Eliza Woolsey Howland to her husband, Joe.
Floating Hospital, Spaulding,
Off White House, May 22.
We are to go on shore presently to see what we can do for the large field hospital there. Two of our doctors, Ware and Draper of New York, spent the day yesterday trying to organize it and make the men tolerably comfortable. They furnished from the Commission nearly a thousand mattresses, secured them fresh water in hogsheads (which they were entirely without) and saw that all who needed medicine got it. System and food seem to be the great wants, and to-day we ladies will attend to the latter, take them supplies and show the hospital cooks how to prepare them. There are 1,200 or more sick men there, and until the Commission took hold they were in a most wretched plight, lying on the damp ground without beds, without food or water, and with little or no care. … I hope you take all necessary precautions in this wretched climate. Don’t give up your quinine. . . .
Later. — Directly after I wrote you this morning Georgy and I went to the shore to breakfast the men we had dinnered and teaed yesterday, and there we had a little house nearby, which Dr. Ware had found, nicely cleaned out for a hospital or resting-place for the sick when the other overflows. The floor of one of the rooms up stairs is six inches deep in beans. That makes a good bed for them. . . . Meantime Mrs. Griffin and the others got this boat in order for sick, and this afternoon fifty odd have been brought on board. To-morrow it will fill up and leave for New York.
