Half a Century Part 34

VISITERS.

The second morning of my work in the old theater, Miss Hanc.o.c.k came to see how I got along. She was thoroughly practical, and a most efficient laborer in the hospital field, and soon thought of something to better the condition of the man minus clothes, who lay quite near my desk and the front door, and caught my dress whenever he could, to plead for a blanket. She could get no blanket; but was stationed in the Methodist Church, where there was a surgeon in charge, and everything running in regular order. In a tent adjoining, this man could be laid out of the draught and chill of that bas.e.m.e.nt, and she would do her best to get some clothing for him. She sent two men with a stretcher, who took him to the church tent, where I fear he was not much better provided for than in the place he left.

After some days, Mrs. Gen. Barlow came to see the men who all belonged to her husband's division, and were rejoiced to see her; and to express a general fear for my life. I was to die of overwork and want of sleep, "and then," she exclaimed, "what will become of these men? No one but you ever could or would have done anything for them. Do you know there were three surgeons detailed for duty here, before you came, and none of them would stay? Now if you die, they will. Do take some rest!"

I listened and looked at her flushed face, while she talked, and said:

"Mrs. Barlow, I am not going to die--am in no danger whatever, and will hold out until help comes. This cannot last; Government will come to the rescue, and my men will be here when it comes. After all is over, I will fall to pieces like an old stage coach when the king-bolt drops out; will lie around as lumber for a while, then some one will put me together again, and I will be good as new. It is you who are killing yourself. You must change your arrangements or you will take typhoid fever, and after such a strain, recovery will be hopeless. I take n.o.body's disease--am too repellant; but you will catch contagion very readily. Keep away from fever cases and rest; you are in imminent peril." She hurried away, laughing at the idea of one in her perfect health being injured by hard work; but my heart was full of evil omen. I had talked with Mrs. Senator Pomeroy, on her way from her last visit to the Contraband camp, where she gave her life in labor for the friendless and poor, and she had looked very much as Mrs. Barlow did that day.

Soon after this, I was made glad by the sight of my friend, Mrs. Judge Ingersol. People say her daughter, Mrs. Gov. Chamberlain, is a beauty, but she is not old enough ever to have been as beautiful as her mother, that day, in her plain widow's dress, walking among the wounded, with her calm face so full of strength and gentleness.

She and Mrs. Barlow had hatched a rebellion. In the city was a barn containing straw, for want of which our men were dying. It was guarded by one of Gen. Barlow's men. Mrs. Barlow took two others, went with them, placed herself in front of the guard, told them to break open the barn and carry out the straw, and him to fire, if he thought it is duty; but he must reach them through her. The man's orders were to guard the barn; with the straw out of it he had nothing to do. The men moved side and side, going in and out, and she kept in range to cover them until the last armful had been removed. It was taken away and was to be distributed; but there was still so little compared to the need, that there must be consultation about the manner of using it. Mrs. Ingersol thought it should be made into small pillows, and volunteered to undertake that work; as the Commission could furnish muslin, I thought this best. She found a loft, and engaged several Fredericksburg women to work for pay. They worked one day, but did not return on the second.

There were a good many Union women there by this time, who should have helped, but few could confine themselves to obscure work in a loft, when there was so much excitement on the streets. There was no authority to hold any one to steady employment; and so about two-thirds the helpers who reached Fredericksburg, spent a large part of their time in an aimless wandering and wondering, and finding so much to be done, could do nothing.

So, most of the time Mrs. Ingersol was in her loft alone, except the orderlies who stuffed her slips, sewed up the ends and carried them off to the places she designated; but she had nimble fingers, and sleight-of-hand, and turned out a surprising number of small straw pillows.

As my allowance came, the question was what to do with them. They were too precious for use. What should I do with those sc.r.a.ps of white on that field of grime? Our gaunt horror became grotesque, in view of such unwonted luxuries. What! A whole dozen or two little straw pillows among one hundred and sixty men! Who should elect the aristocrats to be cradled in such luxury amid that world of want?

