September 3.—I have just received a letter from Dr.Burt; he was in Chattanooga at the time it was bombarded. He says there was no warning given, and that the scene of the women and children running from the shells was distressing in the extreme, and when he left there, there were hundreds encamping in the woods, without shelter of any kind.
I have observed an article in the Mobile Advertiser and Register, of August 29th, from Virginia, signed A; I admire the spirit in which it is written, but am not a little astonished at what the writer says about the soldiers and people of the South-west; says he learns they are talking of submission.
I can tell him, from what I have seen, I have heard not a breath of such a thing. Chattanooga was called a Union place, but I saw nothing of it while there. To be sure, I did not mingle much with the people, but nearly all I knew, rich and poor, had their men folks in our army. I want no better sign of loyalty.
If he means the soldiers of this army, he has made a grand mistake. I have seen hundreds of them sick, ragged, hungry, and worn out with fatigue, and not one word of submission with it all; but the reverse: angry because they were not allowed to fight; and I am told that many of the Tennesseans who deserted have come back and resolved
“To prevail in the cause that is dearer thin life. Or, crushed in its ruins, to die!”
I am proud of what this correspondent says about “Old Virginia” and her invincible armies: that they are determined to fight till the last. I certainly would have been much surprised could he have said any thing else.
He is right when he says we had grown arrogant and self-confident, and were punished with defeat, as we have been before, and shall ever be, when we forget the Giver of all victory. We profess to be Christians: do not let us make a mockery of the name, but give him the glory and honor unto whom it is due.
In the same paper of the 30th, I see letters, the tone of which I am much pleased with, and I only hope the writers are acting up to the spirit of them, and leading others by their example to do the same.
One of the letters is from a lady in Mississippi, who signs herself “Sylvia;” the other signs herself an “Alabama Woman.” The first is a call to the women of Mississippi to abstain from festivities, and, above all things, to give no countenance to “stay-at-homes,” who wear gilt lace and buttons. She says that, upon the occasion of the last Grierson raid into that state, the “home chivalry,” instead of protecting the ladies, took to the woods.
I thought, when this war broke out, that the women in every state had too high an appreciation of the truly noble to need such an appeal. But alas! not all the recitals of the sufferings and more than human endurance of our brave martyrs have been able to deter us from the festal hall. The sound of the viol is heard as much, and even more, than it was before dread war held high carnival in every state of our beloved land. We forget that every step we take
“Gives back a coffin’s hollow moan,”
and every strain of music
“Wafts forth a dying soldier’s groan.”
As for paying respect to brass buttons, that is only the natural consequence of the first fault; for we all know that there could be no festivities among ladies by themselves; and as all our true patriots are in the field, why, none but the “gold-lace gentry” are left.
If every young girl, not only in Mississippi, but in every other state, were to treat the “home chivalry” with the scorn and contempt that this writer seems to have for them, I would be willing to stake almost any thing on the issue, that in one month there would not be one able-bodied man out of the field.
The Alabama woman’s letter is headed with the late earnest appeal of our President, calling on the women of the South to do their duty at all hazards. It treats pretty much of the same subject as the Mississippi lady’s, but also of a few other evils with which our land is cursed.
When she comes down on extortioners and speculators, I can echo her sentiments with all my heart; but when she says that none but native southerners must fill offices, I can tell her that if the native southerners, who, when the war was first inaugurated, used to wear their blue badges, and cry “secession and war to the knife,” had come forward as I know foreigners have done, we would not now be in need of the late earnest appeal for men, by our beloved President . And I not only think it bad taste, but unfeeling, in any of our people to draw distinctions at the present time, when we all know how nobly foreigners have poured out their blood in our defense.
The next whom this lady is roused against are the surgeons, nurses, and chaplains. From what I have seen of the first two, I think I have a right to be somewhat of a judge; and I do not think, taking them as a whole, that we have more patriotic and devoted men to the cause than our surgeons, though of course there are exceptions. And as for the nurses in the hospitals, how can I say enough in their praise (of course not all); patient, kind; as good nurses as it is in the power of men to be; for they were never designed to nurse. Not one where I have been is able for field service. This woman says they must all go to the front. When she talks thus, she does it as men say we women do, without reason.
What can we do with our sick and wounded men in the hospitals, if all the surgeons are sent to the front? And he must be a shrewd surgeon indeed who deceives the examining boards—the dread of all hospitals—that are constantly coming around and taking away our men after we have initiated them into the mysteries of nursing, etc.
Many a time have I felt indignant, when I have heard these brave men and patriots, who have lost health and been maimed in the service of their country, called by the ignominious name of “hospital rats.”
The chaplains I can say but little about, having seen so few. But I can say one thing, that I had thought our government very remiss in not providing them.
At one time the Newsom Hospital had accommodation for seven hundred patients, and the requisite number of attendants. Surely such an establishment ought to have had at least one chaplain, and work enough for him, without taking the “sword of Gideon,” as this lady said they should.
