible surgical operations as the men were
brought directly in from the field. The soldiers were so badly wounded
she wanted to see them die before the surgeon touched them. But the
surgeons did their work well, and, though it was raining and cold,
she covered them with rubber blankets and was astonished to find how
comfortable they came to be. She returned to see them in the evening
and they were both sleeping soundly. On the following day, the day of
her last entry for the summer, she reported the wounded under her care
as doing well; also, that she had now a man detailed to assume some
of the responsibility for the food of the wounded. Fresh green corn
was available, and she was having hominy cooked for men who had had
quite too much of salt pork. She was arranging the meals, but had other
people to serve them.
Then Clara Barton dropped; her strength gave out. Overcome with fatigue
and sick with fever, she lay for several weeks and wrote neither
letters nor in her journal.
By October she was ready to answer Annie Childs’s thoughtful inquiry
about her wardrobe. There were two successive letters two weeks apart
that consisted almost wholly of the answers she made to the question
wherewithal she should be clothed. Lest we should suppose Clara Barton
to be an institution and not a wholly feminine woman, it is interesting
to notice her concern that these dresses be of proper material and
suitably made.
The dresses arrived with rather surprising promptness, and they fitted
with only minor alterations which she described in detail to Annie.
Toward the end of October she had occasion to write again to Annie
thanking the friends who had remembered her so kindly, and expressing
in her letter the feeling, which she so often recorded in her diary,
that she was not doing as much as she ought to merit the kindness of
her friends. In another letter a few days later, she told of one use
she was making of her riding-skirt; she was furnishing a hospital at
Fort Mitchell, seven miles away, and her ride to that hospital combined
both business and pleasure.
About this time she gathered some trophies and sent to Worcester for
the fair. They were exhibited and sold to add to the resources of the
good people who were providing in various ways for the comfort of the
soldiers. At this time she wrote to other organizations who had sent
her supplies, telling of the good they had done.
But again she fell upon a time of relative inactivity. There were no
more battles to be fought immediately. She again wondered if she had
any right to stay in a place where everything was so comfortable,
especially as Annie Childs had written to her that the Worcester and
Oxford women would not permit her to bear any part of the expense for
the new clothes that had been made for her.
About this time her brother David received a letter from Stephen which
showed that it was useless for her to stay where she was with any
present expectation of securing his relief. He was still remaining
with his property unmolested by both sides, and thought it better to
continue there than run what seemed to him the larger risks of leaving.
One of the most interesting and in its way pathetic entries in her
diary at this season, is a long one on December 5, 1863. Miss Barton
had collided with official arrogance, and had unhappy memories of it.
She probably would have said nothing about it had she not been appealed
to by one of the women at the headquarters to do something to improve
conditions at the regular hospital. And that was something which Clara
Barton simply could not do. She knew better than almost any one else
how much those hospitals lacked of perfection. She herself did not
visit them, excepting as she went there to return official calls.
She had made it plain to those in charge that she had not come to
interfere with any form of established work, but to do a work of her
own in complete sympathy and coöperation with theirs. She knew that
Dorothea Dix had undertaken an impossible task. She saw some nurses
near to where she was who were much more fond of spending pleasant
evenings at headquarters than they were of doing the work for which
they were supposed to have come down. But she also knew that even such
work as she was doing was looked upon by some of them with feelings of
jealousy, as work outside of the general organization, yet receiving
from the public a confidence and recognition not always accorded their
own. One night, after one of the officer’s wives had poured out her
soul to Clara Barton, she poured out her soul to her diary. It is a
very long entry, but it treats of some highly important subjects:
I moved along to the farther end of the piazza and found Mrs. D., who
soon made known to me the subject of her desires. As I suspected, the
matter was hospitals. She has been visiting the hospital at this place
and has become not only interested, but excited upon the subject; the
clothing department she finds satisfactory, but the storeroom appears
empty and a sameness prevailing through food as provided which seems
to her appalling for a diet for sick men. She states that they have
no delicacies such as the country at the North are flooding hospitals
with; that the food is all badly cooked, served cold, and always the
same thing--dip toast, meat cooked dry, and tea without milk, perhaps
once a week a potato for each man, or a baked apple. She proposed
to establish a kitchen department for the serving of proper food to
these men, irrespective of the pleasure of the “Powers that Be.” She
expects opposition from the surgeons in charge and Mrs. Russell, the
