TAKE FINAL LEAVE OF FREDERICKSBURG.
I cannot remember if our boat lay at the Fredericksburg wharf one day or
two; but she might start any moment, and those who went ashore took the
risk of being left, as this was the last boat. The evacuation was almost
complete, and we waited the result of expeditions to gather up our
wounded from field hospitals at the front. We were liable to attack at
any moment, and were protected by a gunboat which lay close along side.
There was plenty to do on board, but in doing it I must see the piles of
stores on the wharf brought there too late to be of service to our
wounded, and now to be abandoned to the Rebels. There were certainly one
hundred bales of hay, which would have more than replaced all that was
withheld by United States bayonets from our own men in their extremity.
I soon learned after entering Fredericksburg, that our Commissaries were
issuing stores without stint to the citizens; went and saw them carry
off loads of everything there was to give; and when those one hundred
and eighty-two Union soldiers were literally starving in the old
Theater, Union soldiers were dealing out delicacies to Rebels, while
others guarded the meanest article of their property, and kept it from
our men, even when it was necessary to save life.
I consulted several old Sanitary Commission men, who told me it was
always so when Grant was at the front; that he was then in absolute
command; that Patrick, the Provost Marshal, was his friend, and would be
sustained; and that we must be quiet or we would be ordered out of
Fredericksburg.
Gen. Grant may have been loyal to the Union cause, but it has always
seemed to me that in fighting its battles, he was moved by the pure love
of fighting, and took that side which could furnish him the most means
to gratify his passion for war. His Generalship was certainly of a kind
that would soon have proved fatal to our cause in the war of the
Revolution, and only succeeded in the war of the Rebellion, because the
resources at his command were limitless, as compared with those of the
enemy. It was late in the afternoon when our boat shoved off, and as we
steamed away we saw the citizens rush down and take possession of the
stores left on the wharf. During the evening and night we were fired
into several times from the shores, but these attacks were returned from
the gun-boat, which kept our assailants at such distance that their
shots were harmless. We must have no lights that night, and the fires
were put out or concealed, that they might not make us a target. So I
slept, as there was nothing to be done, but in the morning was out early
in search of worms, and was having good success, when two richly,
fashionably dressed ladies came to tell me there was to be nothing to
eat, save for those who took board at the captain's table. They had gone
to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for a wounded officer, and were
ignominiously driven off by the cook. What was to be done? We might be
ten days getting to Washington.
I went in search of a surgeon in charge, and found one in bed, sick;
waited at his door until he joined me, when together we saw the captain
of the boat. There were two new cook-stoves on board, but to put one up
would be to forfeit the insurance. There were plenty of commissary
stores. The surgeon went with me, ordered the commissary to give me
anything I wanted, and went back to bed. Our stores consisted of
crackers, coffee, dried-apples, essence of beef, and salt pork in
abundance, a little loaf bread, and about half a pound of citric acid.
Of these only the crackers and bread could be eaten without being
cooked. There were four hundred and fifty wounded men--all bad cases,
all exhausted from privation. How many of them would live to reach
Washington on a diet of crackers and water? I went to the cook, a large,
sensible colored woman, and stated the case as well as I could. After
hearing it she said:
"I see how it is; but you see all these officers and ladies are agoin to
board with the captain, an' I'll have a sight o' cooking to do. I can't
have none of those fine ladies comin' a botherin' around me, carryin'
off my things or upsettin' 'em. But I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll
hurry up my work and clare off my things; then you can have the kitchen,
you an' that young lady that's with you; but them women, with their
hoops an' their flounces, must stay out o' here!"
It was hard to see how two of them would get into that small domain, a
kitchen about ten feet square, half filled by a cook-stove, shelves, and
the steep, narrow, open stairs which led to the upper deck; but what a
kingdom that little kitchen was to me! All the utensils leaked, but cook
helped me draw rags through the holes in the three largest which I was
to have, and which covered the top of the stove. There were plenty of
new wooden buckets and tin dippers on board as freight, some contraband
women, and an active little man, who had once been a cook's assistant.