I have wished for one many a time, when our poor dying soldiers have desired to hear about the Great Physician. And had it not been for good, kind Mrs. W. praying with them, we should have been badly off indeed. This is the first hospital I have been in where there was one, and he has not spent much idle time.
The first part of the letter, taken as a whole, I like; and I should think if any thing would arouse to a sense of duty those whom it is meant for, it would. But the conclusion does not appear rational. It has rather too much of the Mokanna spirit . I am always afraid, when I hear such ultra views on a subject, that there must be a reaction, and the very reverse spirit exhibited at last. She calls on the men, women, and children to come forward like Roman Curtius, willing to offer heart, soul, and body upon the shrine of liberty, and to come, although we stumble over the dead bodies of those we love on earth, and vultures prey upon the blood-smeared faces in our path, and our streams offer only a crimson, surging flood to slake our thirst; she calls on us to rise, waving our battle-flag in triumph over these horrors, and the graves of the unknown dead, and says our enemy’s offer is only submission “Join me in this vow: Though I stand the last stricken child of the Confederacy, by the blood that cries out from our reeking sod, and the skeletons that fill each holy mound—the strong hand crossed in death—each darkened home and broken heart—each pang of hunger, throb of pain, and every dying sigh—in the name of the eternal God—never!”
Now, I do not think, even to save the country, that there are in it any men, women, or children who could stand to see vultures eating our slain, or touch the water colored with their blood. And if we only do our duty, as the president has admonished us, there will be no need of waving flags over the horrors that the writer has pictured.
And as for the oath, I must say I have a mortal antipathy to taking an oath I am not certain about keeping; and none of us in this transitory world can tell what a day may bring forth.
The foe with his numerous armies may prevail, and for those very sins the writer has enumerated the Lord may permit us to be subjugated. I am not for one moment saying that I have the least idea that such will be the case, but we can be certain of nothing that is in the future. Well, if such should be the case, and we feel that we have done our duty, and our whole duty, hard as it seems just now, we will have to bear it, knowing it will be the Lord’s doing.
But, as I said before, I only hope these ladies are doing as well as talking, remembering that “action is sublime,” and that “the rhythm of a well-spent life is sweeter far than song.”
There is one very important item which I have left out in this “Alabama woman’s” letter. She says, let the women go into the hospitals. Now she comes to what is woman’s true sphere: in war, the men to fight, and the women to nurse the wounded and sick, are words I have already quoted. I have no patience with women whom I hear telling what wonders they would do if they were only men, when I see so much of their own legitimate work left undone. Ladies can be of service in the hospitals, and of great service. I have heard more than one surgeon say, if he could get the right kind, he would have them in almost every department. I could name many things they could do, without ever once going into a ward.
All have not the gift of nursing, but they can do the housekeeping, and there is much of that in a hospital.
I know many will say the surgeons will not have them, nor can I blame the surgeons if the stories are true which I have heard about the ladies interfering with them. I have been nearly two years in the hospital service, and I have never spent one day without seeing women’s work left undone, and I have had no time to do the surgeons’.
The sick in a hospital are as much under the care of the surgeon and assistant surgeons as men in the field are under the control of their officers. And would we not think a woman out of her senses were she to say that because she had made the clothes the soldiers wore, and attended to their wants otherwise, she had a right to command them; or that she would do nothing for them because that right was not given her, even if she had a better knowledge of Hardee’s tactics than some of our officers. The surgeons are alone responsible for the sick under their control, and have the right to direct what should be done for them.
Are the women of the South going into the hospitals? I am afraid candor will compel me to say they are not! It is not respectable, and requires too constant attention, and a hospital has none of the comforts of home! About the first excuse I have already said much; but will here add, from my experience since last writing on that subject, that a lady’s respectability must be at a low ebb when it can be endangered by going into a hospital.
I have attended to the soldiers of our army in hospitals and out of them, and in all sincerity I can say that, so far as their bearing toward ladies is concerned, I have never heard one word spoken or seen one act at which the most fastidious and refined woman could take exception.
This was more than I looked for; I knew that our army was composed of the lowest as well as the highest, and I did expect to find some among them void of delicacy.
I can not tell whether our army is an exception to the rule or not; but about it I can say that, as regards real native refinement, that which all the Chesterfields in the world can not give, a more perfect army of gentlemen could not be than they are. I do not know what they are in camp, but speak of what I have seen in other places.
To the next two excuses—that is, to constant work, and hospitals not being like home—I wonder if soldier’s work is just such as they wish, and if the camp is any thing like home?—I think there is no need of giving the answers; they are obvious.
Last evening Mrs. General Patton Anderson came here; she has a little boy who is very sick, and she thinks the water will benefit him. She is stopping in the same house with us.
I have just heard that the Newsom Hospital has left Cleveland, Tennessee. The enemy must be near there, or we are going to fall back. I usually judge the movements of the army by those of the hospitals.
How I would dislike to have to leave this beautiful place; but perhaps we shall, and about it there is no use worrying.
Mrs. Dr. Gamble and Mrs. Bragg have left, which looks ominous, as we think the general intends making an important move, and has given them time to get out of the way.
