CHAPTERVIII
“Woman should take to her soul a strong purpose, and then make circumstances conform to that purpose.”SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
“Woman should take to her soul a strong purpose, and then make circumstances conform to that purpose.”
SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
Mywork for sick soldiers began early in 1862, in the “Department of the East,” which included Long Island Hospital, Willett’s Point, David’s Island, Fort Schuyler and Bedloe’s Island (now Liberty); all of these hospitals being in charge of Surgeon McDougall.
This extensive experience prepared me for work at the front, which, after many futile efforts, I could now reach through a society known as “Masonic Mission,” by which a pass was secured from General Ben Butler for myself and three assistant nurses, and which gave me the anxiously desired privilege and authority of going to the “front,” with these nurses, who were quite unknown to me.
We sailed July 24th, 1864, on the Patapsco, a government transport that had carried sick soldiers to New York, and was returning to City Point for orders, and were the only passengers on board.
Fatigue and the odor of bilge water induced intense“mal de mer,”which, added to insubordination on the part of two of my assistants, caused the usual distress and despair.
The atmosphere of my state room was intolerable, and the captain kindly ordered a mattress placed on deck for me, where I was comparatively comfortable until I was obliged to stagger below on hearing of unseemly conduct on the part of the two nurses. I threatened, with good effect, to have the captain put them ashore at the first island we came to. Fortunately they did not know that we would sight no island on that short voyage. The third assistant, good Mrs. Dunbar, in her kindly, motherly way, was my only comfort.
The captain had tried, in vain, to arouse me by an alarm that the Alabama was chasing us. But sea-sickness knows not even the law of self-preservation, and I replied, “I’d as lief as not go down by the Alabama or in any other way.”
At night I refused to go below to my stateroom and bilge water odor, quite regardless of the captain’s perplexity. After some hesitancy, however, he gave me the only stateroom on deck. This was filled with the accoutrements of a Confederate officer whom, as a prisoner of war, the captain had just delivered over to the government prison at Fort Lafayette, in the narrows of New York Bay. I awoke at night in such perfect peace and comfort that for a time I imagined the Alabama had really run us down, and that I was now happy in heaven.
My stateroom door had been left open for air, and, stepping out on deck, I found there was no motion or sound, save a soft ripple of water against the bow. A full perfect moon cast a broad silvery path across the quiet waters, so intense that it seemed quite possible that Jesus had indeed walked upon the Sea of Galilee. There was no one in sight, nor was there a sound of anything living or moving, though the “watch” probably saw me leaning over the railing. We had anchored at the mouth of the James River, waiting for the pilot.
On the morning of July 29th, we again anchored, this time before City Point, Virginia, at the junction of the James and Appomatox Rivers, headquarters of the United States armies in the field under command of General Grant.
I went ashore in a little boat with the captain, and reported to the Provost Marshall at headquarters, to show my pass from General Butler. The camp appeared rather shabby. There were only a few wooden buildings, used by army officers, a number of large tents and negro cabins, with guards and officers running from one tent to another. City Point was a barren, almost treeless country of untilled land. The United States flag floated over a small house used by General Grant as headquarters.
A small narrow, cigar-shaped, back-wheel boat, the “Gazelle,” returned with me to the “Patapsco,” and taking on board the three nurses we steamed up the narrow Appomatox River, a monotonous sail of six miles between low bluffs and sparse foliage, to the hospital tents at Point of Rocks, which were pitched on the very brink of this malarious stream. This was General Butler’s Hospital Department of the James.
For the first time I realized my strange position, and felt, when the “Patapsco” was out of sight, as if “I had burned my bridges behind me.” There were only half a dozen men and officers aboard. Feeling impelled to speak to a refined-looking man, wearing major’s shoulder-straps, I found him very courteous. I remarked on my apprehension of the strangeness of the situation, and said if I could feel assured that the surgeon in charge of Point of Rocks Hospital was a gentleman, I should have nothing to fear. I asked the Major if he knew that officer; he replied that he did, and thought I would find him a gentleman.
On reaching Point of Rocks Hospital, the Major offered to go ashore and send an ambulance for us, and this took us a short distance to the hospital tent wards, and to a small frame house near to the Hospital Headquarters.
I called a passing orderly and reported at once with my Butler pass, to the officer in charge, and found, to my consternation, while the color rose to the roots of my hair, that this man was the very Major to whom I had spoken on the boat. Rising and bowing politely he said, “Miss Smith, I trust you will always find me a gentleman.”
It was well for me that he was a gentleman, for I found myself in a very anomalous position, having been sent by the Masonic Mission to take the place of Clara Barton, who was already in charge of this work, but away at the time. I soon discovered that the Masonic Mission had taken advantage of Miss Barton’s absence and—quite without authority—had sent me to take her place. The Major, Surgeon Porter, however, courteously invited me to remain until her return.
Meanwhile he had ordered a large tent put up for my assistants and, as a compliment, assigned me to a room at headquarters. But sleeping with a strange fat woman on a feather-bed, with windows closed on a hot July night was too much honor; so the next morning I asked to be allowed to go with the nurses in their large new tent, where, with a cot in each corner, we were quite comfortable. A small tent was attached for my mess-room, while the nurses ate at the “patients’ mess.”
General Butler’s army headquarters of the Department of the James, was across the Appomattox, at Bermuda Hundreds, whence the rumbling of wagons and tramping of troops over pontoon bridges could be heard through the silence and darkness of the night. Of course I slept little on my first night in camp.
The next night I was greatly distressed by groans and cries in the distance and, much excited, I went directly to Surgeon Porter, as early as allowable the next morning, to ask if I could do something for the suffering soldiers. Seeming surprised at my question he replied that he was not aware of such suffering in camp. He asked where the sounds came from, and as I indicated the direction he said with a curious expression: “Well, Miss Smith, you may try if you wish, but the cries come from the mules in the corral, and I fear you will not succeed.” That joke followed me wherever I went.
Surgeon Porter gave me charge of the officers’ ward, of perhaps forty or more patients. Each officer having his own orderly in attendance, and the hospital being in very good running order, there was no unpleasant work for me to do. So at first I saw only the romantic side of “bathing feverish brows,” and giving comforting words, with some specially prepared diet.
Not caring for society, or mere sentiment, I soon resolved to ask for a ward of private soldiers, who did not presume upon equality, though many of them were as truly gentlemen as were their officers.
Meanwhile the three nurses, though untrained, like most nurses of that time, did good work in the wards of the regular soldiers.