Sarah Chauncey Woolsey to Georgeanna Muirson Woolsey.
Linen Room, New Haven Hospital,
June 26th, ’62.
My dearest G.: A lull in business gives me a chance to write a few lines to you and tell you how glad I was last night to find your letter waiting for me when I got home from my day here. . . . What wonder that you have not written when I have never found time to write until after ten o’clock at night. . . . One of my pets here among the men is sure that you and Eliza are the ladies who were in a large tent on shore at White House, and brought him some bowls of bread and milk and swigs of strong drink of some kind. He was so interested to make sure of the point that I promised to bring up your picture for him to see and compare with his recollections. . . . The Surgeon-General has written to Dr. Jewett to say that he hears such favorable accounts of the state of affairs here that he is going to send 300 of his worst cases for us to care for. Inspector-General Hammond is coming on Saturday to see with his own eyes, and we are to be swept and garnished for his benefit. Mrs. Hunt (“H. H.”) helps me here often; mends clothes by the hour and comes for three days during the week to write letters for the men. . . . My fortnight’s experience here convinces me that I could soon acquire the art of keeping, not an ” Hotel,” but a small country variety store. There is the same run of customers, the taking of stock, the arranging of the goods, the sweeping-up and closing of the shutters at night. My stock comprises almost everything—shirts and collars, cravats and suspenders, coats and trousers, vests and shoes, handkerchiefs, sheets, pillows and pillow-cases, rags, bandages, soap, thread, needles, tape, buttons, combs, brushes, hats, fans, cotton wadding, water beds (2), stockings, oranges, lemons, bay rum, camphor, stationery, towels, dust-pans, brushes and mosquito netting, and this morning a woman bolted in, saying, “Is it in this room that the corpse is?—they tell me that it is in this end of the passage, and I thought I should like to see him!” I didn’t happen to have one, however, and she seemed quite aggrieved. . . . Jenny is somewhat better, and the baby lovely as can be. . . . She is a dear little puss, and one of the great obstacles to my entire devotion to my country.
