Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

Off Yorktown, May 15

. . . It is now midnight. Knapp and two supply boats started five hours ago for the sick at Bigelow’s Landing. Two of the ladies are with him; the rest are giving beef tea and brandy and water to the sick on the Knickerbocker, who have been put into clean beds. Drs. Ware and Swan are in attendance, aided most efficiently by Wheelock and Haight. Mr. Collins is executive officer on the boat, and Mr. Woolsey, clerk, taking charge of the effects of the soldiers.”

And later from Miss Wormeley:

“We all take the greatest interest in Charley’s letter. He writes well, just what he sees and thinks about and throws genuine light on other accounts.”

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Abby Howland Woolsey to Georgy and Eliza.

May 14.

My dear Girls: Since Mother wrote you yesterday the Daniel Webster has come in again. Fred Rankin called last night with a message from Mrs. Trotter, whom he met in the street on the way from the steamer to take the cars for home. He told us that Charley had stayed down at Yorktown. It may have been necessary for him to do so, in the service, or at the request of the Sanitary Commission, but we feel disappointed that he did not finish up the round trip and return in the steamer. . . .

“Capture of Richmond” has been cried every day for a week by the “Express; 4th Edition” boys!

Mrs. Trotter sent word that she had a very pleasant and satisfactory trip and should sail again on Friday; that most of the men improved on the voyage. They were all to be landed at 194 Broadway, F. Rankin thought. Among them, in the newspaper list, we see Capt. Parker, Co. D, 16th New York. Carry has just started down town, and a boy with her, carrying a quantity of flannel shirts for convalescents and some cotton ones for the City Hospital. She will stop at all the depots, the Hospital, Park Barracks and 194, and at the two latter will enquire for Captain Parker. She has stuck some handkerchiefs and cologne in her pocket, and I think delights at the prospect of sallying forth unwatched to “find some wounded soldiers.” . . . Last night Mother made a white flannel shirt, which has gone down to be put in use at once. She sighs for the quiet of Washington and the companionship of G. and E., whom she admires, and who, she is afraid, are making themselves sick. . . .

Do take care of yourselves and let us know what we can do. I am having long, white, flannel hospital shirts made, and have bought and sent off all I could find at the employment societies of cotton night-gowns and red volunteer shirts.

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Eliza’s journal.

May 14.

I can’t keep the record of events day by day, but last Friday we came down again from West Point to Yorktown, and G. and I went to Fortress Monroe on two hospital ships, G. on the Knickerbocker with the sick of Franklin’s Division, and Miss Whetten and I on the Daniel Webster No. 2, with two hundred of the Williamsburg wounded. Since the day of the battle they had lain in the wet woods with undressed wounds. Some one had huddled them on to a boat without beds or subsistence, and then notified the Sanitary Commission to take care of them; and we were detailed to attend to them on the way to Fortress Monroe, with basins, soap, towels, bandages, etc. We washed and fed them all, Moritz going round with buckets of tea and bread. The poor fellows were very grateful, but we had a terribly hard experience. One man had lost both legs and had one arm useless, but was as cheerful and contented as possible. Colonel Small, of the 26th Pennsylvania, was wounded and lying in the dining room. Just before midnight I went in to see Colonel Fiske, sick with typhoid fever, lying on the bare slats of a berth with only his blanket under him and a knapsack for a pillow. We made him tolerably comfortable and left him much happier than we found him.

Sunday morning the sick were all carefully removed by Dr. Cuyler to the shore hospital at Fortress Monroe, and we ran back to Yorktown, where we found Charley, just arrived on the Daniel Webster from New York, transferred to the Small.

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From Mother.

