Woolsey family letters during the War for the Union

What the children played in those days is shown by the following little letter:

Little May Howland to Georgeanna.

NEW YORK, January, 1863.

Dear Aunty: Did you get my letter I wrote you from Moremamma’s? You must come home now and nurse me, I have the chicken pox. . . . The children play that one is you, and the other Aunt Jane, and they play that the logs of wood are the soldiers. They get bits of ribbons for cravats. I am going to crochet a pair of slippers for the soldiers. I may as well scratch out that I have the chicken pox, for the doctor has just been here and said that I can go out. . . .

From Jane Stuart Woolsey:

PORTSMOUTH GROVE.

My dear Cousin Margaret: Now that I have been long enough in this place to have learned tolerably well my topography, the names and titles of my coadjutors, how to make out my diet books, etc., . . . I can take breath (and “my pen ” as the soldiers always say in their letters) to say that we are well and more than contented with our present position. . . . Georgy already has her “department” almost completely organized and supplied, and develops daily an amount of orderly foresight and comprehensive carefulness which would astonish one who has watched her somewhat erratic career from childhood. I, who have always rather held myself up to her as a model of the non-spasmodic style, find myself in secret and in reluctance borrowing ideas of her. She has found her work certainly, at least at present. . . . We are nine miles away, as Sarah pathetically observes, from a spool of cotton, and of course this has its effect. There was a time when Newport made it a sort of fashion, and curious crowds infested the wards with plum jam and cucumbers, but now “the season” at Newport is over and the supplies in a measure fall off. . . . We are fortunate in having a good and active young man for a chaplain. He has a large and very attentive audience on Sunday and at daily evening prayers, and it is quite refreshing to hear the full soldiers’ chorus in all the good old hymns. Last Sunday two soldiers were received into the church and baptized. Mr. Proudfit is a Presbyterian. . . . As to our house, it would not be fair to call it a shanty, as the doctors have taken so much pains or pleasure in fitting it up. . . . The outer walls are double and filled in with paper shavings (I believe), and this, with large stoves, will keep us warm; perhaps too warm some fine windy midnight. “Wooden walls” keep out all enemies according to the old song, but they don’t keep out voices, for there is Georgy saying (I can hear it as if she were at my elbow), “I shall never be able to settle down into the conventionalities of society after the wandering life I have led these five years. Once a vagabond always a vagabond; I shall marry an army surgeon and go out to the frontier!” . . . Miss Wormeley, our chief, is clever, spirited and energetic in the highest degree—a cultivated woman, with friends and correspondents among the best literary men here and in England, John Kenyon and the Browning family for instance,—a great capacity for business and not a single grain of mock-sentiment about her. . . . One good thing has happened to-day. Miss Wormeley is made agent of the Sanitary Commission here, with sole authority to draw and issue supplies, and we are to have an office full of comforts for the men at once. . . .

P. S.—All the barracks are to be plastered, large bath-rooms and steam wash-house to be built immediately, bad men turned out and good ones put in. “The kid begins to go,” and I can see by candle-light it’s halfpast midnight and time I was dreaming an hour ago.

Georgranna Woolsey to her brother-in-law, Joseph Woolsey.

P. G. HOSPITAL.

Thank you, my Colonel, for the doughnuts and comic papers. They are just what the men prize most, and under every pillow I shall establish a little nest of both! . . . I always accompany a “Life of Headley Vicars” with a piece of chewing tobacco. . . We are going to have a chapel in two weeks. At present it consists of eight holes in the ground and a tolerable fishing pond, but in one fortnight this will be a church and will stand next door to our house, leaving us no excuse for staying at home in the evening. We have embraced the puddles all along as argument against “protracted meetings.” . . . Jane and Sarah and H. Whetten have just been relating their refreshing experiences for the day, in the next room. Miss Wormeley is down stairs getting up her official correspondence with the Surgeon and Q.-M. General. The diet tables are all made out and consolidated for tomorrow, and several reproving notes to ward-masters sent in to meet them at breakfast; and now, nothing comes except the usual burglar and as much sleep as this howling, driving storm will let us have. . . .

The boxes of home supplies now had Portsmouth Grove Hospital as their principal destination. The following is one of the letters in return for supplies:

The games, as well as the slates, which came in the boxes and barrels, are a great delight. I have just been over to see Fitch and set him up at a solitaire board. He was all over smiles, and pegging away with his game in bed.

With another gift of tools, the boys in Ward 2o knocked up a nice little bagatelle board with glass balls and a cambric cover. Ward 6 went over to inspect and imitate. They came back disgusted; “would scorn to play on such a thing; would have a board on which a lady could dance a hornpipe, if she pleased.” Highly improbable that any one would please to do that, but I promised them that if they would make a first-rate board, they should have all that was necessary. So they went to work, and the result was a beauty. The table is seven or eight feet long, covered with scarlet flannel, and with turned balls and walnut cups, and the men of the ward have enjoyed every minute of its existence for the past month. I have never gone in when there hasn’t been a crowd round the table pushing balls or keeping count, and I really think that the health of the ward has improved under the treatment.

Money spent in lemons for bronchitis, oranges for fever patients, mittens and socks for “convalescents” (who have to go on guard in puddles of snow-water) and in games and tools for wretched, bored, half-sick, half-well, wholly demoralized men, may not seem a great investment to the givers; would not seem so to me, if I did not live in a general hospital, and know where Government munificence stops and where private beneficence may to advantage begin.

The meals in our hospital mess-hall are nicely served and well cooked. At the beating of the drum the “convalescents” form in line, and march, by wards, into the long hall, where three lines of tables, each 250 feet long, are set. Last night, when we inspected the supper, there were shining tins up and down the tables with a very large portion of rice and molasses, hot coffee, and plenty of bread for each man, and many little pots of butter and jam came in under the Braves’ arms, out of their home boxes, to help garnish the tea.