He and the women were glad to work for food. He was to help me in the
kitchen. They worked outside, and must not get in the way of the crew.
They washed dried apples and put them to soak in buckets, pounded
crackers in bags and put the crumbs into buckets, making each one a
third full and covering them with cold water. I put a large piece of
salt pork into my largest boiler, added water and beef essence enough to
almost fill the boiler, seasoned it, and as soon as it reached boiling
point had it ladled into the buckets with the cracker-crumbs, and sent
for distribution. The second boiler was kept busy cooking dried apples,
into which I put citric acid and sugar, for gangrene prevailed among the
wounds. In the third boiler I made coffee; I kept it a-soak, and as soon
as it boiled I put it strong into buckets, one-third full of cold water.
I kept vessels in the oven and on the small spaces on top of the stove.
My little man fired up like a fire-king, another man laid plenty of wood
at hand; and I think that was the only cook-stove that was ever "run" to
its full capacity for a week. By so running it, I could give every man a
pint of warm soup and one of warm coffee every twenty-four hours. To do
this, everything must "come to time."
When one piece of pork was cooked, it was cut into small pieces and
distributed, and another put into the boiler. During our cooking times I
usually sat on the stairs, where I could direct and be out of the way;
and to improve the time, often had a plate and cup from which I ate and
drank. Cook always saved me something nice, and I made tea for myself. I
was running my body as I did the cook stove, making it do quadruple
duty, and did not spare the fuel in either case. Around each foot, below
the instep, I had a broad, firm bandage, one above each ankle and one
below each knee. If soldiers on the march had adopted this precaution,
they would have escaped the swollen limbs so often distressing. I also
had each knee covered by several layers of red flannel, to protect them
while I knelt on damp places. Soon after going into Campbell, I
discovered that muscles around the bone will do double service if held
firmly in place, and so was enabled in all my hospital work, to do what
seemed miraculous to the most experienced surgeons.
I rested every moment I could, never stood when I might sit, made no
useless motions, spent no strength in sorrow, had no sentiment, was
simply the engineer of a machine--my own body; could fall asleep soon as
I lay down, and wake any moment with my senses all alert, outlived my
prejudice about china cups, and drank tea from brown earthen mugs used
for soup, and never washed save in cold water; often ate from a tin
plate with my left hand, while my right held a stump to prevent that
jerking of the nerves which is so agonizing to the patient, many a time
eating from the same tin plate with my patient, and making merry over
it; and think I must have outstanding engagements to dance cotillions
with one hundred one-legged men.
One day while I sat eating and watching, that just enough cans of beef
were put into each boiler of broth, and no time wasted by letting it
stand after reaching boiling point, a surgeon asked to see me at the
kitchen door. He informed me that up on the forecastle, some men had had
soup twice while those in some other place had had none. He evidently
wished to be lenient, but felt that I had been guilty of great neglect.
I heard his grievance, and said:
"Doctor, how many of you surgeons are on this boat?"
After some consideration he answered:
"Four!"
"Four surgeons!" I repeated, "beside the surgeon in charge, who is sick!
We have four hundred and fifty wounded men! I draw all the rations,
find a way to cook them, have them cooked and put into the buckets,
ready for distribution. Do you not think that you four could organize a
force to see that they are honestly distributed--or do you expect me to
be in the kitchen, up in the forecastle, and at the stern on the boiler
deck, at one and the same time? Doctor, could you not take turns in
amusing those ladies? Could they not spare two of you for duty?"
I heard no more complaints, but left Miss Grey more in charge of the
kitchen, and did enough medical inspecting to know that I had been
unjust. Some of the surgeons had been on duty, and the men were not so
much neglected as I had feared. As for the Ladies, I do not know how
many there were of them, but they were of good social position--quite as
good as the average of those whose main object in life is to look as
much better than their neighbors as circumstances will admit. There was
on board one of those folks for whose existence Christianity is
responsible, and which sensible Hindoos reduce to their original
elements, viz.: a widow who gets a living by being pious, and is
respectable through sheer force of cheap finery; one who estimates
herself by her surroundings, and whose every word and look and motion is
an apology for her existence. She was a Dix, or paid nurse. The ladies
snubbed her; we had no room for her hoops; and she spent her time in odd
corners, taking care of them and her hair, and turning up her eyes, like
a duck in a thunder-storm, under the impression that it looked
devotional. If I had killed all the folks I have felt like killing, she
would have gone from that boat to her final rest.
