“Wilson Small,” June 9.
Dear Mother, — I can’t retain the least recollection of when I write, or what I write, or to whom it is written. I only know that I do write to somebody nearly every day. You owe the multitude of my letters partly to the fact that they are written here and there at odd moments, and partly to the other fact that when we go off duty we go utterly off, and come up to our little haven of rest, the “Small.” When we get here we can’t sit and do nothing, we can’t think, we can’t read; what can we do but write? Sometimes the intense excitement of our lives finds vent and ease in writing; but at other times, when we have nothing pressing to do, we feel so inert that the effort to collect our thoughts to write even a line is too great. We have so many letters to scribble for the poor fellows that materials must always be handy. I go about with my notepaper rolled up in a magazine and stuck, with pens and ink, into an apron-pocket; and so it sometimes happens that a letter to you is begun, continued, or ended while on duty. Beside the letters we write and send off for the men, we have many from friends inquiring after husbands, sons, and brothers who are reported wounded. Such letters will never cease to be a sad and tender memory to us. One came last week from a wife inquiring after her husband, but none of us could attend to it until to-day. “Give him back to me dead,” she says, “if he is dead, for I must see him.” Mrs. Griffin remembered the name; he was one of the men whose funeral she attended ashore one Sunday evening. So to-day I went up and found him under the feathery elm-tree. I made a little sketch of the place and sent it to her, — all I could send, poor soul!
I am sitting now on a barrel in the tent, waiting for a train of sick men who were telegraphed to arrive an hour ago. A million of flies are buzzing and whirling and settling about me. If you doubt the number, “Count them, sir, count them,” as the waiter at Vauxhall said to the man who asked if there were really five millions of lamps, as advertised. Flies are much harder to count than lamps, so I let you off four millions.
I hear. that inquiries are being made as to how the Sanitary Commission uses its supplies. If they are made of you, say that so far as I have seen (and it is not too much to say that more than half of what is used on our boats passes under the women’s knowledge), there is no waste, but the most careful use. The Commission is not only doing in the best manner its own work, but it has supplied stores of hospital food, stimulants, and every thread of clothing, lint, bandages, sheets, articles and utensils of hospital use, and much else of a miscellaneous character, to the Government boats, besides the daily, I might almost say hourly, requisitions from the regimental hospitals. If people ask whether more can be wanted, let them consider this. Let them reflect that four times a week our own boats have to be fitted out. To be sure, the same things are to some extent used again; but, without waste, much must be lost. For instance, washing cannot be done here or on the boats; on the latter it would be dangerous. Much that is used has to be thrown overboard; it would be a risk to life to do otherwise. Large cases of soiled clothing, sheets, etc., are nailed up and sent North on the ships. Perhaps each of them carries two or three thousand of such articles. Of course the supplies diminish; though from time to time the washed articles come back.
Oh! if those at home could see all that I see, no trouble, no expense, no sacrifice would be thought too great to strengthen the hands of this Commission so that its work may not fail. I know of my own knowledge how the articles supplied by the women of the country go; and I know there is no waste. When hour by hour some direful necessity is brought to sight, much has to be given which never comes back into our hands; all given to the Government boats is, of course, never returned, — nor could that be expected. On our own boats, however, economy is practised just so far as not to interfere with the success of the work. Oh, how pressed we are for some things! Tin pails, lanterns, and things of that kind we are always begging for, and “annexing” where we can.
I ought to say that I believe the confusion and neglect on the part of the Medical Department which occurred last week was exceptional, and not likely to occur again. At least the authorities have now been warned, and I believe they will profit by the warning. Probably no army in the world ever advanced with so much to alleviate its hardships. Notwithstanding the suffering I see, I feel this; and when I reflect that I see all, or nearly all, there is of misery, I am ready to say that this war is not as dreadful as war once was. The men are well clothed and shod and fed; the ration (on which we live also) is excellent; the beef, rice, flour, and coffee as good as need be.1[1]
[1] I found this to be the case when I became, later, superintendent of a large United States Army General Hospital, where the articles composing the ration came directly under my observation. I never saw one of inferior quality. The ration of the United States soldier is: ¾ lb. of pork or bacon, or 1¼ lbs. of fresh or salt beef; 22 ounces of bread or flour, or 1¼ lbs. of corn-meal; to every hundred rations, 10 lbs. coffee, 1½ lbs. tea, 15 lbs. sugar, 1 lb. sperm candles, or 1½ lbs. tallow ditto, 4 lbs. soap, 2 quarts salt, 8 quarts beans or peas, 10 lbs. rice or hominy, 4 quarts vinegar, 1 gallon molasses (twice a week), 100 lbs. of fresh potatoes or 100 ounces dessicated vegetables (three times a week). Bacon means ham or middlings.
June 9th.—When we read of the battles in India, in Italy, in the Crimea, what did we care? Only an interesting topic, like any other, to look for in the paper. Now you hear of a battle with a thrill and a shudder. It has come home to us; half the people that we know in the world are under the enemy’s guns. A telegram reaches you, and you leave it on your lap. You are pale with fright. You handle it, or you dread to touch it, as you would a rattlesnake; worse, worse, a snake could only strike you. How many, many will this scrap of paper tell you have gone to their death?
