MORE VICTIMS AND A CHANGE OF BASE.
One day at noon, the air thrilled with martial music and the earth shook
under the tramp of men as seven thousand splendid troops marched up
Princess Ann street on their way to reinforce our army, whose rear was
about eight miles from us. They were in superb order, and the forts
around Washington had been stripped of their garrisons, and most of
their guns, to furnish them; but the generalship which cut our army off
from its base of supplies, and blundered into the battle of the
Wilderness, like a blind horse into a briar patch, without shelling or
burning the dry chapperal in which our dead and wounded were consumed
together, after the battle, had made no arrangements for the safe
arrival of its reinforcements. So they were ambushed soon after passing
through Fredericksburg; and that night, before ten o'clock, all the
places I had succeeded in making vacant were filled with the wounded
from this reinforcement. How many of them were brought to Fredericksburg
I do not know; but it must have been a good many, when some were sent to
my den of horrors.
One evening, after dark, I went to the dispensary, and found a surgeon
just in from the front for supplies. While they were being put up, he
told us of the horrible carnage at Spottsylvania that day, when the
troops had been hurled, again and again, against impregnable
fortifications, under a rain of rifle balls, which cut down a solid
white oak tree, eighteen inches in diameter.
The battle had ceased for the night, and it was not known whether it
would be renewed in the morning.
"But if it is," said the speaker, "it will be the bloodiest day of the
war, and we must be whipped, routed. The Rebels are behind breastworks
which cannot be carried. Any man but Grant would have known that this
morning, but he is to fight it out on this line, and it is generally
thought he will try it again in the morning. If he does, it will be a
worse rout than Bull Run."
No one was present but the surgeon in charge of the church, the
dispensary clerk, and myself; so he was no alarmist, for when he had
done speaking, he took his package, mounted his horse and left. People
had said, through the day, that the roar of guns was heard in the higher
portions of the city, but no news of the battle seemed to have reached
it during all the next day.
I spent it in preparing for the worst, warned Georgie and tightened the
reins on my nurses. I had had no reason to complain of any, and felt
that I should hold them to duty, even through a rout. It also seemed
well to know where our wounded were located, in that part of the city,
so that if an attempt were made to remove them, in a hurry, there might
not be any overlooked.
At half-past eleven that night I had heard nothing from the front, and
went to sleep, with heavy forebodings. At two o'clock I was aroused by
the sounds of a moving multitude, rose and looked out to see, under the
starlight, a black stream pouring down the side street, on the corner of
which our quarters were situated, and turning down Princess Ann, toward
the river landing. To me, it was the nation going to her doom, passing
through the little period of starlight, on into the darkness and the
unknown.
In Louisville, I had learned to believe that the Eternal verities
demanded the destruction of our Government. True, the South had beaten
the North in her bloody struggle for the privilege of holding her slaves
while she flogged them; but I could see, in this, no reason why that
North should be chosen as Freedom's standard-bearer! Our ignoble
Emancipation Proclamation had furnished no rock of moral principle on
which to plant her feet while she struggled in that bloody surf. God was
blotting out our name from among the nations, that he might plant here a
government worthy of such a country.
I calculated there was a rear guard that would hold the enemy back until
morning, and did not wake Georgie, who needed sleep; but I must be with
my men, who would be alarmed by the unusual sounds; must see that those
nurses did not run away.
To get to my post, I must cross that stream, and as I stood waiting on
the bank, could see that it was not composed of men in martial array. It
met exactly all my previous conceptions of a disorderly flight. There
were men in and out of uniform, men rolled in blankets, men on
horseback and men on foot, cannon, caisons, baggage wagons, beef cattle,
ambulances and nondescripts, all mixed and mingled, filling the street
from wall to wall; no one speaking a word, and all intent on getting
forward as fast as possible. So thickly were they packed that I waited
in vain, as much as twenty minutes, for some opening through which I
might work my way to the other side, and at last called the vidette, who
came and helped me over.
Reaching the theater, I found many of the men awake and listening; went
among them and whispered, as I did something for each, that there was
some movement on the street I did not understand, but should probably
know about in the morning. During the suspense of those dark hours, and
all the next day I was constantly reminded of the Bible metaphor of "a
nail fastened in a sure place." The absolute confidence which those men
reposed in me, the comfort and strength I could give them, were so out
of proportion to my strength that it was a study. I was a very small
nail, but so securely fastened in the source of all strength, that they
could hold by me and hope, even when there seemed nothing to hope for.
As for me, all the armies of the world, and the world itself might melt
or blow away, but I should be safe with God, and know that for every
creature He was working out some noble destiny. All the pain, and
sorrow, and defeat, were rough places--briars in an upward path to
something we should all rejoice to see.
All day that dark stream surged around that corner, and I took heart
that the flight was not disorderly, since I heard of none coming by any
other street. All day the work went on as usual at the old theater, and
I made short excursions to other places. Up that street in one end of an
engine house, up a narrow, winding stair, I found a room full of men
deserted, and in most pitiable condition. They were all supposed to be
fever cases, but one young man had an ankle wound, in which inflammation
had appeared. I hurried to the surgeons, stationed in the far end of the
building, and reported the case. They sent immediately for the man, and
I knew in two hours that the amputation had been successful, and barely
in time.
As I went on that errand, I met two Christian Commission men walking
leisurely, admiring the light of the rising sun on the old buildings,
and told them of the urgent demand for help, and chicken broth or beef
broth and water up in that room. They were polite, and promised to go as
soon as possible to the relief of that distress; but when I returned and
up to the last knowledge I had of the case, they had not been there.
I secured a can of cooked turkey, the only one I ever saw, and a pitcher
of hot water, and with these made a substitute for chicken broth; gave
them all drinks of water, bathed their faces, found one of their absent
nurses, made him promise to stay, and went back to the main building to
have some one see that he kept his word.
Here was a large floor almost covered with wounded, and among them a
woman stumbled about weeping, wailing, boo-hooing and wringing her
hands; I caught her wrist, and said:
"What _is_ the matter?" "Oh! oh! oh! Boo-hoo! boo-hoo! the poor fellow
is goin' to die an' wants me to write to his mother."
"Well, write to her and keep quiet! you need not kill all the rest of
them because he is going to die."
"Oh! boo-hoo! some people has no feelin's; but I have got feelin's!"
I led her to the surgeon in charge, who sent her and her "feelin's" to
her quarters, and told her not to come back.
She was the only one of the Dix' nurses I saw in Fredericksburg, and her
large, flat, flabby face was almost hideous with its lack of eye-brows
and lashes; but this hideousness must have been her recommendation, as
she could not have been more than twenty years old.
From the engine house I went to the Methodist church. Miss Hancock had
been detailed to the General Hospital, just being established, and I
found a house full of men in a sad condition. Nine o'clock, on a hot
morning, and no wounds dressed; bandages dry and hard, men thirsty and
feverish, nurses out watching that stream pouring through the city, and
patients helpless and despondent.
I got a basin of water and a clean rag, never cared for sponges, and
went from one to another, dripping water in behind those bandages to
ease the torment of lint splints, brought drinks and talked to call
their attention from the indefinite dread which filled the air, and got
up considerable interest in--I do not remember what--but something which
set them to talking.
Some wounds I dressed, and while engaged on one, a man called from the
other side of the house to know what the fun was all about, when the
man whose wound I was attending placed a hand on each of his sides,
screamed with laughter, and replied:
"Oh, Jim! do get her to dress your wound, for I swear, she'd make a dead
man laugh!"
I found some of the nurses; a surgeon came in who would, I thought,
attend to them, and I went back to my post to find every man on duty.
It was near sundown when we heard that this backward movement was a
"change of base;" but to me it seemed more like looking for a base, as
there had been none to change. The stream thickened toward nightfall,
and continued until two o'clock next morning; so that our army was
twenty-four hours passing through Fredericksburg; and in that time I do
not think a man strayed off on to any other street! All poured down that
side street, turned that corner, and went on down Princess Ann.