Eliza’s Journal.
February 4.
Mother and all of us went down to Alexandria to visit the hospitals,—Charley provided with camp bed, blankets, etc. to go out and make Joe a visit. Joe met us in Alexandria with the General, and a spare horse for Charley. . . . Saturday afternoon Joe came in from camp riding “Lady Jane,” but, poor creature, she took cold again on the boat, was dangerously ill all Sunday and died early Monday morning, kneeling on her fore-knees “as though saying her prayers,” George Carr said. He and J. and the doctor were with her all Sunday, but could not save her. Joe had brought her from her comfortable stable at home to carry him through the war.
Eliza’s Journal.
February 1.
We all went to the Wilkes’s Friday evening—a very pleasant little party. General McClellan could not come, but there were five other generals, FitzJohn Porter, Stoneman, Barry and Butterfield; also Commodore Shubrick, Commodore Wilkes, Judge Loring and family, the Prussian minister and family, and a good many lesser lights. General Seth Williams was the most modest man in the room, in plain skimpy citizen’s clothes.
Eliza Woolsey Howland to Joe Howland.
Jan. 30th.
The only thing of interest I have to tell you is of a very nice call we had last evening from General Williams (your friend Seth). He got Miss Wilkes to bring him round and introduce him, and told us he had long wanted to call on us and offer his services. He hoped we would call on him for anything he could do for us, and said if I would send my letters to you up to Army Headquarters he would send them out at once by the orderly who comes in every day. So I will begin to-day by sending this one. They say that General Williams is as good as gold, and as modest as he is good. Miss Wilkes, who came with him, asked us all to spend Friday evening with them to meet a small party of Washington people and a few strangers. “Mrs. McClellan would be there and they hoped to see the General too,” and I suppose the Franklins and Porters, and our friend General Williams and other “officers of note.” Don’t you want to come in? We shall go, as it will be a nice chance for Mother and Hatty to see the notabilities and will be pleasant for all. . . . How dismal it is again and how wretched the camp must be!
Our pleasant acquaintance with General Williams—the Adjutant-General of the Army of the Potomac throughout the war—lasted all his life. A year later than this first call Charley was assigned to duty on his staff as his personal aide, at Headquarters of the Army. General Williams held a position of immense responsibility through all the fearful years of the war, and died insane, at its close.
Eliza writes Jan. 29, ‘62:
Mother, Hatty and Charley arrived last night in the middle of the storm and mud. Mother is now writing at the table with me, while H. is gazing admiringly at a group of Irish Brigadiers at the door. Charley is out somewhere, and is to meet the rest of us in the Senate Chamber at noon. We are cosily settled and having a very nice time. The roads are almost impassable owing to melting snow and frost and incessant rain. J.’s last ride back to camp the other day was very hard. He and the General floundered about in mud “like unfathomable chewed molasses candy,” and stumbled against the stumps till darkness overtook them before they reached camp. Reports are brought in of private carriages abandoned along the road, and one—Mrs. Judge Little’s—was fairly dragged in two by a government team which tried to haul it out of a hole. J. says we must not think of coming out to camp.
Eliza to Joe Howland.
January 28.
My only letter by the mail last night was from Major Crane, about some of the patients of his Division who came down the Potomac in a wretched condition on a canal boat some time ago. He is going to do his best to find out who is responsible and prefer charges, and he wants us to help. Don’t mention this, as we shall do it as quietly as possible, but also as thoroughly. . . . We hear every now and then of some new abuse among the surgeons, regular and volunteer,—for instance: Mr. Hopkins told us of one poor fellow of a Vermont regiment who was brought to the hospital in Alexandria with typhoid fever, having both feet frozen and one of them eaten by rats! It is too horrible to think of, but I tell you that you may understand why we feel so strongly on the subject. Good old Dixie hearing of the story went at once to McClellan and told him, and he sent an officer to find out all the facts and bring the responsible person to justice. . . .
The Miss Schuylers went down with us to Alexandria to-day and we showed them through the Hospitals, much to the delight of the nurses.
We have gone into the pension business too! and are going over to Mr. Wrage’s camp to arrange about getting the necessary papers for a poor woman who is applying for a pension and wrote to G. about it. We knew her and her husband here in one of the hospitals and she has the most implicit faith in G’s power and influence.
The end of January Mother and Hatty went on to Washington under Charley’s escort for “two or three weeks,” which lengthened out into three months with G. and E., and proved a great delight to all.
January, ‘62.
To-day we are going out to look up some nurses for Will Winthrop’s regiment, and then to the Senate. I forgot to tell you a pretty story we heard the other day from Mrs. Gibbons, our Quaker lady friend. She is a very sweet, kind old lady, and she and her daughter have been out at Fall’s Church getting the hospital there into working order, and showing them how to nurse and cook for the sick, and, thanks to them, one poor fellow who was dying was nursed back into the right road and is now nearly well enough to go home with his father, who, meantime, had been sent for. He, a plain well-to-do farmer from Western New York, was so overcome with gratitude to Mrs. G. and her daughter, that he entreated the young girl to go home with him and be his daughter! “He would do all in the world for her and she should be an equal sharer with his son in the farm of 300 acres,” and it was said (Mrs. Gibbons told us) in the most delicate, genuine way, without any allusion to the young Lieutenant and probably without the least idea of “making a match.” Of course the young girl declined, and then he went to the mother to ask if she hadn’t other daughters like herself for whom he could do something to show his gratitude. Isn’t it like some old ballad? . . .