This morning I was invited by a soldier to join him in a banquet over a box from home; “and all I want beside,” observed he, “is a little gin.” “It is very lucky for you that there was none,” was my answer, “or the whole box would have been confiscated.” “Confiscated, indeed!” returned the Brave; “I should like to see that thing done. I’m none of your cream and chocolate men. I’d carry the case up to Abraham himself! ”

The other day Miss — was washing a boy’s face very gently. “Oh!” said he, “that reminds me of home—” (Miss — highly gratified); “that’s like my sister; she often did that for me. My eyes! wasn’t she a rough one! She’d take off dirt, and skin too, but she’d get the dirt off.”

Jane, Sarah Woolsey and G. were meantime nicely established at the hospital six miles from Newport, R. I., with a jolly little thin board house built for the nursing staff; their rooms 1o x 1o, furnished from home with every comfort, and work fairly begun.

Jane Stuart Woolsey to Abby Howland Woolsey:

PORTSMOUTH GROVE, January, ’63.

Dear Abby: This morning in the grey (I don’t know how she managed to be up and seeing) Sarah looked in at the ventilator and announced, “Girls, there’s a big black steamer Hospital off the hospital dock.—The soldiers have come!”

She proved to be the Daniel Webster with 290 men from Fredericksburgh, many of them! There she lies at this writing, two o’clock, no tug having been got up from Newport, and the tide being so excessively low that she can’t move in. They have boarded her in boats however, and report the men very comfortable—short, delightful trip from Fortress Monroe, plenty to eat and no very bad cases on board. . . . Everything is ready for 450. Clean wards, clean beds, clean clothes and the best of welcomes. Georgy and I, who have the medical division, will not profit much. We shall get the sulky old “chronics” and “convalescents,” and Sarah and H. Whetten will have all the surgical cases; but we shall go to see them all the same, and they shall have all our stores, soft towels, jelly and oranges.

Shingling the barracks goes on bravely. I think things will be all so much finished to the satisfaction of Mr. Jefferson Davis, by spring, that he will perhaps retain us in office! . . .

7 P. M. The men are all safely landed, housed and suppered, and all the surgeons are busy dressing wounds. They must work all night. The men are bright as buttons and jolly. Tell Harriet Gilman that her shirts are blessing Fredericksburgh men to-night.

Dr. Edwards, surgeon-in-charge, in the handsomest way offers to turn out anybody we wish and put in anybody we wish, so if you know of any first-rate candidates amenable to female influence, forward us their names.

On the 22nd of September, 1862, a gleam of light had shone, the President had issued “his preliminary proclamation of emancipation; and now on January 1st, 1863 came the announcement of full liberty to the captives.

Extract from the Proclamation.

“I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power vested in me as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, . . . and as a necessary war-measure, . . . do order and declare that all persons held as slaves (within the states in rebellion) are, and henceforward shall be free.”

The passage by Congress of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution followed, extending emancipation to all parts of the United States and its territories.

Abby Howland Woolsey writes, Jan., ’63:

I improved yesterday to my satisfaction in reading the President’s proclamation. “The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice!”

Eliza Woolsey Howland to Chaplain Henry Hopkins

December, ’62.

Charley, you may have heard, has gone into the service as lieutenant in the 164th, but he was detached at once for staff duty and is aide to General Burnside and a member of good old General Seth Williams’ mess—just where we would most like to have him. We have heard from him up to Saturday morning, the day of the battle, and are not yet very anxious about him. . . . Georgy and Jane are hard at work at Portsmouth Grove, terrors to evil-doers as well as good friends to those who need it. They and the other ladies have effected many reforms and won the respect and confidence of all concerned except the mutinous convalescents and the lying stewards, whom they pursue like avenging fates.

We were very glad to hear of your work after those dreadful days of the “Second Bull Run.” . . . I write principally to ask what I can do to help you take care of the wounded. . . . You know I want to do all I can now that I am unable to be there myself. You must call upon me freely.

On November 8th McClellan had been relieved of command and Burnside had superseded him. On December 13 was fought the first battle of Fredericksburg, with the rebel Lee victorious. Few or no letters mark these anxious months.

And so the second year of the war came to an end without any sound of public cheer or private rejoicing. There is no mention in the letters of Christmas fun, even for the children, while our poor defeated Army of the Potomac was huddled into Fredericksburg with the loss of 13,000 men. As a family we were again scattered, some of us in hospital work and Charley in the field. One window, though, was opened Heavenwards, since for three million slaves, across the blackness of a civil war

.;;;

“God made himself an awful rose of dawn.”

Abby Howland Woolsey to her sister, Goergeanna.

New York, October 6th.

Jane wishes me to tell you that she leaves here by the same route that you took for Portsmouth Grove, on Wednesday, 8 A. M. She has sent word to Sarah to meet her on the train at New Haven. . . .

Charley proposes that you shall call your house the (H)’Omestead, in compliment to F. L. Olmsted.

Sarah Chauncey Woolsey to her cousin, Georgeanna at Portsmouth Grove.

New Haven, October, ’62.

And now for Miss Wormeley’s delightful letter; my dear, it sounds too good to come true, all of it, and yet I can’t help thinking that Providence smiles on the scheme and will bring about papa’s consent. . . . We shall have it working beautifully in a short time, I see—and oh, G., what a happy winter we shall have! . . . Abby remarks in her last to Mary—”Sarah’s going and Jane’s (! !) I regard in the light of an agreeable fiction, but it will do for them to play at for a little while.” . . .

I shall be ready any day after Monday.