matron appointed and stationed by Miss Dix, but thinks to commence
by littles and work herself in in spite of opposition, or make
report direct to Washington through Judge Holt, and other influential
friends and obtain a _carte blanche_ from Secretary Stanton to
act independently of all parties. She wished to know if I thought it
would be possible to procure supplies sufficient to carry on such a
plan, and people to cook and serve if it were once established and
directed properly. She had just mailed a letter to Miss Dame calling
upon her to stir people at the North and make a move if possible in
the right direction. She said General Gillmore took tea with her the
evening previous and inquired with much feeling, “_How are my poor
boys?_” She desired me to attend church at the hospital to-morrow
(Sunday) morning; not with her, but go, pass through, and judge
for myself. In the meantime the Major came in and the subject was
discussed generally. I listened attentively, gave it as my opinion
that there would be no difficulty in obtaining supplies and means
of paying for the _preparation_ of them, but of the manner and
feasibility of delivering and distributing them among the patients I
said nothing. _I had nothing to say._ I partly promised to attend
church the next morning, and retired having said very little. What I
have _thought_ is quite another thing. I have no doubt but the
patients lack many luxuries which the country at large endeavors to
supply them with, and supposes they have, no doubt; but men suffer and
die for the lack of the nursing and provisions of the loved ones at
home. No doubt but the stately, stupendous, and magnificent indolence
of the “officers in charge” embitters the days of the poor sufferers
who have become mere machines in the hands of the Government to be
ruled and oppressed by puffed-up, conceited, and self-sufficient
superiors in position. No doubt but a good, well-regulated kitchen,
presided over with a little good common sense and womanly care, would
change the whole aspect of things and lengthen the days of some, and
brighten the last days of others of the poor sufferers within the thin
walls of this hospital. I wish it might be, but what can _I_
do? First it is not _my_ province; I should be out of place
there; next, Miss Dix is supreme, and her appointed nurse is matron;
next, the surgeons will not brook any interference, and will, in my
opinion, resent and resist the smallest effort to break over their
own arrangements. What _others_ may be able to do I am unable to
conjecture, but I feel that _my_ guns are effectually silenced.
My sympathy is not destroyed, by any means, but my _confidence_
in my ability to accomplish anything of an alleviating character in
_this_ department is completely annihilated. I _went_ with
all I had, to work where I thought I saw greatest need. A man can
_have_ no greater need than to be saved from death, and after
six weeks of unremitting toil I was driven from my own tents by the
selfish _cupidity_ or _stupidity_ of a pompous staff surgeon
with a little accidental temporary authority, and I by the means
thrown upon a couch of sickness, from which I barely escaped with
my life. After four weeks of suffering most intense, I rose in my
weakness and repaired again to my post, and scarcely were my labors
recommenced when, through the _same_ influence or _no_
influence brought to bear upon the General Commanding, I was made
the subject of a general order, and commanded to leave the island,
giving me three hours in which to pack, remove, and ship four tons
of supplies with no assistance that _they_ knew of but one old
female negro cook. I complied, but was remanded to _Beaufort_
to labor in the hospitals there. With this portion of the “order”
I failed to comply, and went home to Hilton Head and wrote the
Commanding General a full explanation of my position, intention,
proposed labors, etc., etc., which brought a rather sharp response,
calling my humanity to account for not being willing to comply
with his specified request, viz. to labor in Beaufort hospitals;
insisting upon the plan as gravely as if it had been a possibility
to be accomplished. But for the extreme ludicrousness of the thing
I should have felt hurt at the bare thought of such a charge against
_me_ and from such a quarter. The hospitals were supplied by
the Sanitary Commission, Miss Dix holding supremacy over all female
attendants by authority from Washington, Mrs. Lander _claiming_,
and endeavoring to enforce the same, and scandalizing through the
Press--each hospital labeled, _No Admittance_, and its surgeons
bristling like porcupines at the bare sight of a proposed visitor. How
in reason’s name was I “to labor there”? Should I prepare my food and
thrust it against the outer walls, in the hope it might strengthen the
patients inside? Should I tie up my bundle of clothing and creep up
and deposit it on the doorstep and slink away like a guilty mother,
and watch afar off to see if the master of the mansion would accept or
reject the “foundling”? If the Commanding General in his wisdom, when
he assumed the direction of my affairs, and commanded me _where_
to labor, had opened the doors for me to enter, the idea would have
_seemed_ more practical. It did not occur to me at the moment
how I was to effect an entrance to these hospitals, but I have since
thought that I might have been _expected_ to watch my opportunity
some _dark night_, and STORM them, although it must be
confessed that the popularity of this mode of attack was rather on the
decline in this department at that time, having reached its height
very soon after the middle of July.
One other uncomfortable experience Clara Barton had at this time. When
she first began her work for the relief of the soldiers, she went forth
from Washington as a center and still kept up her work in the Patent
Office. When she found that this work was to take all her time, she
approached the Commissioner of Patents and asked to have her place
kept for her, but without salary. He refused this proposal, and said
her salary should continue to be paid. The other clerks, also, were
in hearty accord with this proposal, and offered to distribute her
work among them. But as the months went by, this grew to be a somewhat
laborious undertaking. The number of women clerks in the Patent Office
had increased as so many of the men were in the army. There were twenty
of these women clerks, some of whom had never known Clara Barton, and
they did not see any reason why she should be drawing a salary and
winning fame for work which they were expected to do. Moreover, the
report became current that she was drawing a large salary for her war
work in addition. The women in the Patent Office drew up a “round
robin” demanding that her salary cease. This news, with the report that
the Commissioner had acted upon the request, came to her while she had
other things to trouble her. Had the salary ceased because she was no
longer doing the work, it would have been no more than she had herself
proposed. But when her associates, having volunteered to do the work
for her that her place might be kept and her support continued, became
the agents for the dissemination of a false report, she was hurt and
indignant.
To the honor of Judge Holloway and his associates in the Patent Office,
be it recorded that she received a letter from Judge Holloway that she
had been misinformed about the termination of her salary; there had,
indeed, been such a rumor and request, but he would not have acted on
it without learning the truth, and did not credit it. Her desk would
await her return if he continued as Commissioner.
A few days before Christmas another pleasant event occurred. Her nephew
Stephen, whom she had continued to call “Bub,” arrived in uniform.
Though hardly fifteen, he had enlisted in the telegraph corps, and was
sent to be with her. He became her closest friend in an intimacy of
relation that did not cease until her eyes closed in death; and then,
in her perfect confidence in him, she appointed him her executor.
A letter in this month reviews the experiences of her sojourn at Hilton
Head:
HILTON HEAD, S.C.
Wednesday, December 9th, 1863
MR. PARKER,
MY DEAR KIND FRIEND:
It would be impossible for me to tell how many times I have commenced
to write you. Sometimes I have put my letter by because we were doing
so little there was nothing of interest to communicate; at other
times, because there was so much I had not time to tell it, until
some greater necessity drew me away, and my half-written letter
became “rubbish” and was destroyed. And now I have but one topic
which is of decided interest to _me_, and that is so peculiarly
so that I will hasten to speak of it at once. After _almost_ a
year’s absence, I am beginning to _think_ about once more coming
_home_, once more meeting the scores of kind friends I have
been from so long; and the nearer I bring this object to my view,
the brighter it appears. The nearer I fancy the meeting, the dearer
the faces and the kinder the smiles appear to me and the sweeter the
welcome voices that fall upon my ear. Not that I have not found good
friends here. None could have been kinder. I came with one brother,
loving, kind, and considerate; I have met others here scarcely less
so, and those, too, with whom rested the power to make me comfortable
and happy, and I have yet to recall the first instance in which they
have failed to use their utmost endeavor to render me so, and while a
tear of joy glistens in my eye at the thought of the kind friends I
hope so soon to meet, there will still linger one of regret for the
many of those I leave.
Eight months and two days ago we landed at the dock in this harbor.
When nations move as rapidly as ours moves at present, that is a
long time, and in it as a nation we have done much, gained much,
and suffered much. Still much more remains to be done, much more
acquired, and I fear much more suffered. Our brave and noble old
Army of Virginia still marches and fights and the glorious armies of
the West still fight and conquer; our soldiers still die upon the
battle-field, pine in hospitals, and languish in prison; the wives and
sisters and mothers still wait, and weep and hope and toil and pray,
and the little child, fretting at the long-drawn days, asks in tearful
impatience, “_When will my papa come?_”
The first sound which fell upon my ear in this Department was the
thunder of our guns in Charleston Harbor, and still the proud city
sits like a queen and dictates terms to our army and navy. Sumter,
the watch-dog that lay before her door, fell, maimed and bleeding, it
is true; still there is defiance in his growl, and death in his bite,
and pierced and prostrate as he lies with the tidal waves lapping his
wounds, it were worth _our_ lives, and more than _his_, to
go and take him.
We have captured one fort--Gregg--and one charnel house--Wagner--and
we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little
sand-hills that glitter in the pale moonlight are a thousand
headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and break upon the
whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to the toil-worn, gallant dead
who sleep beside.
As the year drew to a close, the conviction grew stronger that her work
in this field was done. Charleston still resisted attempts to recapture
it. Sumter, though demolished, was in the hands of the Confederates.
There was no prospect of immediate battle, and unless there was
fresh bloodshed there was no imperative call for her. Moreover,
little jealousies and petty factions grew up around the hospitals and
headquarters, where there were few women and many men, and there were
rumors of mismanagement which she must hear, but not reply to. She had
many happy experiences to remember, and she left a record of much good
done. But her work was finished at that place. In her last entries in
her diary she is disposing of her remaining stores, packing her trunk,
and when, after a rather long interval, we hear from her again, she is
in Washington.
[10] Fort Sumter, fiercely bombarded July 24, repulsed an assault
against it on September 8, and was not completely silenced until
October 26.