The management of the jail was before the Senate yesterday and we heard the discussion, and left just before the bill was passed, requiring the release of all persons not committed for crime, which means, principally, the contrabands. Mr. Grimes, the chairman of the Committee on District affairs, abused Marshal Lamon roundly for his bad management and his insolent exclusion of congressmen from one of the institutions which it is their duty to supervise. Georgeanna sent Senator Dixon a note asking if, while the subject is before Congress, something can’t be done about separating children committed for petty crimes, from hardened criminals. . . . There ought to be a reformatory school attached to every jail.
Mrs. Thomas Gibbons, mentioned in the following letters, was one of the distinguished Hopper family of “Friends”— strong abolitionists and managers of what was called the “underground railroad.” Through their efforts many wretched hunted colored people were landed safely in Canada. Mrs. Gibbons was busy in the war from the beginning, and all her life long, with serene determination, waged her own war against evil wherever she encountered it.
From Abby Howland Woolsey.
J. C. called here yesterday bringing Mrs. Thomas Gibbons to see us. She told me much that was interesting, and disgusting too, about her experience at Fall’s Church; the brutality of the regimental surgeon, etc. She and her daughter go on again the 24th of this month, and unless they hear something to the contrary will go to the same regiment, the 23d New York Volunteers. She had thought of writing to Georgy; wished I would do so, and see if she could learn from any of the assistant-surgeons, at the office, from the Commission, or from the army officers, where she would be most needed. They want to go where people are least liable to help, and where there is most to do. We are to have some towels, little books, etc., ready for her. . . . Mrs. Gibbons said that Horace Greeley was greatly distressed at the course of the Tribune; he was sick at her house three weeks with brain fever, this autumn, the result of disappointment, etc., etc., in the paper.
Eliza to Joe Howland.
Washington, ‘62.
We have made an engagement with Rev. Mr. Kennard, a young Baptist clergyman here, to visit the jail with him, where the poor contrabands are imprisoned on suspicion of being runaway slaves, or for debt. We have the Marshal’s permit, secured through a friend. . . . We made our visit; it is a wretched place, but the contrabands are better off than the convicts, though many of the poor creatures are almost naked. There are twenty men and boys and a few women, all runaway slaves. We gave them socks, shirts, drawers, etc. and shall go again. The women were very glad to get the sewing we had arranged for them.
Mother to Georgeanna and Eliza.
8 Brevoort Place, Tuesday Eve.
My Dear Girls: The question of my going on to Washington has been agitated for some time past, yet I do not seem to come to any decision about it; not but that I would dearly love to look upon your faces again, and enjoy ever so much being with you, and seeing for myself all your goings and doings. Independent of all this, however, I confess I have no desire to visit Washington, and unless I could make myself useful there, and in every way a comfort to you, I think I am more in my place at home. Your uncle Edward was here this morning, and threw cold water on the movement, said it would be madness to run any such risk, as Washington was full of small-pox and typhoid fever. Now I write this evening to ask you what you think of our going on at present; whether there is really so much sickness as to cause any alarm. Do you want us? will it be a comfort to you to have a little visit from me? I do not ask these questions because I have any fears myself, but I am not willing, after your uncle’s remarks this morning, to run any risk in Charley’s or Hatty’s going. I feel now that it will all rest upon what you say about it. . . . The report here this morning said twenty-five hundred cases of small-pox in Washington! This evening it has come down to eighty. . . . My eyes failing last night, I left my scrawl to finish to you this morning. We have had our breakfast, cold turkey (not boned), hot biscuits, and fish-balls, and the girls are gathered round the front parlor fire with the newspapers, reading items, and discussing the times; Charley is directing Elizabeth about his cushions for the chair he has carved and made, and I am scribbling this in the dining-room, feeling an occasional pang when I look up and see a horrid stranger, John by name, in the pantry, instead of the old faithful servant, William. You don’t know how much I miss him in a thousand little things. This fellow is a perfect snail, never gets through with anything, and of course half is not done at all;—an Irish drone and tobacco chewer.
Poor William’s occasional spree was really preferable. . . . I have nothing to say to begin another sheet with, but to send you my love and a Mother’s blessing. Give Joe his share in both.
Yours lovingly.
Small pox was more or less prevalent about Washington at this time, and one of the sad cases, entirely characteristic of war, was that of G. R., a private in the 19th Indiana, cared for earlier by G. and E. in the Patent Office Hospital. He went safely through camp fever, measles and rheumatism, to die at last of small-pox in a lonely camp hospital in the outskirts of Washington, among strangers.
Boston, January 13th.
Dear Girls: I dare say you will expect a letter from me while I am in Boston. . . . I find it exactly as I left it three years ago, only warmer. It used to be the coldest place imaginable, but the heated term seems to be on, so there is no skating and no talk of it. The Sanitary Commission occupies all the ladies, and in the spare time they work for the contrabands. Mrs. Huntington Wolcott is entirely devoted to it. She keeps thirty poor women in sewing and runs I don’t know how many machines. Mattie Parsons, too, has come out in an entirely new character and fairly slaves for the cause, besides taking care of two families of volunteers in Mr. Stackpole’s regiment, left destitute. They say she recruited a fourth of his company and knows every man in it. They are all devoted to the “Captain’s lady,” and swear to bring him safely home to her. . . . I went out to Cambridge on Saturday to review the scenes of my youth—three years ago—at the Prof. Agassiz’ School. Alas! the former familiar faces that were wont to flatten their noses against the law school windows no longer beam upon my path; they are married and gone, and I am sorry to say the best are in the rebel army. The undergraduates look very small and the college grounds don’t seem as classic as of yore.
