Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

Jane Stuart Woolsey to Joe Howland.

8 Brevoort Place, 4 May
(letter continued from previous day).

Sunday.—A day of great events. At 1 P. M., Cousin William came in to tell us he had seen a man who had seen a man (literal) who had read McClellan’s telegram to his wife, announcing the evacuation of Yorktown. The man, once removed, was Barlow, and Mr. A. considered it perfectly reliable. At two the extras were out in a swarm, and Colonel Betts and one or two others came in most kindly, bringing papers and congratulations. It is a blessed respite in our anxiety about you, for we were afraid of a severe battle if there had been any battle at all. It is good news for all who have friends in the army. . . . It becomes us at any rate now to thank God and take courage and draw a much longer breath than we’ve drawn for a month.

Mother to Georgy and Eliza.

New York, Sunday P. M.

My Dear Girls: I have an unexpected opportunity of writing, or rather of getting my letter to you. Dr. Gurden Buck was telegraphed this morning, through the Sanitary Commission, to leave for Yorktown on board the “Ocean Queen,” and he is off for Baltimore at 5 o’clock this P. M., to take ship there. In the meantime just as we came in from church, a telegram arrived from you, dear E., to Charley, asking if he would like the “Clerkship” of the “Daniel Webster,” and if so to come on. . . . Charley accepts the clerkship, and will be ready when the “Daniel Webster” comes here. Right upon the top of this excitement of a telegram from Yorktown to us! comes another to Mrs. McClellan at the 5th Avenue Hotel, telling her that Yorktown has been evacuated by the rebels, leaving all their large guns, and much else besides! The newsboys are out already with their extras, and the Aspinwalls are at the door wishing to know why we don’t unfurl our flag! which is all rolled up round the stick. Cousin William has been in to tell us of the news direct from Mrs. McClellan, and the whole city is at once commencing its rejoicings. How eagerly we shall look for your account, and how anxious to know what your movements will be. Why are they telegraphing for so many surgeons from here, and Philadelphia, and other towns, when there has been no battle, as we understand? I suppose the army is to push on after the retreating rebels. . . . I wish I were down there with you, and have a great mind to offer my services to Dr. Buck as head nurse or matron of the “Daniel Webster.” . . . Jane has gone off with her Sunday treat to the hospital, of jelly and oranges; Abby and Carry have gone to church again, and Charley is out making enquiry about the boats and trying to find out whether the “Daniel Webster” is expected here, and when.

Your things are all ready to go by him, and we have offered Dr. Buck any stores he may wish. We have piles of elegantly rolled bandages which he may be glad to have.

Ship Point, May 3, ‘62.

Dear Georgy: The 8th Illinois Cavalry arrived several days ago. They are disembarking today. Cannot the Daniel Webster take the sick off from Ship Point? They will be doing a great service if they can.

Jane Stuart Woolsey to Joe Howland.

8 Brevoort Place, 3d May, Chi Alpha night.

So you three have met again, Georgy, Eliza and the Colonel. . . . It must have been a jolly meeting for you all on the floating Hospital, and Eliza says you showed symptoms of illness immediately on seeing the comfortable beds. But it is rather a perilous position for the girls. It is no longer visiting, but living, in an atmosphere of infection, day and night, typhoid, rubeola, gangrene, and what not. They will be in for anything going, and the service in a crowded transport will make terrible draughts on the sympathies of all concerned. We hear surmises that the Daniel Webster will come round to New York. If so, I sincerely hope the girls will come in her if possible, if it is only for a day. What an excellent thing to have these boats systematically provided, and to have ladies on board. It will go far to humanize the horrid vehicles. Heavy reproaches belong somewhere for the want of foresight and humanity in the government arrangements of the kind. I have seen it. Send your sick men, if you have any, on a Sanitary Commission transport. Fully half the complaints about the Vermonters of Lee’s Mills are strictly correct, and half are half too many for toleration. The men are in comparative paradise now in “our” (!) hands, though one or two will die in consequence of careless treatment,—Government doings. Somebody says of the barbarisms of the Chinese Tae-Pings: “if you want to complete the picture, transfer them to America and prefix the adjective Red.”

We have been having a Chi Alpha (the Clergymen’s Social Club) for Mr. Prentiss, while he was moving. I say “we” although our participation was through the key-hole alone. The last of the mild elderly gentlemen has taken his hat and cane, and the family have rushed down and wildly consumed vast quantities of sandwiches, chicken salad, and the loveliest fried oysters! Don’t you wish you had some? . . .

One of the entertainments, not edible, was a “James Projectile,” weight 58 lbs., brought in the self-sacrificing and gallant hat box of Chas. Johnson, sent by Frank Bacon as a receipt in full, I suppose, for the few little matters we have sent him from time to time,—filled and covered with the red brick dust made by the great breach.[1]

“The slave shouts in the barracoon

As through the breach we thunder!”

