New York, November, 1861.
Dear Girls: I went to the provisional Hospital here to see if the volunteers wanted anything. Mrs. Darragh took me all over, and said she wanted woolen shirts and socks very much. So I sent the requisition to the society and she will get all she wants there. . . . Mrs. D. also suggests slates for the men to scribble on, cypher on, do puzzles, etc.; thought they would be very nice, in which I agree. Perhaps the idea may be useful to you. . . . Do you remember Peck, the man all twisted with rheumatism? He is getting well, and is a great gourmand. They let him have anything he wants. While we were there he remarked sentimentally, “I say, send we some more of that roast pig, won’t you.” I shall adopt the New York volunteers to the mild extent of taking them some papers occasionally. . . . Mrs. Bennett, poor old soul, called yesterday to tell of the death of her son with typhoid dysentery in the camp, and, what with her grief and childish elation at having news to tell and being an object of sympathy, was most pathetically comic,— “dead and gone! dear, dead and gone! and this is his picter that he sent home to his mar,” was her greeting to everyone that came down stairs; “and I hope you’ll all be ready in time, my dears. It’s bad enough to be left by the cars, but worse not to be ready when you come to die.” Her great desire seemed to be to see and thank a drummer boy, who in the last few days of her son’s life walked a mile and a half every day to get him a canteen of spring water. He was consumed with thirst and could not drink the river water. . . . Do the surgeons know that you can have money at your disposal for delicacies, as well as clothes, etc.? Let them know it, if you have not, and spend, spend indefinitely. I say to myself often, “fifty or sixty thousand dollars would give quite a lift, why do I cumber the ground?” So if you don’t want to see me dead and the ducats in my coffin directed to the Sanitary Commission, say what I can do or send.
