“Knickerbocker,” May 26.
Dear Mother, — I believe my last words on Saturday were that I was “called off,” — and so effectually called that this is my first quiet moment since then. We were called to go on board the “Wissahickon,” from thence to the “Sea-Shore,” and run down in the latter to West Point, to bring off twenty-five men said to be lying there sick and destitute. Two doctors went with us. After hunting an hour through the fleet for the “Sea-Shore” in vain, and having got as low as Cumberland, we decided (we being Mrs. Howland and I; for the doctors were new to the work, and glad to leave the responsibility upon us women) to push on in the tug, rather than leave the men another night on the ground, for a heavy storm of wind and rain had been going on all day. The pilot remonstrated, but the captain approved; and if the firemen had not suddenly let out the fires and detained us two hours, we might have got our men on board and returned comfortably soon after dark. But the delay cost us the precious daylight. It was night before the last man was got on board. There were fifty-six of them, — ten very sick ones.
The boat had a little shelter-cabin. As we were laying mattresses on the floor, while the doctors were finding the men, the captain stopped us, refusing to let us put typhoid fever cases below the deck, — on account of the crew, he said, — and threatening to push off at once from the shore. Mrs. Howland and I looked at him. I did the terrible, and she the pathetic; and he abandoned the contest. The return passage was rather an anxious one. The river is much obstructed with sunken ships and trees, and we had to feel our way, slackening speed every ten minutes. If we had been alone, it would not have mattered; but to have fifty men upon our hands unable to move was too heavy a responsibility not to make us anxious. The captain and pilot said the boat was leaking (we heard the water gurgling under our feet), and they remarked casually that the river was “four fathoms deep about there;” but we saw their motive, and were not scared. We were safe alongside the “Spaulding” by midnight; but Mr. Olmsted’s tone of voice as he said, “You don’t know how glad I am to see you,” showed how much he had been worried. And yet it was the best thing we could have done, for three, perhaps five, of the men would have been dead before morning. We transferred the deck-men (who were not very ill) at once to the “Elm City,” and kept the others on board the tug till the next morning (Sunday), when they were taken on board the “Spaulding,” all living, and likely to live. Later in the day the “Spaulding” filled up to three hundred and fifty very sick men.
No one who has not shared them can form any idea of the hurry — unless it is kept down by extreme quiet of manner — and the solid hard work caused by this sudden influx of bad cases. Dr. Grymes taught me a valuable lesson the night I was at Yorktown on the “Webster.” A man with a ghastly wound—the first I ever saw — asked for something; I turned hastily to get it, with some sort of exclamation. Dr. Grymes stopped me and said: “Never do that again; never be hurried or excited, or you are not fit to be here;” and I’ve thanked him for that lesson ever since. It is a piteous sight to see these men; no one knows what war is until they see this black side of it. We may all sentimentalize over its possibilities as we see the regiments go off, or when we hear of a battle; but it is as far from the reality as to read of pain is far from feeling it. We who are here, however, dare not let our minds, much less our imaginations, rest on suffering; while you must rely on your imagination to project you into the state of things here.
At eleven o’clock (Sunday night), just as I had collected the weary in the pantry for a little claret-punch or brandy and water, after getting on what we thought the last man for the night, Captain Sawtelle came on board looking very sad. He had received orders to send every available transport to Acquia Creek. He told us that General Banks had been defeated, with the loss of two regiments; and he presumed the present order meant that a force was to be thrown back to guard Washington, and that McDowell was recalled to support Banks. Sad, sad news for us!
Of course there was nothing to be done but to give up the “Elm City” and get the men and stores out of her and into the “Spaulding” at once. The transports were to sail for Acquia Creek at 3 A. M., and had to be coaled in the mean time. So we went to work again. Poor weary Mr. Knapp was off at once; the weary doctors and the weary young men began once more the work of hoisting on board, classing, registering, and bunking the poor fellows,—ninety in all; while the weary women brewed more milk-punch and beef-tea, and went once more upon their rounds. The last things were got off the “Elm City” about 2.30 A. M., when a telegram arrived countermanding the order!
I can give you no idea of the work thus accumulated into one day. But there were cheerful things in it after all. One thing I specially remember. A man very low with typhoid fever had been brought on board early in the afternoon, and begged me piteously to keep the bunk next him for his brother, — his twin brother, — from whom he had never been parted in his life, not even now in sickness; for his brother was sick too, and had come down on the same train. But, alas! in shipping the poor helpless fellows they had got separated. Of course I kept the next bunk empty, even taking out of it a man who had been put in during my absence; and all day long the painful look in the anxious eyes distressed me. Late at night, as the last men were coming off the “Elm City,” and I was standing at the gangway by Dr. Draper, receiving his orders as he looked at the men when they came on board, I heard him read off the name of the brother! You may be sure I asked for that man; and the pleasure of putting him beside his brother cheered even that black night. Nor shall I ever forget the joy of a father who found his son on board, and, though ill himself, waited on him with infinite tenderness, — only, alas! to lose him soon.
What a day it was, — and a Sunday too! So unlike Sunday that I had forgotten it until we were asked to go ashore and be present at the funeral of five men who had died on board. Mrs. Griffin went; but one lady was all that could be spared. What days our Sundays have been! I think of you all at rest, with the sound of church-bells in your ears, with a strange, distant feeling.
We got to bed about 3 o’clock, and at 4.30 the ladies from the “Elm City,” Mrs. George T. Strong and Miss Whetten, who take the “Spaulding” to New York, came on board and shared our staterooms. We left the ship just before she started, with three hundred and fifty men on board, at 12 M. this (Monday) morning, and came on board the “Knickerbocker.” We let her go with cheers from this vessel. She looked beautiful with her black hull and much brass about her; but she is not well adapted for our work. I had a strange feeling as I looked at the outside of what I knew but too well within.
At present we shall remain quietly on this vessel. There are fifty sick men on board, brought from the “Elm City” last night; but there are ladies enough belonging to the ship, and we need rest for the battle which they say is just at hand.
There was some excitement and a great gathering of doctors to-day for a post-mortem on board the “Elm City,” and they found what they call “mulberry spots,”—which establish, I am told, the typhoid character of the disease.[1]
A good many wounded are now coming on board and filling the cots on the main-deck. I am -writing in the upper saloon, listening to the typhoid moans of a poor fellow at my elbow. But I am too inexpressibly weary to keep my eyes open a moment longer. I need not tell you that I am well as ever, only so sleepy, oh, so sleepy! Yesterday, Captain Murray, of the “Sebago,” and General Van Vliet came to see us; but of course we could not see them. Oh, these Sanitary Commission men, how they work, — early and late, sleepless, unflagging! Even as I write, come Dr. Ware and David Haight, — dragging a bed-sack which they have filled with fresh straw for me, because they found out that the one I have was last used by a patient with typhoid fever. Kind friends! Oh, how well I shall sleep to-night!
[1] The disease proved, in the hospitals at Fortress Monroe, to be an epidemic typhus or spotted fever, now called cerebro-spinal meningitis,—a modern edition of the ancient plague.
Abby Howland Woolsey’s Journal