But never, Chas. Johnson says, never was there such a disgusted set of men as the Connecticut Seventh, when the white flag went up; they had set their hearts on storming the place, and everything was ready. He went through the casemates with F. B. (Francis Bacon) on his rounds among the patients, his own and those left to his care by Colonel Olmsted, and gave us a very interesting picture of the scene, too long and circumstantial to write out in a letter. He was very much pleased with Dr. Bacon, “so exactly the man for the place,” he said; so utterly cool, so gentle, and so untiring in care and patience. One young fellow they came to, had lost his leg, and the Doctor was trying to soothe him to sleep without an anodyne—“What part of Connecticut are you from?” asked Charles J.; “I’m a Georgian, sir. Yes, sir (kindling up), I fired the last gun from this fort, sir!” “Yes,” said the Doctor quietly, in his mesmeric way, “he stood by his gun till a shot dismounted it and hurt him. But try now to go to sleep, and if you find you cannot, I’ll give you something to help you.” “O, if I could have one drink of milk, Doctor!” “I’ll see; perhaps I can get you a little.” So he gave the candle (in a bottle) to Charles, and was gone for a quarter of an hour, coming back with a little milk in the bottom of a cup, which the young Georgian eagerly swallowed. The story is getting too long—and there were two or three others to match—but what I observe is, that a man of less fine fibre, instead of taking up the talk of the poor Georgian, would have “ improved the occasion” to him.

Did you notice that to-day, in the transactions of the Board of Brokers, when the “Government Sixes touched par,” for the first time since the rebellion, that the brokers were all on their feet in a minute giving three tremendous cheers? . . . Mother seriously announces just here, that two of the tea spoons, used by the clergymen this evening, are missing, and mentions the name of Rev. Dr. _______!

[1]On the newel post at your uncle Frank’s house in New Haven stands this projectile, fired from the battery by which he stood during the attack on Fort Pulaski. It went through the wall, and was taken out of the rubbish inside the fort by him and sent North to your grandmother.

Apropos of your Uncle Frank’s “improving the occasion” at Fort Pulaski—he did improve it in giving the rebel surgeon a merited rebuke. “Good-bye, my poor fellows,” the surgeon had said, “I don’t know what will happen to you now, I shall have to leave you to this gentleman.” “You need not have any apprehensions, sir,” F. B. answered; “these are not the first wounded Georgians I have had to care for;” and then he told him of the wounded rebels he had looked after at the battle of Bull Run. The fellow melted at once and said those men and Colonel Gardner came into his hands directly from F. B.’s, and he had heard of the kindness shown them.

From Hugh Lenox Hodge (sent on board the hospital ship to Georgeanna.)

Cheeseman’s Landing, Friday.

Dear Georgy: I hope to see you and Eliza to-day. . . . We received all the wounded from the assault on the lunette alluded to, except one too badly hurt to move (who has since died, they tell me) and a few so slightly injured as to be retained for future service. The “boys” here say that Thomas Archer, your servant’s brother, did not belong to their Company H, but to Company A, and that he was among those left behind on account of his injuries being slight.

So far our patients, with hardly an exception, have been a superior class of men, and it has been a great pleasure to attend to them.

Dr. Tripler was here yesterday, and I was glad to hear of the probable removal of not only the 200 sick at Ship Point, but of 400 scattered elsewhere, to Boston, New York or Philadelphia.

Abby Howland Woolsey to Georgeanna and Eliza.

New York, May 2nd.

My Dear Girls: We have received this, morning your letter of Monday and Tuesday (Georgy’s) written at intervals and mailed off Ship Point. What a strange life you are leading on board a hospital ship, sewing hospital flags, dispensing medicines, etc., etc. You two have always been together in the queerest and most varied circumstances, and in all parts of the world, from the heart of the Mammoth Cave to the top of the Pyramids of Egypt, in peace; and now, in war. You did not inclose the ward-list, but “Dr. Woolsey,” we feel confident, is a joke on Georgy. She deserves a title of the sort, I am sure. You thought of everything it seems, even to a flat-iron. . . . We seem to be sitting at home impotent and imbecile. It costs us no trouble to order home a few pieces of mosquito bar from Holmes’, or a few dozen towels from Milliken’s—and even these are sitting under the piano waiting. We have screwed the bandage-roller on again, and the little table stands with strips of cotton and pins and labels just as it stood one year ago, when Georgy fired away with it day after day,—between the folding doors of the parlors.

Mother came home yesterday from Philadelphia, leaving Hatty at the Hodge’s. Aspinwall, wife and baby are there. We think Mother looks well. She brought a few of Joe’s photographs. What a keen, alert, decided look he has, as becomes a Colonel and a man who has done a year’s military duty! Soon after Mother, came Mary, Robert and May to dine and spend the night. This happened very nicely, as it was Mother’s first evening at home after Washington. . . .

