U. S. Floating Hospital “Daniel Webster,” Off Ship Point, May 10.
Dear Friend,—I write with a pencil, because it is so comfortable. We left New York yesterday at 5 P. M., and came down the bay through wonderful effects of evening light and shade and color. We stayed on deck by moonlight till eleven o’clock, when I turned in, to sleep all night, and get up lazily to breakfast at nine this morning. Since then I have helped to make our hospital-flag, and have dreamed away the day, lying on deck in the sweet air, where I could see the bluest sky and the bluest water (when the vessel dipped), and nothing else. Four ladies are attached to the ship,— Mrs. William Preston Griffin, Mrs. Trotter,[1] Mrs. Blatchford, and I. As far as I can judge, our duty is to be very much that of a housekeeper. We attend to the beds, the linen, the clothing of the patients; we have a pantry and store-room, and are required to do all the cooking for the sick, and see that it is properly distributed according to the surgeons’ orders; we are also to have a general superintendence over the condition of the wards and over the nurses, who are all men. What else, time and experience will show, I suppose.
I am inclined to like the surgeon-in-charge, Dr. Grymes, very much. He commands here; the captain, named Bletham, — a truly honest, kindly, sailor-like man, — being, under present circumstances, only second. Dr. Grymes is suffering from consumption, and to-day he is hanging about, languid and nerveless; they tell me that to-morrow he will be taut, tireless, hawk-eyed, and the spirit of an emergency. There are eight medical students on board (” dressers” they are called), and perhaps twenty other young men, ward-masters and nurses, — all volunteers. The Government furnishes the vessel, and the rations of all on board. My stateroom, which I share with Mrs. Griffin, is on deck; it opens directly to the outer air, and has a large window and ventilator.
Since writing the above, I have done my first work, — making the beds. How you would have laughed to see me, without a hoop, mounted on the ledge of the second tier of berths, making the beds on the third tier!
[1] Now Mrs. Charles Henry Parker, of Boston.