8 Brevoort Place, May 13th.

My Dear Girls: I have just come up to my own room from breakfast, and from the reading of your most welcome and satisfactory letter, my dear Eliza, written off West Point; and now before anything calls off my attention, or any visitors arrive to “sit the morning,” I have seated myself to thank you both, Georgy for her’s of the 8th, received on Saturday, and yours E., this morning. It is very thoughtful and kind in you to write at all, and I wonder how you can do it in the midst of such scenes! and yet how miserable it would be for us if we did not hear directly from your own pens of your welfare. I am as much and more at a loss than yourself where to begin to tell you all I want to say. .. . Miss H. and a lady friend were ushered in upon me this morning, the latter wishing to know all the particulars about the position of lady nurses down at Yorktown, and what was particularly required of them, as she had started from home with a “strong impulse” to offer her services. All I could tell her was that “a desire to be useful, plain common sense, energetic action, fortitude, and a working apron, were some of the absolute essentials!—not to be a looker-on, but a doer—to take hold with a good will and a kind heart. She left with a feeling that perhaps she could be quite as useful without going down to Yorktown! I have no doubt she can. . . . Charley must have seen you before this. He will tell you all about his getting off and our being on board with him. He took a quantity of things for himself and you girls, which I hope you may find useful. I told him to help himself from the long basket, and use anything he wanted for himself or others on the voyage. The fruit, I was afraid, might not keep. The fresh eggs were from Fishkill, especially for you, E. I long to hear from Charley all about his trip, and I wonder much whether he will come back in the boat or stay behind. I think it will be better, perhaps, for him to make the trip back here, and then return to stay with you. But this you will, of course, arrange among you. . . . So you have both seen Fortress Monroe, and landed, in spite of Stanton and his strict rules! I am glad of it. You are certainly highly favored girls, and I must give way to a little motherly feeling and say you deserve it all. You cannot imagine what our anxieties have been since the commencement of McClellan’s move to push the enemy to the wall. The evacuation of Yorktown took us by surprise, and somehow or other we do not seem to get up the proper degree of enthusiasm about it. The subsequent doings, with the destruction of the much dreaded Merrimac, have not called forth the jubilant demonstrations throughout the cornmunity here that I supposed such news would produce. They seem to be waiting for the occupation of Richmond to burst out with a joyous and prolonged expression of their feelings. Think of our troops being so near the desired “on to Richmond!” We can scarcely realize all that has happened since our parting that Sunday morning. Oh! how lonely and sad I felt when I turned away from the window to the empty room, and the deserted little beds in the corners at the Ebbitt House. But Hatty and I made the most of each other. I did not leave her that day. . . . A young gentleman sent in his card last evening,—Julian T. Davies—and followed in. He came to see Mrs. Howland, as her name and Miss Woolsey’s were mentioned as having arrived here in the Ocean Queen. Mr. Hone had called for the same reason, and Mrs. Russell, I believe. Young D. said the report that Colonel Howland was wounded went up one aisle of the church in Fishkill, and immediately after, the contradiction went up the other, but he called to know what we had heard from you. You cannot tell what a relief and comfort your letter this morning gives us. I drove out on Saturday to Astoria with your Uncle E. Took an early dinner there, and then went up to Mary’s and sat with her till six o’clock. Found her perfectly well, and the children lovely. . . . Abby mails you the daily papers constantly; they must be taken by other eager hands. Do let us know if any men from the 16th are brought here. We would like to find them out. Jane is untiring in her visits and attentions at the Hospitals—Abby at her shirt-making and cutting out for others to make, and doing all sorts of good things in the intervals, and doing all the running for the family generally. We cannot prevail on her to take time or money to buy herself a spring bonnet or dress. My love to Charley. I do not write him, as he may be on his way back. Hatty is still in Philadelphia. I am so glad you have Lenox Hodge at hand. It is a real comfort to think of it—tell him so, with my love. Give a great deal of love to our own Joe from us all. We shall be so anxious now to hear all the time. We grasp at every paper. . . . Farewell, dear girls, with a kiss to each, and to Charley two, if with you. We look anxiously for the Daniel Webster. Dr. Buck came and told us all about you—exalted praises!

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Georgeanna to Mother.

Steamer Knickerbocker.

If my letter smells of “Yellow B.” sugar, it has a right to, as my paper is the cover of the sugar-box. Since I last wrote I have been jumping round from boat to boat, and Saturday came on board the Knickerbocker at Mr. Olmsted’s request, with Mrs. Strong and some others, to put things in order, and, privately, to be on hand to “hold” the boat, which had been made over to the Commission, over the heads of the New Jersey delegation. Dr. Asch was on board, and we had the New Jersey dinner table abolished and 56 Sanitary Commission beds made on the dining-room floor that night. The 200 wounded and sick brought down to Fortress Monroe under our care were transferred to the shore hospital, where we stole some roses for our patients on the Small. Saw regiments embarking for Norfolk, which surrendered the next day. Saw Mr. Lincoln driving past to take possession of Norfolk; and by Tuesday had the boat all in order again, with the single exception of a special-diet cooking-stove. So we went ashore at Gloster Point and ransacked all the abandoned rebel huts to find one, coming down finally upon the sutler of the “Enfants Perdus,” who was cooking something nice for the officers’ mess over a stove with four places for pots. This was too much to stand; so under a written authority given to “Dr. Olmsted” by the quartermaster of this department, we proceeded to rake out the sutler’s fire and lift off his pots, and he offered us his cart and mule to drag the stove to the boat and would take no pay! So through the wretched town filled with the debris of huts and camp furniture, old blankets, dirty cast-off clothing, smashed gun-carriages, exploded guns, vermin and filth everywhere, and along the sandy shore covered with cannon-balls, we followed the mule,—a triumphant procession, waving our broken bits of stovepipe and iron pot-covers. I left a polite message for the Colonel “Perdu,” which had to stand him in place of his lost dinner. I shall never understand what was the matter with that sutler, whose self-sacrifice was to secure some three hundred men their meals promptly.

We set up our stove in the Knickerbocker, unpacked tins and clothing, filled a linen-closet in each ward, made up beds for three hundred, set the kitchen in order, and arranged a black hole with a lock to it, where oranges, brandy and wine are stored box upon box; and got back to Yorktown to find everybody at work fitting up the “Spaulding.” I have a daily struggle with the darkeys in the kitchen, who protest against everything. About twenty men are fed from one pail of soup, and five from a loaf of bread, unless they are almost well, and then no amount of food is enough.

One gets toughened on one’s fourth hospital ship and now I could stop at nothing; but it is amusing to see the different ways taken to discover the same thing. Dr. McC.: “Well-my-dear-fellow-is-anything-the-matter-with-your-bowels-do-your-ears-ring-what-’s-your-name?” Dr. A.: “Turn over my friend, have you got the diaree?” Dr. A. was in a state of indignation with Miss Dix in the shore hospital at Yorktown. She has peculiar views on diet, not approving of meat, and treating all to arrowroot and farina, and by no means allowing crackers with gruel. “Them does not go with this,” as Dr. A. gracefully puts the words into Miss Dix’s mouth.

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Abby Howland Woolsey to Georgy and Eliza.

8 Brevoort Place, Saturday.

My Dear Girls: How little we know where you are and what worlds of work you are doing. It is hard to keep still, I know, where so much ought to be done. . . Yesterday Charley and the Webster were to sail and we had a carriage and all went down with the traps—box of brandy, trunk of towels, etc., bundle of air-beds, bundle of fans, and a basket with a few eatables—some fresh eggs which had just arrived from Fishkill, and three or four bottles of ale, which I hope Eliza will drink; she sometimes used to take a glass of it at home. As for Georgy, I do not expect to have her take anything of that sort, after what mother tells me of the fate of the boxes of claret you took to Washington. One box was still unopened, and, so far as she knew, Georgy had never touched a drop. . . . We found Mrs. Trotter on board. The other ladies soon came —Mrs. Griffin, Miss Katharine P. Wormeley, Mrs. Blatchford and Mrs. H. J. Raymond. . . .

The vessel is a fifth-rate bed-buggy concern, I should say, and the hold where the men were put seemed miserable in spite of your pains, but for which it would have been very forlorn. Charley was so busy running hither and thither that we hadn’t much chance at him. I was sorry we had not packed a great hamper of cooked food for him and Mrs. Trotter. Another time we will do better. They expect to be back by Wednesday with as many sick as they can carry, and judging from the number they brought packed on the Ocean Queen, they will stow them with deadly closeness. We saw Dr. Grymes and liked his looks and manner. He startled us by telling us that the Ocean Queen was coming up the bay with over a thousand sick, four hundred typhoid cases. Couldn’t do without you, he said; “only ladies down there to come —of course they are on board.” Mrs. Griffin, too, was convinced of it and sent back by us a big bundle of tins she had bought for Georgy. We left the Webster at four, when they were to sail at any moment, and drove down to the pier where they said the Ocean Queen was to lie. She was not due till six, so we came home. What with the news from West Point, Va., without details, and with the idea that you were the only women on the Ocean Queen to see after the nurses and the sick, and Charley’s departure, we were sufficiently sobered and excited, a compound of both. This morning Uncle Edward reports us the Herald’s news from West Point, that it was only a skirmish and that the loss of the 16th was two killed, beside wounded. . . . At ten o’clock Dr. Buck landed on the Ocean Queen, came up to his house and sent us word that you were not on board. This morning he has been in for a moment, and says you were indefatigable and indispensable at the front; far more useful in staying than in coming up, that he didn’t know where you went when you left the Ocean Queen, but that you were “all right” with Mr. Olmsted somewhere, and taken care of. . . . Eleven hundred, Dr. Buck said, came on the Ocean Queen. So many of them are virulent fever cases, men who must die, that there is great perplexity what to do with them. The City Hospital, North building, is fast filling up, and the air is so infectious that Mrs. Buck thinks it unsafe to enter it. The Commissioners propose that these new cases should go to Ward’s Island. The government barracks on Bedloe’s and Riker’s Islands won’t be ready for some days, and I dread having the Daniel Webster or some other transport bring a thousand more before these have been decently housed. . . . Mother has driven out to Astoria with Uncle E. Carry has gone to Park Barracks with flowers and cologne sent from Astoria, and Jane is at the City Hospital with oranges for fever men. She goes into the fever ward, considering it duty, and undertakes too much for her nerves, but you needn’t tell her so. Carry and I are going this afternoon to see a “Mr. Woolsey,” who was sent to St. Luke’s, sick of fever.

Georgy to Mother.

“Ocean Queen.”

It seems a strange thing that the sight of such misery should be accepted by us all so quietly as it was. We were simply eyes and hands for those three days. Strong men were dying about us; in nearly every ward some one was going. Yesterday one of the students called me to go with him and say whether I had taken the name of a dead man in the forward cabin the day he came in. He was a strong, handsome fellow, raving mad when brought in, and lying now, the day after, with pink cheeks and peaceful look. I had tried to get his name, and once he seemed to understand and screeched out at the top of his voice, John H. Miller, but whether it was his own name or that of some friend he wanted, I don’t know. All the record I had of him was from my diet-list, “Miller, forward cabin, port side, No. 119, beef tea and punch.”

Last night Dr. Ware came to me to know how much floor-room we had. The immense saloon of the after-cabin was filled with mattresses so thickly placed that there was hardly stepping room between them, and as I swung my lantern along the row of pale faces, it showed me another strong man dead. E. had been working hard over him, but it was useless. He opened his eyes when she called “Henry” clearly in his ear, and gave her a chance to pour brandy down his throat, but he died quietly while she was helping some one else. We are changed by all this contact with terror, else how could I deliberately turn my lantern on his face and say to the Doctor behind me, “Is that man dead?” and stand coolly, while he listened and examined and pronounced him dead. I could not have quietly said, a year ago, “That will make one more bed, Doctor.” Sick men were waiting on deck in the cold though, and every few feet of cabin floor were precious; so they took the dead man out and put him to sleep in his coffin on deck. We had to climb over another soldier lying up there, quiet as he, to get at the blankets to keep the living warm.

Georgeanna’s journal.

Lenox Hodge happened to have come over from his hospital station on shore to call on us, just as the first patients arrived for the Ocean Queen, and, being the only doctor on hand at the time, was pressed into the service. He superintended the lowering into the forward cabin of all the very sick. He told us to have wine and water ready for the weakest, and I in the front cabin, and E. in the back, went round with brandy and water and gave it to every man who looked faint. By the time this was done, the gruel was ready, and it was good to see how refreshed the poor fellows were. E. and I were almost alone at the time these first men came. Messrs. Olmsted and Knapp were away on business, and the two young doctors had gone ashore; we should have been completely at a loss without Len. Tug after tug followed, and 800 men were put on board in the next three days.

Eliza Woolsey Howland to Joe Howland.

May 7th, ‘62.

My dear Joe: Down in the depths of the Ocean Queen, with a pail of freshly-made milk punch alongside of me, a jug of brandy at my feet, beef tea on the right flank, and untold stores of other things scattered about, I write a hurried note on my lap, just to tell you that we keep well, but have been so busy the past 48 hours that I have lost all track of time. You had scarcely left us the other day when our first installment of sick came aboard—150 men—before anything whatever was ready for them. We had only just taken possession of the ship, as you saw, and not an article had been unpacked or a bed made. With two spoons, and ten pounds of Indian meal (the only food on board) made into gruel, G. and I managed, however, to feed them all and got them to bed. They have come in the same way ever since, crowded upon us unprepared, and with so few to do for them; and we have now nearly 600, and more coming to-night. . . . Until to-day we have had only our small force who were detached from the Webster, and I may say without vanity that G. and I, and the two young doctors, Wheelock and Haight, have done everything. We women have attended to the feeding of the 400 or 500, and those two young fellows have had the responsibility of their medical care! Last night, however, a large party of surgeons, dressers and nurses arrived from New York, and though to-day things have been frightfully chaotic, they will settle down soon and each one will have his own work to do. . . . G. and I look after the special diet and the ordering of all the food. Beef tea is made by the ten gallons and punch by the pail. I was so busy yesterday morning that I didn’t know when you left, and only saw the last of the fleet far up York river.