What great events are happening! Awhile ago, two such things as the fall of New Orleans and of Fort Macon in one week would have crazed us with surprise and delight. We are almost blasés in such matters. . . . It is a good joke and commentary on the southern doctrine of “State rights” that the Governor of North Carolina has been arrested in Richmond, Virginia, for “Unionism”!

New York, May 1st, 1862.

My Dear Girls: Never were two creatures pounced on and whirled out of sight more completely than you. Fate seems to descend and wrap you from the vision and the reach of your family, and every event only carries you farther off. Do write us when you can and help us to realize what and where you are! . . . We hear from Mrs. Buck or somebody that the Daniel Webster is expected here the last of this week, on her first trip with wounded and sick, but I should hardly think it could load so soon. Is it to come through the canals, as the “Richard Welling” is coming with the Vermont wounded? Perhaps we shall see you too! That will be famous if you come on in her to New York. . . . We have got sponges, lots of towels, doylies, castile soap, etc., etc. together, and are all ready to put them up and send them to you at any moment. If you find you don’t need them on board, keep them for the use of the 16th. We must do something for that, as our regiment. .. . There are three times as many ladies as are needed at the hospital, 194 Broadway, and Jane’s work finished, she will not go again. . . . Mrs. Buck, Jane and Miss Caroline Murray are to have Thursday each week as their day at the Park Barracks. Young Dr. Schauffler lives there, and the notice is posted all over the city, so that disabled soldiers returning (singly sometimes) may see it and know that there is rest for them and surgical treatment, all freely provided, and Mrs. Stetson of the Astor House, who is one of the committee, engages to have beef tea, broth, gruel, etc., always ready in case they are called for, and to have any delicacy quickly prepared.

Eliza‘s Journal.

Before we were up this morning, Joe came over to the Webster to ask us to go down to Fortress Monroe for the day with him, General Slocum and Colonel Bartlett of the 27th New York. Finding I was not likely to be wanted, I accepted gladly, Georgy preferring to go over to Ship Point again. The sail down was only about two and a half hours, and we came upon the fleet almost before we knew it. A great deal of shipping was lying off Old Point Comfort, and in the midst lay the “Minnesota,” and the “Vanderbilt,” with her great steel prow, prepared to meet and run down the Merrimac; and just off the Rip Raps we saw the “Galena,” the “Naugatuck,” and the “Monitor.” We landed at once and began our sight-seeing with a great space covered by some three hundred enormous cannon lying side by side like giant mummies in Egypt. Then we went directly to the Fortress itself unchallenged, and meeting Captain, now Colonel, Whipple, A. A. G., were taken to his nice little house and office just put up within the pretty enclosure of the fort, and then to General Wool’s headquarters. The old General was alone and very polite, said he remembered Uncles Gardiner and Sam Howland, and took me for a daughter and therefore Joe’s sister. He read us the despatches he was just sending to Washington announcing the fall of Fort Macon and the retreat of Beauregard from Corinth to Memphis. He insisted on taking us through his pretty garden and gave me a lovely bunch of lilacs and tulips, jonquils, wall-flower, etc., which the old gentleman picked himself (mostly without stems) and presented with very gallant little speeches.

Captain Whipple took us over the moat and on the ramparts, and to the wonderful water battery where the great guns stand ready to belch forth at any moment on the Merrimac or any other enemy. The monsters “Union” and “Lincoln” stand by themselves and point towards Sewall’s Point. Even the lighthouse is on its guard and has its faces towards the enemy darkened with canvas.

Got back to the ship all right and found nothing had occurred.

Georgeanna to Mother.

May 1, ‘62.

We are in sight of the abandoned rebel quarters at Ship Point, now used as a hospital, on low, filthy ground surrounded by earth-works, rained on half the time and fiercely shone on the other half, a death place for scores of our men, who are piled in there covered with vermin, dying with their uniforms on and collars up, dying of fever. Of course there is that vitally important thing, medical etiquette, to contend with here as elsewhere, and so it is:— “Suppose you go ashore and ask whether it would be agreeable to have the ladies come over, just to walk through the hospital and talk to, the men?” So the ladies have gone to talk with the men with spirit lamps and farina and lemons and brandy and clean clothes, and expect to have an improving conversation!

While we are lying here off Ship Point, New Orleans has surrendered quietly, and round the corner from us Fort Macon has been taken. What is it to us so long as the beef tea is ready at the right moment? We have been getting the beds made on our side of the cabin; only 25 are ready, but in two of them a lieutenant and private of the 16th are lying, brought over from the shore yesterday—Eliza’s game. She has taken them vigorously in hand, stealing clean clothes from the Wilson Small and treating them to nice breakfasts and teas. Dr. Haight, of New York, has just put his head in to know if Miss Woolsey has any rice ready. “No. She has used it all up on the man in the bunk-ward, with the dysentery.” Ask the cook—cook won’t boil it; so Miss W. lights her spirit lamp and boils it, and boils it. She has her reward—two men, each with his little plate of it—Was it good?—“Yes, beautiful.”