When my aristocrat was elected, how should his luxury be applied? Would I put it under his head or mangled limb? I think I never realized our dest.i.tution until those little pillows came to remind me that sometimes wounded men had beds! Oh, G.o.d! would relief never come? Like the Scotch girl in the besieged fortress of India, I felt like laying my ear to the ground, to harken for the sound of the bagpipes, the tramp of the Campbells coming. It did seem that, without surgical aid or comforts of any kind, my men must soon be all past hope; but a surgeon came, and I hailed him with joy, thinking him the advance guard of the army of relief. Half an hour after his appearance I missed him, and saw him no more; and this was the fourth which left those men, after being regularly detailed to duty among them--left them to die or live, as they could.

Soon after this we had an official visit from one of those laundry critics, called "Medical Inspectors." As there were no sheets or counterpanes to look after, he turned his attention to a heap of dry rubbish in the vestibule, which gave the place an untidy appearance, as seen from the street. To remove this eyesore he had one of my nurses hunt up a wheel-barrow, and two shovels--shovels were accessible by this time--and ordered him and another to wheel that rubbish out into the street. The wheel-barrow coming in the door called my attention, when I learned that we were going to be made respectable. I sent the wheel-barrow home, gave the shovels to two men to dig a sink hole back in the yard, and forbade any disturbance of the dry, harmless rubbish in the vestibule. I would not have my men choked with dust by its removal, and set about getting up false appearances. No medical inspector should white that sepulchre until he cleared the dead men's bones out of it. He had not looked at a wound; did not know if the men had had any dinner. A man did not need a medical diploma to clear up after stage carpenters.

If the Government wanted that kind of work done, it had better send a man and cart with its donkey.

CHAPTER LXX.

WOUNDED OFFICERS.

In Was.h.i.+ngton, I had done nothing for any wounded officer, except a captain who was brought to our ward when all the others were taken away, and in Fredericksburg I began on that principle. I found twenty in the Old Theater, and had them removed to private houses, to make room for the men, and that they might be better cared for. Officers could be quartered in private houses, and have beds, most of those taken out of the theater were put into houses between it and our quarters, so that I could see them on my way to and from meals. Among them was the blind man, who still craved to hear me speak and feel my hand, and I kept his face in a wet compress until a surgeon was dressing it and found the inflammation so gone that he drew the lid of one back, and the man cried out in delight: "I can see! I can see! now let me see mother." I stood in his range of vision, until the surgeon closed the lids, when he said: "Now, mother, I shall always remember just how you look."

I found in my visit to those men that some orderlies needed some one to keep them in order, and that a helpless man is not always sure his servant will serve him. Often the orderlies themselves were powerless, and those men would have suffered if I had not cared for them. More than once some of them said: "I wish, mother, we were back with you in the Old Theater?"

There was a captain whose stump I must fix every night before he could sleep, and when his wife came I tried to teach her, but she was so much afraid of hurting him she could do nothing. I learned in time that officers quartered in private houses, even with the greater comforts they had, often suffered more than the men in all their privations. Mrs.

Barlow came for me to see one given up to die, and I found him in a large handsome room, on the first floor of an elegant residence, absolutely hopeless, but for years have not been able to recall the trouble in his case.

It must have been easy to set right, for he began at once to recover, and I felt that people had been very stupid, and that there was an unreasonable amount of wonder and grat.i.tude over whatever it was I did.

It was often so easy to save a life, where there were the means of living, that a little courage or common sense seemed like a miraculous gift to people whose mental powers had been turned in other directions.

But I found another side to looking after officers in private quarters.

One evening after dark, Georgia called to tell me of a dreadful case of suffering which a surgeon wished her to see. He was there to accompany her, but she declined going without me, and I went along, walking close behind them, as the pavement was narrow. He did not seem to notice that I was there, was troubled with the weight of his diploma and shoulderstraps, and talked very patronizingly to the lady at his side, until she turned, and said to me:

"Do you hear that?"

