Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

Abby Howland Woolsey to Joe.

April 30.

. . . We had a very pleasant visit the other night from Charles Johnson, of Norwich, just returned from Port Royal. He went down as Allotment Commissioner from Connecticut and had pretty good success. He was particularly indignant about the chaplain of the Connecticut __th who had made a “handsome thing” all along out of the men whose money he received for being forwarded to their homes. He charged them a commission, and then by buying drafts on New York, which are at a premium in Bridgeport, Conn., managed to make his one per cent net. Charles J. arrived out the day of the bombardment of Fort Pulaski and was among the first visitors after its surrender. It was curious, he said, to see the extra defenses prepared by the rebels; heavy timber blindages against the casemates and quarters, all round the fort inside, sodded six feet deep with earth dug from trenches with which the whole parade was crisscrossed. These ditches were already two feet deep with the green, slimy water which had oozed upward through the soil. . . . He said that the 7th Connecticut, now garrisoning the fort, were a pale, peaked, sick-looking set, but every man of them as proud as Lucifer, and he came home with a higher idea than ever of the energy and spirit of our troops. One night he and Colonel Terry and Dr. Bacon couldn’t sleep on account of the mosquitoes and heat, and they agreed to bring out the letters left behind by the rebel prisoners, which had to be examined and sent some day to Savannah by flag of truce. There were more than a hundred; some very laughable specimens of course, but some well written and sensible. About thirty were written in one hand, by some officer for his different privates I suppose, and every one of them began, “We have met the enemy and we are theirs!” always winding up with the earnest advice to their friends, to quit Savannah. . . . Mr. Prentiss has lately spent a week in Washington, in company with Dr. Stearns and Professor Schaff. Everywhere they went, of every great man, Professor Schaff asked his stock question—whether the social and political conquest of the South was not to be more difficult than its military conquest. He received very characteristic answers. President Lincoln thought “perhaps, yes—but it wouldn’t cost so much money! “ Mr. Seward said, decidedly, “No” and then trotted himself out, most obligingly, in a dainty little sort of oration, using one of his fine figures in illustration. “You are like President King,” he said, “who was greatly concerned here, last week, about the dome of the Capitol, how it was ever to be finished, and whether it would bear the weight of the figure of Liberty that is to be placed on it, and how the figure was to be got up there, etc. I don’t know how it is to be done, but the engineers know. The plans were all made to accomplish just that result. The dome was built for the figure, and this figure cast to be in harmony and size with it, and the pulleys and ropes are all agreed upon; and though it is a long way from the ground, where the statue lies now, to the top of the finished dome, I know that the work will be done, and the figure of Liberty shall yet stand on the top of the Capitol.” . . . Mr. Chase was not so eloquent or philosophic. He thought we ought to “do our present duty and leave the future to Providence,” which perhaps was the best answer of all; and putting the three together Professor Schaff was well satisfied with the argument and quite willing to be laughed at by his friends for his pertinacity in asking the question.

Georgeanna to Mother.

Floating Hospital, Daniel Webster.
Cheeseman’s Creek, April 30, ‘61.

The sail down the Potomac to Acquia Creek, where we anchored for the night, was extremely pretty. Just as we started the little gunboat “Yankee” passed up, bringing, all on a string, five rebel craft she had just taken in the Rappahannock.

Late in the afternoon we passed the stone fleet, eight boats all ready to sink in the channel, in case the Merrimac should try to run up the Potomac. The rebels having taken up all the buoys, we had to come to anchor at dark. Sunday, the first day, was gone. As for us, we had spent it sitting on deck, sewing upon a Hospital flag fifteen by eight, and singing hymns to take the edge off this secular occupation. It is to be run up at once in case we encounter the Merrimac. Just as we anchored, a chaplain was discovered among the fifty or sixty soldiers on board—men returning to their regiments, and in half an hour we got together for service and an unprepared discourse exhorting the Sanitary Commission to works of charity! The contrabands all came in and stood in a row, so black, at the dark end of the cabin, that I could see nothing but eyes and teeth; but they sang heartily and everybody followed them.

Abby Howland Woolsey to Georgeann and Eliza.

New York, April 28.

My dear Sisters: Mother’s letter of Sunday morning, giving the startling intelligence of your having gone off suddenly to Fort Monroe, came before breakfast. Since it was your very earnest wish, and, as Mr. Prentiss tells us, you might have chafed at being held back—why I am glad you have gone. But it seems to me a very trying position for you: you will work yourselves sick. Joe will be the most surprised person, and I don’t believe he will approve of your being on a hospital boat. It is very satisfactory that Mrs. Griffin is on board; as long as she stays you will not need either man or woman protector. . . . Georgy’s letter to Charley came with Mother’s. He will see to the wire camp-beds, and we will put the other stores, your hats, etc., etc., all in a trunk and have them ready for the first opportunity. If you write for Charley he will take them on at once. . . . It is strange that Mr. Olmsted should have had you in mind, without having known of your desire to go. It shows that, as Georgy says, “Heaven had opened the door.” . . . Our best love to you two dear brave girls; you are doing what you love to do, and I hope will take care of yourselves as well as of the soldiers.

Eliza Woolsey Howland to Joe Howland.

Monday Morning, April 28.

Where do you think I am? On the “Daniel Webster No. 1,” which the Sanitary Commission has taken as a hospital ship. We are now on the way down to Cheeseman’s Creek, near Ship Point, and when you receive this we shall be lying just there. Saturday afternoon the gentlemen of the Commission, Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Knapp, came over to see us, and to our great surprise and pleasure proposed to us to come down with them in the ship as “nurses at large,” or matrons, or what not—to do of course all we can for the sick and wounded men in the approaching battle. They had telegraphed to Mrs. William P. Griffin and Mrs. Lane of New York to come on at once, and go too. We only had one night’s notice, as they were to leave early Sunday morning, but we accepted the offer at once, and here we are! We four are the only women on board except a colored chambermaid, but there are 30 or 40 men nurses and hospital dressers, and several members of the Commission—Mr. Olmsted, Mr. Knapp, Mr. Lewis Rutherford, Mr. Strong, Dr. Agnew, Dr. Grymes, etc. They have two boats, this and the Elm City. The latter is to be a receiving ship and permanent floating hospital, and this one the transporting one, in which the wounded will be carried at once by sea to New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore and Washington, as the case may be. It is an old ocean steamship, and used to run on the Aspinwall route; is stanch and seaworthy, but now wretchedly dirty. A dozen stout contrabands are at work night and day scrubbing and cleaning, and, as they finish, the whitewashers and carpenters succeed them, and by degrees it will be put in good condition. . . . I saw Mrs. Franklin the night before we started and have a note for the General. We left our little dog Mopsey with her. . . . If you are still off Ship Point we shall be very near each other. . . . There is a P. O. station at Cheeseman’s Creek to which please direct your letters to me, care of Fred. Law Olmsted, Hospital Ship of Sanitary Commission.

Harriet Roosevelt Woolsey to Georgeanna.

Ebbitt House, April 27.

Everybody was delighted with what you left in Washington for the hospitals. Some of the jellies and wine (I found a whole box of it left without orders), and some shoes, I took over to Georgetown to Mrs. Russell, who was just out of all. Mother is going about the room indignant still at the Bank, and “expects to have every policeman in the city tapping her on the shoulder to know the facts of the case.” We try not to miss you, but yesterday was very like Sunday, much more quiet and Sabbath-like than when you were here; to-day we have had the bank excitement to keep us busy.

A Cool Operation.—This morning, Mrs. C. W. Woolsey went to the Bank of the Metropolis to draw the money for two checks of a hundred dollars each. Unacquainted, apparently, with business of the sort, she stepped into the bank, and instead of applying at the counter, presented them to a person who was standing at a desk outside, and returned to her coach. This person presented the checks to the paying teller, who refused to pay because they lacked Mrs. Woolsey’s endorsement. He took a pen and went out to the coach and returned with the checks properly endorsed. They were paid, and the fellow made off with the money, leaving the lady minus.

Abby Howland Woolsey to Mother.

New York, April 26th.

My Dear Mother: We are all bright and well this fine morning. Jane and Charley have gone to the Philharmonic rehearsal and Carry is practicing some of her old music on the piano, in a way to make you, who love to hear it, happy. Mr. Prentiss came in last night to see us, looking well, but queer, as he always does in a black stock. He had been hard at work moving his books, and did not intend to go to prayer meeting, and evidently didn’t suppose we had gone, or he wouldn’t have come to spend the evening with us. He told us much that was pleasant and funny about his visit in Washington, which, short as it was, paid him well, he thought, for going. . . . He hopes E. and G. will get their wishes and go to Fort Monroe, as they are in a state of mind to be fretted and troubled if they don’t. . . .

