Chapter II: Part 2

In another half-hour, vehicles of all kinds crowded in, from a wheelbarrow to a stretcher, and yet no orders had been sent me to prepare for the wounded. Few surgeons had remained in the hospital; the proximity to the field tempting them to join the ambulance committee, or ride to the scene of action; and the officer of the day, left in charge, naturally objected to my receiving a large body of suffering men with no arrangements made for their comfort, and but few in attendance. I was preparing to leave for my home at the Secretary of the Navy, where I returned every night, when the pitiful sight of the wounded in ambulances, furniture wagons, carts, carriages, and every kind of vehicle that could be impressed detained me. To keep them unattended to, while being driven from one full hospital to another, entailed unnecessary suffering, and the agonized outcry of a desperately wounded man to “take him in, for God’s sake, or kill him,” decided me to countermand the order of the surgeon in charge that “they must be taken elsewhere, as we had no accommodations prepared.” I sent for him, however. He was a kind-hearted, indolent man, but efficient in his profession, and a gentleman; and seeing my extreme agitation, tried to reason with me, saying our wards were full, except a few vacant and unused ones, which our requisitions had failed to furnish with proper bedding and blankets. Besides, a large number of the surgeons were absent, and the few left would not be able to attend to all the wounds at that late hour of the night. I proposed in reply that the convalescent men should be placed on the floor on blankets, or bed-sacks filled with straw, and the wounded take their place, and, purposely construing his silence into consent, gave the necessary orders, eagerly offering my services to dress simple wounds, and extolling the strength of my nerves.

_First Essay._

He let me have my way (may _his_ ways be of pleasantness and his paths of peace), and so, giving Miss G. orders to make an unlimited supply of coffee, tea, and stimulants, armed with lint, bandages, castile soap, and a basin of warm water, I made my first essays in the surgical line. I had been spectator often enough to be skillful. The first object that needed my care was an Irishman. He was seated upon a bed with his hands crossed, wounded in both arms by the same bullet. The blood was soon washed away, wet lint applied, and no bones being broken, the bandages easily arranged.

“I hope that I have not hurt you much,” I said with some trepidation. “These are the first wounds that I ever dressed.”

“Sure they be the most illegant pair of hands that ever touched me, and the lightest,” he gallantly answered. “And I am all right now.”

_Results._

From bed to bed till long past midnight, the work continued. Fractured limbs were bathed, washed free from blood and left to the surgeon to set. The men were so exhausted by forced marches, lying in entrenchments and loss of sleep that few even awoke during the operations. If aroused to take nourishment or stimulant they received it with closed eyes, and a speedy relapse into unconsciousness. The next morning, but few had any recollection of the events of the night previous.

There were not as many desperate wounds among the soldiers brought in that night as usual. Strange to say, the ghastliness of wounds varied much in the different battles, perhaps from the nearness or distance of contending parties. One man was an exception and enlisted my warmest sympathy. He was a Marylander although serving in a Virginia company. There was such strength of resignation in his calm blue eye.

_Where the Weary are at Rest._

“Can you give me a moment?” he said.

“What shall I do for you?”

“Give me some drink to revive me, that I do not die before the surgeon can attend to me.”

His pulse was strong but irregular, and telling him that a stimulant might induce fever, and ought only to be administered with a doctor’s prescription, I inquired where was he wounded.

Right through the body. Alas!

The doctor’s dictum was, “No hope: give him anything he asks for;” but five days and nights I struggled against this decree, fed my patient with my own hands, using freely from the small store of brandy in my pantry and cheering him by words and smiles. The sixth morning on my entrance he turned an anxious eye on my face, the hope had died out of his, for the cold sweat stood in beads there, useless to dry, so constantly were they renewed.

“An only Son, and my Mother a widow.”

What comfort could I give? Only silently open the Bible, and read to him without comment the ever-living promises of his Maker. Glimpses too of that abode where the “weary are at rest.” Tears stole down his cheek, but he was not comforted.

“I am an only son,” he said, “and my mother is a widow. Go to her, if you ever get to Baltimore, and tell her that I died in what I consider the defense of civil rights and liberties. I may be wrong. God alone knows. Say how kindly I was nursed, and that I had all I needed. I cannot thank you, for I have no breath, but we will meet up there.” He pointed upward and closed his eyes, that never opened again upon this world.

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_Home Cares and Affections._

Earlier than this, while hospitals were still partly unorganized, soldiers were brought in from camp or field, and placed in divisions of them, irrespective of rank or state; but soon the officers had more comfortable quarters provided apart from the privates, and separate divisions were also appropriated to men from different sections of the country.

There were so many good reasons for this change that explanations are hardly necessary. Chief among them, was the ease through which, under this arrangement, a man could be found quickly by reference to the books of each particular division. Schedules of where the patients of each State were quartered were published in the daily papers, and besides the materials furnished by government, States, and associations, were thus enabled to send satisfactory food and clothing for private distribution. Thus immense contributions, coming weekly from these sources, gave great aid, and enabled us to have a reserved store when government supplies failed.