One night about eleven o'clock a strange surgeon, who had just come
aboard with twenty wounded, came to the kitchen door, and handed in a
requisition for tea and custard and chicken for his men. The man told
him he could have nothing but cracker-broth or coffee. He was very
indignant, and proceeded to get up a scene; but the man said, firmly:
"Can't help it, Surgeon! That's the orders!"
"Orders! Whose orders?"
I got down from my porch on the stairs, came forward and said:
"It is my orders, sir, and I am sorry, but this is really all we can do
for you. If your men have tin cups, each one can have a cup of warm
soup--it will not be very hot--or a cup of warm coffee. Those who get
soup will get no coffee, and those who get coffee can have no soup. You
can get tin cups from the commissary, and should have them ready, so
that the food will not cool."
While I made this statement he stood regarding me with ineffable
disdain, and when I was through inquired:
"Who are you?"
"I am the cook!"
"The cook!" he repeated, contemptuously. "I will report your insolence
when we reach Washington!"
"That may be your duty; but I will send up the coffee and soup, and do
you get the tin cups."
He stamped off in dudgeon, and others who heard him were highly
indignant; but I was greatly pleased to find a surgeon who would get
angry and raise a disturbance on behalf of his patients. I never knew
his name, but if this should meet his eye I trust he will accept my
thanks for his faithfulness to his charge.
On the lower deck, behind the boilers, lay twenty wounded prisoners, who
at first looked sulky; but as I was stepping over and among them, one
caught my dress, looked up pleadingly, and said:
"Mother, can't you get me some soft bread? I can't eat this hard-tack."
He was young, scarce more than a boy; had large, dark eyes, a good
head--tokens of gentle nurture--and alas! a thigh stump. He told me he
was of a Mississippi regiment, and his name Willie Gibbs. I bathed his
hot face, and said I would see about the bread; then went to another
part of the deck, where our men were very closely packed, and stated the
case to them. There was very little soft bread--it was theirs by right;
what should I do? I think they all spoke at once, and all said the same
words:
"Oh, mother! give the Johnnies the soft bread! we can eat hard-tack!"
I think I was impartial, but there was a temptation to give Willie Gibbs
a little more than his share of attention. His face was so sad, and
there was so little hope that he would ever again see those who loved
him, that I think I did more for him than for any other one on board.
His companions came to call me "mother," and I hope felt their captivity
softened by my care; and often rebel hands supported me while I crouched
at work.
When we approached Washington, I proposed rewarding the cook for the
incalculable service she had rendered, but she replied:
"No, ma'am, I will not take anything from you 'cept that apron! When we
get to Washington, you will not want it any more, an' I'll keep it all
my life to remember you, and leave it to my children! Lord! there isn't
another lady in the world could 'a done what you've done; an' I know
you're a lady! Them women with the fine clothes is trying to pass for
ladies, but, Lord! I know no lady 'u'd dress up that way in a place like
this, an' men know it, too--just look at you, an' how you do make them
fellers in shoulderstraps stand 'round!"
Her observation showed her Southern culture, for whatever supremacy the
North may have over the South, Southern ladies are far in advance of
those of the North in the art of dress. A Southern lady seldom commits
an incongruity, or fails to dress according to age, weather, and the
occasion. I do not think any one of any social standing would have gone
among wounded men, with the idea of rendering any assistance, tricked
out in finery, as hundreds, if not thousands, of respectable Northern
women did.
The apron which I gave to my friend the cook, was brown gingham, had
seen hard service, and cost, originally, ten cents, and half an hour's
hand-sewing; but if it aids her to remember me as pleasantly as I do
her, it is part of a bond of genuine friendship.