Very few of the wounded brought by the Cossack from Newbern were landed here. . . . All were crazy to get home, all full of spirits and fun. The five or six who were carried to the N. E. Relief only fretted at having to spend a night longer on the road. The man with both legs gone smoked his pipe and read his newspaper. His chief anxiety was to go into New Jersey by a certain train. . . . Five or six ladies were at the rooms, Jane among them, yesterday, a lady apiece and several men to each volunteer. . . . No wonder it dazed an Irishman just released from four months imprisonment in Richmond. “Begor,” he said, “I can’t pay for all this!” . . . Jane says there is nothing much for the present set of ladies to do, except to rearrange the piles of shirts, etc., on the closet shelves—changing them about from the way she had fixed them! They immediately proceeded to that work, and each new set of ladies will have that, at least, to occupy them. As for the Park Barracks, a portion of them have been scrubbed and whitewashed, the bunks taken down, neat iron beds all made and put up. Mrs. Mack is to live there as Matron, and, for the purpose of a mere halting place and infirmary, it is as good an one as they could have, though too many ladies were on hand, switching things over with their hoops, giving unlimited oranges to men with the dysentery, and making the surgeons mad. There were, beside, half the medical students in the city, all staring and eager for jobs;—no difficulty in the men’s having all, and more than all, the attention they want. One good thing Mrs. Woodruff did, at Mrs. Buck’s suggestion,—sent over to the Astor House for a steward, and through him ordered a good dinner brought in of tender beef, fresh eggs, etc., for the twenty or thirty New York and New Jersey men who were resting there. It will be charged to New York State, which supports the Barracks. . . . We have Lloyd’s map of Virginia hung under the front parlor picture of the Virgin, along the back of the sofa, and we sit there and read the papers and study it.

Eliza to Joe Howland.

Washington, April 26.

Mr. Knapp, of the Sanitary Commission, has just been over and offers to take a note for me when he goes to Yorktown to morrow. We like him so much, and shall be in communication with him all summer if we succeed in going down, and we are very likely to go! Mr. Knapp said the Commission had been speaking of us and hoping we might be able to go, and that, if they found women would be allowed, they themselves would be very glad to have us under their charge, and would manage to get us there. We mustn’t call it “our luck.” It is something far better, and I for one shall be truly grateful to God—and the Commission. Mr. Knapp asks as a special favor that we will keep him informed of our movements.

New York, April 25, ‘62.

. . . I always have a little talk with Col. Betts coming out of church, he keeps out such a sharp eye. He predicted all that business of the sub-division of McClellan’s command and the Rappahannock department exactly as it fell out. He predicts now—(he laughs and says of course he only guesses)—no desperate fighting at Yorktown. He thinks there will be some bombarding but no storming of the works; that the great battle at Corinth, now imminent, will occur before a battle at Yorktown, and will probably greatly demoralize the rebel cause. . . . Cousin William Aspinwall has just sent us in an interesting letter from Lieutenant Greene, giving his experience on the Monitor in the voyage and fight. He is only 18, and was in command for a little while after Worden was blinded. I have been down several days this week to the New England Association, and have succeeded in doing nothing with considerable éclat. We have had only eight or ten transient lodgers, have had some droll incidents, have made a few beds and a few cups of tea, got great glory in the newspapers, and that is all. Don’t think I am going into a minute account, for I have no idea of it. Indeed there is none to go into. The ladies’ committee does not work altogether smoothly, and I think there will be some further attempt at organization with a responsible head. W— B— looks in occasionally and does nothing. M— P— tries to come the heavy patronizing over me with entire want of success. . . . The house is admirable, and the patients (if there are any) will be splendidly taken care of. If you know any New England men coming home invalided, and who want to rest over a night or two (most of them will not do it), send them to us.

Joe Howland to Eliza Woolsey Howland.

York River, April 24

Yesterday, at last, I landed the regiment, having asked permission to do so and have the boat thoroughly cleaned. Having picked out a piece of level ground at the head of a little bay where there are lots of oysters, I got a stern-wheeler and sent the regiment ashore by companies, and got all fairly into camp before sunset. I put the major in command on shore, keeping my headquarters on the steamer, and had the work of purification begun as soon as the hold was cleared.

I saw Franklin yesterday, and he asked after you and ours. I took the steamer’s quarter-boat last evening and serenaded the old chap with our stringed band. He seemed pleased and the music sounded very sweetly on the quiet water.

I suspect Commander Rodgers is the right sort of man for the Galena. I heard a story of him to-day. Some one said to him, “Your iron plates are too thin; their thickness should be at least four inches.” His reply (somewhat pro-fane) was, “What to h— do I care about their thickness,—my business is to go up York River and shell the enemy.”