"Oh, yes," I replied, "and feel very grateful to the young man for his permission to do the work he is paid for doing, but if he had reserved his patronage until some one had asked for it, it would have had more weight."

"Your friend is sarcastic," was his reply to her; and I said no more until we reached the case of great distress, which was on the second floor of a vacant house, and proved to be a colonel in uniform, seated in an easy chair, smoking, while his orderly sat in another chair, oil the other side of the room.

Georgie stood looking from one man to the other in speechless surprise; but I spoke to the man in the chair, saying:

"How is it, sir, that you, an officer, in need of nothing, have trespa.s.sed upon our time and strength, when you know that men are dying by hundreds for want of care?"

He began to apologize and explain, but I said to Georgie:

"Come, Miss Willets, we are not needed here."

As we pa.s.sed from the room, the surgeon took his cap to accompany us, when I stopped, made a gesture, and said:

"Young man! stay where you are! Your friend must be too ill to do without you. I will see the young lady to her quarters. The vidette is on the corner, and we do not need you!"

We came away filled with wonder, but we did not for some time realize the danger. We came to know that Miss Dix's caution was not altogether unwise; that women had been led into traps of this kind, when it would have been well for them had they died there, and when duty to themselves and the public required them to get one or more doctors ready for dissection. After that lesson, however, I did not fear to leave Georgie, who remained with the army, doing grand work, until Richmond fell, but laying the foundation of that consumption, of which she died.

Of all the lives which the Rebellion cost us, none was more pure, more n.o.ble, than that of this beautiful, refined, strong, gentle girl.

CHAPTER LXXI.

"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP."

The Sanitary Commission soon got a supply of clothing, and sent two men to wash and dress my patients. These, with the one sweeping floors with branches, were an incalculable help and comfort; but these two did their work and pa.s.sed on to other places. One of the men they had dressed grew weak, and I was at a loss to account for his symptoms, until by close questioning, I drew from him the answer,

"It is my other wound!"

These words sounded like a death-knell, but I insisted on seeing the other wound, and found four bullet holes under his new clothes. From the one wound, for which I had been caring, he might easily recover; but with four more so distributed that he must lie on one, and no surgeon to make trap doors, no bed--there was no hope. He was so bright, so good, so intelligent, so courageous, it was hard to give him up. Ah, if I had him in Campbell, with Dr. Kelly to use the knife! How my heart clung to him!

He lay near the center of the room, with his head close to a column; and one night as I knelt giving him drink, and arranging his knapsack and brick pillow, making the most of his two blankets, and thinking of his mother at home, I was suddenly impressed by the beauty and grandeur of his face;--his broad, white brow shaded by bushy, chestnut hair, half curling; the delicate oval of his cheeks; the large, expressive grey eyes; the straight nose and firm chin and lips!--he could not have been more than twenty-two, almost six feet high, with a frame full of vigor.

How many such men were there in this land? How many could we afford to sacrifice in order to preserve a country for the use of cowards and traitors, and other inferior types of the race?

The feeble light of my candle threw this picture into strong relief against the surrounding gloom, and it was harder than ever to give him up, but this must be done; and I wanted to extract from that bitter cup one drop of sweetness for his mother; so I said to him:

"Now, George, do you think you can sleep?" He said he could, and I added:

"Will you pray before you sleep?" He said he would.

"Do you always pray before going to sleep?" He nodded, and I continued:

"Let us pray together, to-night, just the little prayer your mother taught you first."

He clasped his hands, and together we repeated "Now I lay me down to sleep," to the end; when I said:

"Do you mean that, George? Do you mean to ask G.o.d to keep your soul, for Christ's sake, while you are here; and, for His sake, to take it to Himself when you go hence, whenever that may be?"

The tears were running over his cheeks, and he said, solemnly: