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.