To those cognizant of these facts, it appeared as if the non-fighting people of the Confederacy had worked as hard and exercised as much self-denial as the soldiers in the field. There was an indescribable pathos lurking at times at the bottom of these heterogeneous home boxes, put up by anxious wives, mothers and sisters; a sad and mute history shadowed forth by the sight of rude, coarse homespun pillow-cases or pocket handkerchiefs, adorned even amid the turmoil of war and poverty of means with an attempt at a little embroidery, or a simple fabrication of lace for trimming.

_If not my Son—then another Mother’s._

The silent tears dropped over these tokens will never be sung in song or told in story. The little loving expedients to conceal the want of means which each woman resorted to, thinking that if her loved one failed to benefit by the result, other mothers might reap the advantage, is a history in itself.

Piles of sheets, the cotton carded and spun in the one room at home where the family perhaps lived, ate, and slept in the backwoods of Georgia; bales of blankets called so by courtesy, but only the drawing-room carpets, the pride of the heart of thrifty housewives, perhaps their only extravagance in better days, but now cut up for field use. Dozens of pillow slips, not of the coarse product of the home loom, which would be too harsh for the cheek of the invalid, but of the fine bleached cotton of better days, suggesting personal clothing sacrificed to the sick. Boxes of woolen shirts, like Joseph’s many-colored coat, created from almost every dressing-gown or flannel skirt in the country.

_Sacred feelings and bad grammar._

A thousand evidences of the loving care and energetic labor of the poor, patient ones at home, telling an affecting story that knocked hard at the gates of the heart, were the portals ever so firmly closed; and with all these came letters written by poor ignorant ones who often had no knowledge of how such communications should be addressed.

These letters, making inquiries concerning patients from anxious relatives at home, directed oftener to my office than my name, came in numbers, and were queer mixtures of ignorance, bad grammar, worse spelling and simple feeling. However absurd the style, the love that filled them chastened and purified them. Many are stored away, and though irresistibly ludicrous, are too sacred to print for public amusement.

In them could be detected the prejudices of the different sections. One old lady in upper Georgia wrote a pathetic appeal for a furlough for her son. She called me “My dear sir,” while still retaining my feminine address, and though expressing the strongest desire for her son’s restoration to health, entreated in moving accents that if his life could not be saved, that he should not be buried in “Ole Virginny _dirt_,”—rather a derogatory term to apply to the sacred soil that gave birth to the presidents—the soil of the Old Dominion.

_Sad letters._

Almost all of these letters told the same sad tale of destitution of food and clothing, even shoes of the roughest kind being either too expensive for the mass or unattainable by the expenditure of any sum, in many parts of the country. For the first two years of the war, privations were lightly dwelt upon and courageously borne, but when want and suffering pressed heavily as times grew more stringent, there was a natural longing for the stronger heart and frame to bear part of the burden. Desertion is a crime that meets generally with as much contempt as cowardice, and yet how hard for the husband or father to remain inactive in winter quarters, knowing that his wife and little ones were literally starving at home—not even _at home_, for few homes were left.

_Virginians._

Our hospital had till now (the summer of 1863), been appropriated to the Gulf States, when an order was issued to transfer and make it entirely Virginian. The cause of this change was unknown, but highly agreeable, for the latter were the very best class of men in the field; intelligent, manly, and reasonable, with more civilized tastes and some desire to conform to rules that were conducive to their health. Besides this, they were a hardier race, and were more inclined to live than die,—a very important taste in a hospital,—so that when the summer campaigns were over, the wards would be comparatively empty. The health of the army improved wonderfully after the first year’s exposure had taught them to take proper precautions, and they had become accustomed to the roughnesses of field life. Time was given me, by this lightening of heretofore strenuous duties, to seek around and investigate the mysteries of the arrangements of other hospitals beside my own, and see how my neighbors managed their responsibilities. While on the search for material for improvement, I found a small body of Marylanders, who, having had no distinct refuge awarded them, were sent wherever circumstances made it convenient to lodge them.

_Antagonism._

There had been, from the breaking out of the war, much petty criticism, privately and publicly expressed, concerning the conduct and position of the Marylanders who had thrown their fortunes in the Confederate scale, and a great deal of ill-feeling engendered. Sister States have never been amicable, but it was not until my vocation drew my attention to the fact that I became aware of the antagonism existing. The Virginians complained that the Marylanders had come south to install themselves in the comfortable clerkships, and to take possession of the lazy places, while those filling them defended their position on the ground that efficient men were required in the departments, as well as the field, and that their superior capacity as clerks was recognized and rewarded without any desire, on their part, to shun field duty. They were unfortunate, as they labored under the disadvantage of harboring, as reputed fellow citizens, every gambler, speculator or vagabond, who, anxious to escape military duty, managed to procure, in some way, exemption papers proving him a native of their so-considered neutral State. An adverse feeling towards them, report said, extended even to the hospitals through which they were scattered, and I endeavored long, but unsuccessfully, to induce Dr. Moore (the Confederate surgeon-general), to inaugurate some building for their use. He was averse to any arrangement of this kind, not from prejudice, but a conviction of the expense and trouble of small establishments of this nature.

Not succeeding I made a personal application to the surgeon-in-chief of my own establishment, to allow me to appropriate a certain number of my own wards to them, and with the ready courtesy he always accorded me, he immediately gave consent.

_The wicked Marylanders._

In the decided objections of surgeons generally to taking charge of Marylanders there was an element more amusing than offensive, and the dismay of the head of our hospital when he heard of my arrangements was ludicrous in the extreme, and our opinions hardly reconcilable from our different standpoints. To a woman there was a touch of romance in the self-denial exercised, the bravery displayed and the hardships endured by a body of men, who were fighting for what was to them an abstract question, as far as they were concerned.

No one with any reasoning powers could suppose that Maryland in event of success could ever become a sister State of the confederacy. Then the majority of them were very young men, who, well born, well nurtured and wealthy, accustomed too to all the luxuries of life, served then, and even to the end as privates, when less deserving men who had commenced their career in the ranks had made interest and risen, as much through political favor as personal bravery. Luxuries received from other States for their soldiers, which though trifling in themselves were so gratifying to their recipients could not come to them; the furlough, that El Dorado to the sick soldier, was the gold which could not be grasped, for there was no home that could be reached. Even letters, those electric conductors from heart to heart, came sparingly after long detention, often telling of the loss of the beloved at home, months after the grave had closed upon them.

_Troublesome Customers._

In antagonism to these ideas were the strong objections of our head surgeon to this arrangement of mine, and they too were reasonable. The fact of there being an unusual amount of intelligence and independence among these men made them more difficult to manage, as they were less submissive to orders. They were aware of how much they were entitled to, in food, surgical and medical attendance and general comfort; and were not afraid to speak loudly and openly of neglect towards them or of incapacity in their rulers, so that whether ragged, helpless or sick they bore a striking resemblance to Hans Andersen’s leather soldier. That historical personage, though lame in the leg, minus an arm and eye, with a mashed head, all the gilt rubbed off of his back and lying in a gutter, held his own opinion and gave it on all occasions. The result of this was that there existed a pretty general objection to them as patients, as they were, to say the least, awkward customers. I might whisper an aside very low and confidential of sick men who should have followed the good old wholesome rule of “early to bed and early to rise” taking their physic obediently in the morning, but disappearing at night,—“dew in the morning and mist at night,”—and I might also tell of passes altered and furloughs lengthened when there was no fighting going on, all very wicked, but certainly nothing unmanly or dishonorable. They never lingered around when honor called, and their record needs no additional tribute from my humble pen. When sectional feelings shall have died away and a fair narration of the Confederate struggle be written, they will find their laurel leaves fresh and green.

_Good Wine needs no Bush._

But to return to domestic details. My new wards were prepared, freshly whitewashed, and adorned with cedar boughs for the reception of the old line Maryland cavalry, and during their sojourn I experienced to its fullest extent the pleasure of ministering to the wants of grateful and satisfied soldiers. They brightened a short interval of laborious and harassing labors that lasted over four years, and left a sunny spot for memory to dwell on. After their departure many more of their State came, generally infantry, and difficulties still continued. It was impossible to give them their due share of attention, so great was the feeling of jealousy existing. If an invalid required special attention, and he proved to be a Marylander, though perhaps ignorant myself of the fact, many eyes watched me, and complaints were made to the nurses, and from them to the surgeons, till a report of partiality to them on my part made to the surgeon-in-chief, called forth a remonstrance on his part, and a request that all patients should be treated alike. Then came an unpleasant season of bickering and dissatisfaction, so that fearing I might be to blame in part, I studiously at last avoided inquiring to what corps a man belonged.

_Annoyances._

A courier of General A. P. Hill’s, very badly wounded, had been invalided for some time, and desirous of offering him some inducement to bear his fate more patiently, I had invited him to dine in my office, as soon as he could use his crutches. An invitation of this kind was often extended to men similarly situated; not that there were delicacies retained in my kitchen that did not reach the wards, but the request was a courtesy, and the food would be hot from the fire, and more comfortably served. Unfortunately he was a Marylander, and that some adverse report had been made was proved by an order attached to my window during the day, explaining that no patient would be permitted to enter the matron’s department under any circumstances, on penalty of punishment. This was uncalled-for and galling, so I pulled it down first, and then carried my complaint to the surgeon-in-chief.

_Woman’s wit wins._

No one ever applied to him in vain for either justice or courtesy. He naturally was unwilling to countermand this order positively, but told me significantly that although the hospital was to a certain extent under the control of the surgeon in charge, and subject to his orders, the private rooms, as well as kitchen and laundry attached to the matron’s department were under my management. As a woman will naturally sacrifice her comfort, convenience, pleasure, and privacy to have her own way, the result must be evident. My sleeping-room became a dining-room, and for the future I made what use of it I pleased, returning every night to my quarters at the Secretary’s.

_The Flesh-Pots of Egypt._

The next annoyance was the disappearance of all the Maryland patients; their wards being found empty one morning, and “no man living could tell where they had gone.” However, when the flesh-pots of the forsaken land were steaming at dinner-time, a small group revealed themselves of the missing tribes, and clustered around my window with cup and plate. They belonged to the infantry, and seemed unable to bear their exile. This continued for a couple of days, the applicants increasing at each meal, till a second visit to Dr. M. with a representation of the impossibility of feeding men for whom no rations had been drawn brought about a rescinding of the order for their exile, and from that time they and all of their corps who came to me were unmolested.

————

_Anxieties._

Feminine sympathy being much more demonstrative than masculine, particularly when compared with a surgeon’s unresponsiveness, who inured to the aspects of suffering, has more control over his professional feelings, the nurses often summoned me when only the surgeon was needed. One very cold night the same year, 1863, when sleeping at my hospital rooms, an answer was made to my demand as to who was knocking and what was wanted. The nurse from the nearest ward said, something was wrong with Fisher. Instructing him to find the doctor immediately and hastily getting on some clothing I hurried to the scene, for Fisher was an especial favorite. He was quite a young man, of about twenty years of age, who had been wounded ten months previously very severely, high up on the leg near the hip, and who by dint of hard nursing, good food and plenty of stimulant had been given a fair chance for recovery. The bones of the broken leg had slipped together, then lapped, and nature anxious as she always is to help herself had thrown a ligature across, uniting the severed parts; but after some time the side curved out, and the wounded leg was many inches shorter than its fellow. He had been the object of sedulous care on the part of all—surgeons, ward-master, nurse and matron, and the last effort made to assist him was by the construction of an open cylinder of pasteboard, made in my kitchen, of many sheets of coarse brown paper, cemented together with very stiff paste, and baked around the stove-pipe. This was to clasp by its own prepared curve the deformed hip, and be a support for it when he was able to use his crutches.

_No Hope in this World._

He had remained through all his trials, stout, fresh and hearty, interesting in appearance, and so gentle-mannered and uncomplaining that we all loved him. Supported on his crutches he had walked up and down his ward for the first time since he was wounded, and seemed almost restored. That same night he turned over and uttered an exclamation of pain.

Following the nurse to his bed, and turning down the covering, a small jet of blood spurted up. The sharp edge of the splintered bone must have severed an artery. I instantly put my finger on the little orifice and awaited the surgeon. He soon came—took a long look and shook his head. The explanation was easy; the artery was imbedded in the fleshy part of the thigh and could not be taken up. No earthly power could save him.

There was no object in detaining Dr. ——. He required his time and his strength, and long I sat by the boy, unconscious himself that any serious trouble was apprehended. The hardest trial of my duty was laid upon me; the necessity of telling a man in the prime of life, and fullness of strength that there was no hope for him.

_Dead._

It was done at last, and the verdict received patiently and courageously, some directions given by which his mother would be informed of his death, and then he turned his questioning eyes upon my face.

“How long can I live?”

“Only as long as I keep my finger upon this artery.” A pause ensued. God alone knew what thoughts hurried through that heart and brain, called so unexpectedly from all earthly hopes and ties. He broke the silence at last.

“You can let go—”

But I could not. Not if my own life had trembled in the balance. Hot tears rushed to my eyes, a surging sound to my ears, and a deathly coldness to my lips. The pang of obeying him was spared me, and for the first and last time during the trials that surrounded me for four years, I fainted away.

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_State Peculiarities and Differences._

No words can do justice to the uncomplaining nature of the Southern soldier. Whether it arose from resignation or merely passive submission, yet when shown in the aggregate in a hospital, it was sublime. Day after day, whether lying wasted by disease or burning up with fever, torn with wounds or sinking from debility, a groan was seldom heard. The wounded wards would be noisily gay with singing, laughing, fighting battles o’er and o’er again, and playfully chaffing each other by decrying the troops from different States, each man applauding his own. When listening to them one would suppose that the whole Southern army with the exception of a few companies from the speaker’s section of country, were cowards. The up-country soldiers, born in the same States as those they derided, went even further and decried “them fellows from the seaboard, who let us do all the fighting.” The Georgians would romance of how the South Carolinians laid down at such a battle, refusing to charge, and how they had to “charge right over them.” The Mississippians of the backwardness of the Tennessee troops, who “would never go into action unless led by their commanding general.” The Virginians told bitter stories of the rowdyism of the Maryland volunteers, who were “always spreeing it in the city, and dancing attendance on the women,” and the North Carolinians caught it on all sides, though their record is undoubtedly a most gallant one.

_Tar-Heel Tastes._

Taken in the mass, the last were certainly most forlorn specimens, and their drawl was insufferable. Besides, they never under any circumstances would give me the satisfaction of hearing that they relished or even ate any food that was issued from my kitchen. “Say, can I have some sweet soup?” whined a voice from one bed, and “Look here, can I have some sour soup?” came from another. The sweet soup upon explanation proved to be stirred custard; the sour a mystery until the receipt was given. “You jist put a crock of buttermilk on the fire, and let it come to a bile; then mix up the yaller of an egg with some corn flour to make a paste; then punch off pieces of the dough, and bile them with the soup; with lots of pepper and salt.” The buttermilk when so tested by heat resolved itself into a sea of whey with a hard ball of curds in the center. I carried the saucepan to his bedside to show the results of his culinary directions; but he merely shook his head and remarked carelessly that “his mammy’s soup did not look like that.”

_Babies even give up Milk._

Many would not eat unless furnished with food to which they had been accustomed at home, and as unreasoning as brutes resisted nutriment and thus became weaker day after day; and whatever was new to the eye or palate was received suspiciously. Liquids in the form of soups, tea or coffee they turned from with disgust, so that the ordinary diet of invalids was inefficient in their case. Buttermilk seemed especially created by nature for wounded patients; they craved it with a drunkard’s thirst, and great, strong men have turned away from all else and implored a drink of sweet milk. We had a very short supply of this towards the end of the war, and I remember a stalwart Kentuckian, one of Morgan’s men, insisting upon the rare luxury of one cupfull. He had been for many months on a raid far out of Confederate limits, and returning slightly wounded, had no idea of the scarcity of forage that made our cows so dry. His pleading became really affecting, till at last rallying, I told him: “Why man! the very babies of the Confederacy have given up drinking milk, and here are you, six feet two, crying for it.”

_Our Little Romance._

Little poetical effusions were often thrust under my cabin door, and also notes of all kinds from my patients. Among them one day was a well-written and worded request from a young man who had been indisposed with that most hateful of all annoyances to soldiers—the itch; that shirt of Nessus, which when once attached to the person clings there pertinaciously. It begged me when at leisure to give him an interview, telling me his ward, name, and bed. He proved to be educated, and a gentleman from the upper part of Alabama, which had been colonized by the best class of South Carolinians; and he wished to enlist any influence I might possess in his favor, to endeavor to get him a furlough. His story was interesting. Engaged to a young girl, the preparations made, the ring even bought (he wore it next his heart), and the marriage day fixed, they heard the first rumors of war, and patriotism urging him to enlist, the parents of his sweetheart naturally refused to allow him to consummate the engagement until peace was restored. The desire to see her again became almost unbearable, and feeling sincere sympathy with him, and the hardship of the case, I tried but in vain to have him furloughed. The campaign of 1864 had opened and every man was needed in the field.

_Loved and Lost._

The finale of my story is a sad one, as are almost all stories in time of war. He was killed while repelling with his brigade the attack on Petersburg, and the little history confided to me resolved itself into a romance one night, that found shape and form:

“ICH HABE GELEBT UND GELIEBT.”

The bride’s robe is ready, the bridesmaids are bid,
The groom clasps the circlet, so cautiously hid;
For a home is now waiting a mistress to claim
A lover, a wife, for his house, heart and name.
There is peace in the homestead and mirth in the hall—
The steed idly stands at his rack in the stall,
The whole land is teeming with prosperous life,
For lost are all memories of carnage and strife.
With rich golden harvest the ripe hills are blest,
And God’s providence stands revealed and confessed.

* * * * *

No priest blessed that union, no ring wed that hand;
With anger and discord soon rang the whole land;
Through all its wide domains the dread tidings rang
Of bloodshed. The lover was first in the van.
“My own one! I leave thee, those dear arms unfold.
Wouldst wed with the timid—the doubtful—the cold?
No union could bless till our country be free,
So onward for liberty, glory—and thee!”

* * * * *

Right bravely fought he till sunlight lying low
Discovered a field that had left him no foe;
But when in the flush of a victory gained,
Deep in dreams of his love—his honor unstained,
He wended his way to the home of his heart
From her side ne’er to swerve, from her love ne’er to part,
Hast’ning on with his tidings he knew she would prize—
His heart on his lips and his soul in his eyes;
Laid low by a shot courage could not repel
At the feet of a mightier victor—he fell!
And the bride that he left? What needs it to say
Her doom was a woman’s,—to watch, wait and pray.
The heat of the struggle nerves man for the strife,
But bitter at home is her battle of life,
When far from the conflict, unheeded, alone,
Her brain in a flame, but her heart like a stone,
She patiently waits to hear _one_ life is won,
Or silently prays to say—_His_ will be done!

————

_The Conquering Hero comes again._

The whiskey barrel, as I have said before, and suppose I shall often say again, had been a bone of contention from the beginning, and as it afterward proved, continued so to the end. Liquor commanded an enormous price in Dixie, and often if its lovers had the means to procure it, the opportunity was wanting, as the hospital was some distance from Richmond. When first installed in my office, the desire to conciliate, and the belief that men generally had some conscience even on the whiskey question led me to yield to urgent solicitations for it from many quarters; but the demands increased fearfully upon any concession. A reference to Dr. M. about this matter settled the heretofore open question. The doctor said the liquor was intended exclusively for the use of patients, and should only be used through a prescription accompanied by a written order. Also that I was personally responsible for the quantity confided to my care, and must each month produce the surgeon’s receipts to balance with the number of gallons drawn from the medical purveyor. There were at different times half a dozen surgeons and officials around, who absolutely made my life wretched by their importunities, and yet who could not be sent away except by preferring charges against them, and proving those charges; for my hospital was a military organization. I did not feel inclined to brave the publicity of preferred charges, for I seemed to have no recognized rank, and if even I could prove them, the complaints made would be ludicrously petty in detail, though distracting as mosquito bites in the aggregate.

_Rats—Hopeless Inebriates._

The modes adopted to outflank me were named “legion.” Some of them can be recalled. A quart bottle of whiskey would be ordered by the officer of the day for each ward, for night use, so that it would be ready at hand should any of the patients need this stimulant during the night. The next morning, on inquiry being made, there had been no case requiring its use, but the bottles would be empty, and expostulation on my part be met with explanations that the rats (who were a very plague), had knocked all the bottles over. On refusing to honor any more demands of the same kind, not believing in the rat story, the surgeon in charge would be appealed to, hear all sides, and favor none. This was just what I anticipated and wanted, for having, for the first few months of my occupation, lived in a state of active terror for fear of violating rules, however injurious the results of obeying, I recompensed myself from that time till the end of my sojourn by acting exactly as I thought right, braving the consequences, and preferring to be attacked to attacking.

_What Constitutes a Lady?_

One mode of annoying me was particularly offensive—sending a negro boy with a cup and a simple request for whiskey, as if it was the most natural act in the world. At first a polite refusal would be written, but if this mode should have been persevered in, a private secretary would have been necessary; so in time it was replaced by a curt “No.” A few minutes later the boy would again stand before me with the same message, and this would occur half a dozen times consecutively. I did not believe in vicarious punishment, so could not make the messenger responsible—he was compelled to obey; and sometimes, stung to irritation by this senseless pertinacity, I would write a note to the offending party, brief but sharp. The reply would be the same silly question I so often had to meet: “Did Mrs. —— consider herself a lady when she wrote such notes?” “No,” was always the indignant answer. “How could she be, when brought into contact with such elements?” It was strange, with so little outward self-assertion, always dressed in Georgia homespun, often the worse for wear, leather shoes, worsted gloves, and half the time with a skillet or coffee-pot in my hands, that all the common element around me should contest my right to a title to which I never aspired in words.

This fact, which must have been patent to them from the active persecution it entailed, seemed to be a crying grievance. My life at my hospital quarters when relieved from care for the patients was exclusive, from habit, inclination and prudence. Living a great part of my time away from all intercourse with my own sex, in a solitude that was unbroken after dark, it was better that no intimacies should be formed and no preferences shown; and in an exposed position where Argus eyes were always watching, a woman could not be too careful.

_The Hero again._

But still the wars of the whiskey barrel continued. One day the men of one of the distant wards sent for me in the absence of their ward-master, and complained that the liquor issued for them never reached them. All concurred in this report, and said the champagne bottles in which it was kept were hid behind a certain vacant bed, from whence they would be abstracted that night. A search on my part brought them to light, still full, although the hour of administering had long past. The ward-master was summoned, the full bottles exhibited, and expressing my surprise at the inhumanity and dishonesty of one I had heretofore thought so honest, I warned him of the consequences that would result to him. His protestations were so earnest that he never tasted liquor, that I could not disbelieve him. What then had “become of the quantity issued, had he sold it?”

The charge was met by indignant surprise, and then the truth began to dawn upon me. That he had been false to his charge and his patients was true, if even he had not been guilty of taking it, and I warned him that on my representing the matter to the proper authorities he would be sent to the field. An hour after this conversation the surgeon of his ward entered my office with belligerent aspect.

_Military Law Declared._

“Did you assert, Madam, that you intended sending my ward-master to the field?”

“I said I intended laying the facts concerning the disappearance of the liquor before the proper authorities.”

“I consider myself responsible, Madam, for the liquor used in my wards.”

“If you do, you fail to be sure that it reaches its destination, so I intend in future to see that it does.”

“If you mean that my ward-master drinks it, you are mistaken; he does not take any stimulant.”

“I know he does not,” I answered quietly, “and I also know who does.”

He changed color, and passing him I walked into my little sanctum adjoining the office. To my astonishment he kicked back the door and also entered.

“Doctor, this is my private room,” I said, “to which no one is admitted. Be kind enough to leave.”

“Not until you explain,” he answered, throwing himself at full length upon the couch.

This was just far enough for him to venture. I threw back my window, and called to the sentry to order up a sergeant and file of the guard. In a few minutes the ring of their muskets outside sounded, and taking out my watch, I placed it on the table by him.

_Five Minutes’ Grace._

“I will give you five minutes,” I said, “to leave my room. If you are not gone by that time, commissioned officer as you are, and gentleman as you ought to be, I will have you taken to the guard-house, and then explain this matter to the surgeon-general.”

He waited a minute or two, soliloquizing audibly that I must fancy myself the Secretary of War, and he would make me know my position, but soon made up his mind that discretion was the better part of valor, and left. Proper measures were no doubt taken to punish such conduct, for though I made no complaint, there were no secrets in a hospital, and after a few weeks he disappeared, sent no doubt to that Botany Bay—“the front.” He took a gallant leave of his associates, hinting that his talents demanded a wider field of action than a hospital.

But the tables were about to be turned. Not forever would I be allowed to carry war into the enemy’s country, or be the sole defender of that friend by whom I had stood so gallantly. The whiskey barrel was destined after all to be turned into a weapon of offense.

_The Tables Turned._

The bold man who thus declared hostilities, and by a _coup-de-guerre_ changed the whole nature of the war from offensive to defensive tactics, had been bar-keeper in a Georgia tavern, afterwards a clerk in a Macon dispensary, in order to escape field duty. Coming to Richmond he passed the board of surgeons by a process known only to themselves, which often rejected good practitioners, and gave appointments to apothecary boys.

Fate sent him to our hospital, where the brilliant idea struck him to check thefts of whiskey in the feminine department. He inaugurated his plans by ordering a pint of it for a single patient.

The etiquette of a hospital enjoins that no one but the chief surgeon shall dispute an inferior surgeon’s prescription, so I carried this generous order to the chief, received his instructions not to exceed the usual “from two to four ounces” without being served with a formal requisition signed by the surgeon in charge, and so I wrote this gentleman (a contract surgeon) a few lines, courteously explanatory of my reasons for so cutting him down. This matter being arranged, I forgot all about it, but the next day the blow was struck; the following note being handed to me:

“HOSPITAL, Richmond, April 3, 1864.

“The Chief Matron:—Is respectfully asked to state the amount of water
used as compared with amount of whiskey in making toddy. Also if
strength of toddy has been uniform since January 1st, 1863. Also if
any change has taken place in diluting within the same period. She
will also state what the change has been; also when made, and by whose
authority.
“Respectfully,
“——— ———,
“Assistant Surgeon in charge.”

_Concise, but not Clear._

These questions, if even he had any right to ask them (which he had not), were simply absurd. With hundreds of men requiring different drinks many times each day, ordered by numerous surgeons, prepared to suit different stages of disease and palate, no hour bringing the same orders, how could any kind of a correct statement be made, even if I was willing to make it? But there was a great deal of amusement in the idea of letting him suppose he had alarmed me. Perhaps, as the day was very wet, and the wards rather empty, we might enact a small comedy; so I sat down and answered in full, respectfully, feeling very charitably that he was welcome to all the information he could extract from the five closely-written sheets of foolscap I despatched him.

_A Storm Brewing._

In this document, polite, officially formal and as officially obscure, I thought I had succeeded in showing my correspondent that his questions could not be answered satisfactorily, but that I was much alarmed at his asking them. That I did not succeed in regard to his first inquiry was proved by the following, which came after an hour’s delay.

“HOSPITAL, April 3rd, 1864.

“Chief Matron:—Is respectfully called upon to state what amount of
whiskey has been given to each patient when amount has not been stated
or expressed by surgeon, or assistant surgeon, upon the rolls, but
instead ‘whiskey three times a day,’ and shown upon the rolls which
_I_ send _you_.
“Respectfully,
“——— ———,
“Assistant Surgeon in charge.”

_Diplomatic Correspondence._

No solemn pages greeted him in answer this time. My rejoinder was concise and to the point.

“HOSPITAL, April 3rd, 1864.

“The Chief Matron regrets that she is too busily engaged to give any
more voluminous explanations, being at this moment up to her elbows in
gingerbread.”

Then the sleeping lion was roused, for almost instantly the reply was brought me, and an alarming finale it was.

“HOSPITAL, April 3rd, 1864.

“Chief Matron: Is hereby informed that if she willfully and
contumaciously refuses to give me such information as I demand, and
she is possessed of, thereby obstructing the duty I feel myself called
upon to perform, she must be prepared to _meet_ the responsibility
upon _your own shoulders_.
“Respectfully,
“——— ———,
“Assistant Surgeon in charge.”

_Confusion of Tenses._

A serious but sharp rejoinder sent to this gentleman, trying to show him that he had no authority to propound these questions, closed this paper war; and I had forgotten all about the matter, when the correspondence was forwarded me, folded in official style, and indorsed at the surgeon-general’s office on the back “Referred respectfully to the surgeon-in-chief —— Hospital,” through whose hands alone official etiquette required all reports should pass to heads of departments. He had courteously sent it to me, and I as courteously sent it to the forwarder. Seeing that he had failed to interest the surgeon-general in the case, he drew up a statement of the affair, accusing me of disrespect (based upon the gingerbread letter particularly) to my _superior officer_, sending it accompanied by all the obnoxious notes to the office of the military governor of the department of Henrico, who I heard read it all with some amazement—if not interest.

_How History is made._

Back, however, it came shortly again without response, and by this time some of the waggish surgeons having been made confidants in the matter, persuaded my disappointed friend to try the secretary of war; and at one of the charming breakfasts which his wife was in the habit of giving, I saw him with a smile draw from his pocket a package I knew well by that time, and made my escape just in time to avoid hearing it all over again. As I mounted the ambulance in waiting to take me to my hospital, I heard the peals of laughter that greeted the reading of those unlucky documents.

My acquaintance with my correspondent was never renewed. He kept out of my way. The only time I ever saw him again was the day he left and I viewed his pantaloons of Georgia clay embrowning the landscape adown the hill.

_Non-intervention._

A better educated class of surgeons was sent to fill fortunate vacancies, and this change made my duties more agreeable. There would have been nothing disagreeable in the occupation I had assumed if a proper discretion had been exercised, or proper rules enforced, so that no demands should have been made upon the matron for that which she had no right to give. These demands were the beginning and end of my troubles; for in all else except complying with them I tried hard not to exceed the duties of my position, and succeeded so well that no temptation could induce me to interfere in any way with medical treatment, not even to offering the slightest alleviation to suffering men. During my early initiation, when quite a novice, yielding to a poor fellow’s prayer for something to wash a mouth frightfully excoriated by calomel I gave him a few drops of myrrh in water, I suffered the annoyance of seeing it contemptuously tossed out of the window by the assistant surgeon. From that day I made up my mind to resist all such impulses and persevered in the same line of conduct to the end.

_Amende._

But antagonism was not always the rule. There were many sensible, kind-hearted, efficient men among the surgeons who gave their time and talents generously to further the comfort and well-being of their patients,—men who would let me work hand in hand with them, the nurse with the doctor, and listen kindly and respectfully to my suggestions, if they were not calculated to benefit science. As I have said, the chief surgeon was an unfailing refuge in times of distress, and whenever broken down by fatigue and small miseries I sought his advice and assistance, the first was not only the very best that could be secured, but unlike most of its kind, palatable; and the last entirely efficient. The surgeon too of my hospital though eccentric and wanting in decision of character, sustained my authority during sore trials as ably as he could; for the power delegated to him was not great, and his dread of responsibility a disease. He never intended to be unjust or unkind, but self-examination and investigation of characters around him was not his forte. He certainly withstood a vast amount of complaint directed against his chief matron; and while we had our pleasant little difficulties occasionally, that we still preserved amicable relations was due more to his amiable temper than my proper submission. I _think_ he had many faults, but I am sure I had more, and if the popular remark which has since become a maxim, that a man must be very clever to “keep a hotel” be true, it certainly ought to apply to one who can govern a hospital.

————

_Sadness and Doubts._

Now during the summer of 1864 began what is really meant by “war,” for privations had to be endured which tried body and soul, and which temper and patience had to meet unflinchingly day and night. A growing want of confidence was forced upon the mind; and with doubts which though unexpressed were felt as to the ultimate success of our cause, there came into play the antagonistic qualities of human nature.

_Sorrow and Privation._

The money worthless, and a weak Congress and weaker financier failing to make it much more valuable than the paper it was printed on; the former refusing to the last to raise the hospital fund to meet the depreciation. Everything furnished through government contracts of the very poorest description, perhaps necessarily so from the difficulty of finding any supply.

The railroads constantly cut so that what had been carefully collected in the country in the form of poultry and vegetables by hospital agents would be rendered unfit for use by the time the connection would be restored. The inducements for theft in this season of scarcity of food and clothing. The pathetic appeals made for the coarsest meal by starving men, all wore upon the health and strength of those exposed to the strain, and made life weary and hopeless. The rations became so small about this time that every ounce of flour was valuable, and there were days when it was necessary to refuse with aching heart and brimming eyes the request of decent, manly-looking fellows for a piece of dry corn-bread. If given it would have robbed the rightful owner of part of his scanty rations. After the flour or meal had been made into bread, it was almost ludicrous to see with what painful solicitude Miss G. and myself would count the rolls, or hold a council over the pans of corn-bread, measuring with a string how large we could afford to cut the squares, to be apportioned to a certain number. Sometimes when from the causes above stated, the supplies were not issued as usual, invention had to be taxed to an extreme, and every available article in our pantry brought into requisition. We had constantly to fall back upon dried apples and rice for convalescing appetites, and herb-tea and arrowroot for the very ill. There was only one way of making the last at all palatable, and that was by drenching it with whiskey. Long abstinence in the field from everything that could be considered, even then, a delicacy, had exaggerated the fancy of sick men for any particular article of food they wanted into a passion; and they begged for such peculiar dishes that surgeons and nurses might well be puzzled. The greatest difficulty in granting these desires was that tastes became contagious, and whatever one patient asked for, his neighbor and the one next to him, and so on throughout the wards, craved also, and it was impossible to decide upon whom to draw a check.

_No Change._

No one unacquainted with our domestic relations can appreciate the difficulties under which we labored. Stoves in any degree of newness or usefulness we did not have; they were rare and expensive luxuries. As may be supposed, they were not the most convenient articles in the world to pack away in blockade-running vessels; and the trouble and expense of land transportation also seriously affected the quality of the wood for fuel, furnished us. Timber which had been condemned heretofore as unfit for use, light, soggy and decayed, became the only quality available. The bacon too, cured the first two years of the war, when salt commanded an enormous price, in most cases was spoilt, from the economy used in preparing that article; and bacon was one of the sinews of war. We kept up brave hearts, and said we could eat the simplest fare, and wear the coarsest clothing, but there was absolutely nothing to be bought that did not rank as a luxury. It was wasting time and brain to attempt to economize, so we bent to the full force of that wise precept, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” There really was a great deal of heroism displayed when looking back, at the calm courage with which I learned to count the number of mouths to be fed daily, and then contemplating the food, calculate not how much but how little each man could be satisfied with. War may be glorious in all its panoply and pride, when in the field opposing armies meet and strive for victory; but battles fought by starving the sick and wounded—by crushing in by main force day by day all the necessities of human nature, make victories hardly worth the name.

_Educated Rats._