Part 2

After breakfast the assistant surgeons visited their respective wards, making out their diet lists, or rather filling them up, for the forms were printed, and only the invalid’s name, number of his bed, and his diet—light, half, or full, were required to be specified, also the quantity of whiskey desired for each. Dinner and supper served in the same way, except for the very sick. They had what they desired, in or out of season, and all seemed to object to the nutriment concocted from those tasteless and starchy compounds of wheat, corn and arrowroot, that are so thick and heavy to swallow, and so little nutritious. They were served hot from the fire, or congealed from the ice (for after the suffering caused from the deprivation of ice the first summer of the war was felt, each hospital built its own ice-house, which was well filled by the next season). At two o’clock the regular dinner of poultry, beef, ham, fish and vegetables, was distributed. (After the first year our bill of fare decreased much in variety.) Supper at six. The chief matron sat at her table, the diet lists arranged before her, each day, and managed so that no especial ward should invariably be the first served, although they were named in alphabetical order. Any necessary instructions of the surgeons were noted and attended to, sometimes accompanied with observations of her own, not always complimentary to those gentlemen, nor prudent as regarded herself.

_Mr. Jones’ Views._

The orders ran somewhat in this fashion: “Chicken soup for twenty—beef tea for forty—tea and toast for fifty.” A certain Mr. Jones had expressed his abhorrence of tea and toast, so I asked the nurse why he gave it to him.

He answered that the diet was ordered by the surgeon, but Jones said he would not touch it, for he never ate slops, and so he had eaten nothing for two days.

“Well, what does he wish?”

“The doctor says tea and toast” (reiterating his first remark).

“Did you tell the doctor he would not eat it?”

“_I_ told the doctor, and _he_ told the doctor.”

“Perhaps he did not hear, or understand you.”

“Yes, he did. He only said that he wanted that man particularly to have tea and toast, though I told him Jones threw it up regularly; so he put it down again, and said Jones was out of his head, and Jones says the doctor is a fool.”

My remark upon this was that Jones could not be so very much out of his head—an observation that entailed subsequent consequences. The habit so common among physicians when dealing with uneducated people, of insisting upon particular kinds of diet, irrespective of the patient’s tastes, was a peculiar grievance that no complaint during four years ever remedied.

“_Sufficient for the Day,” &c._

Although visiting my wards in the morning for the purpose of speaking words of comfort to the sick, and remedying any apparent evils which had been overlooked or forgotten by the surgeons when going their rounds, the fear that the nourishment furnished had not suited the tastes of men debilitated to an extreme not only by disease and wounds, but also by the privations and exposures of camp life, would again take me among them in the afternoon. Then would come heart-sickness and discouragement, for out of a hundred invalids, seventy, on an average, would assert that they had not taken any nourishment whatever. This was partly owing to habit or imitation of others, and partly to the human desire to enlist sympathy. The common soldier has a horror of a hospital, and with the rejection of food comes the hope that weakness will increase proportionally, and a furlough become necessary.

Besides, the human palate, to relish good food, must be as well educated as other organs for other purposes. Who appreciates a good painting until his eye is trained, or fine harmony until the ear is cultivated?—and why should not the same rule apply to tongue and taste? Men who never before had been sick, or swallowed those starchy, flavorless compounds young surgeons are so fond of prescribing, repudiated them invariably, in spite of my skill in making them palatable. They were suspicious of the _terra incognita_ from which they sprang, having had no experience heretofore, and suspicion always engenders disgust.

_Introduction of Hero._

Daily inspection too, convinced me that great evils still existed under my rule, in spite of my zealous care for my patients. For example, the monthly barrel of whiskey which I was entitled to draw still remained at the dispensary under the guardianship of the apothecary and his clerks, and quarts and pints were issued through any order coming from surgeons or their substitutes, so that the contents were apt to be gone long before I was entitled to draw more, and my sick would suffer for want of the stimulant. There were many suspicious circumstances connected with this _institution_; for the monthly barrel was an institution and a very important one. Indeed, if it is necessary to have a hero for this matter-of-fact narrative the whiskey barrel will have to step forward and make his bow.

_Introduction of Hero—The Whiskey Barrel._

So again I referred to the hospital bill passed by Congress, which provided that liquors in common with other luxuries, belonged to the matron’s department, and in an evil moment, such an impulse as tempted Pandora to open the fatal casket assailed me, and I despatched the bill, flanked by a formal requisition for the liquor. An answer came in the shape of the head surgeon. He declared I would find “the charge most onerous,” that “whiskey was required at all hours, sometimes in the middle of the night, and even if I remained at the hospital, he would not like me to be disturbed,” “it was constantly needed for medicinal purposes,” “he was responsible for its proper application;” but I was not convinced, and withstood all argument and persuasion. He was proverbially sober himself, but I was aware why both commissioned and non-commissioned officers opposed violently the removal of the liquor to my quarters. So, the printed law being at hand for reference, I nailed my colors to the mast, and that evening all the liquor was in my pantry and the key in my pocket.

_The Hero Captured._

The first restraints of a woman’s presence had now worn away, and the thousand miseries of my position began to make themselves felt. The young surgeons (not all gentlemen, although their profession should have made them aspirants to the character), and the nurses played into each other’s hands. If the former were off on a frolic, the latter would conceal the absence of necessary attendance by erasing the date of the diet list of the day before, and substituting the proper one, duplicating the prescription also, and thus preventing inquiry. In like manner the assistant surgeons, to whom the nurses were alone responsible, would give them leave of absence, concealing the fact from the head surgeon, which could easily be effected; then the patients would suffer, and complaints from the matron be obnoxious and troublesome, and also entirely out of her line of business. She was to be cook and housekeeper, and nothing more. Added now to other difficulties was the dragonship of the Hesperides,—the guarding of the liquefied golden fruit to which access had been open to a certain extent before her reign,—and for many, many months the petty persecutions endured from all the small fry around almost exceeded human patience to bear. What the surgeon in charge could do to mitigate the annoyances entailed he conscientiously did; but with the weight of a large hospital on his not very strong mind, and very little authority delegated to him, he could hardly reform abuses or punish silly attacks, so small in the abstract, so great in the aggregate.

_Jones’ Indignation._

The eventful evening when Mr. Jones revolted against tea and toast, my unfortunate remark intended for no particular ear but caught by the nurse, that the patient’s intellects could not be confused if he called his surgeon a fool, brought forth a recriminating note to me. It was from that maligned and incensed gentleman, and proved the progenitor of a long series of communications of the same character; a family likeness pervading them all. They generally commenced with “Dr. —— presents his compliments to the chief matron,” continuing with “Mrs. —— and I,” and ending with “you and him.” They were difficult to understand, and more difficult to endure. Accustomed to be treated with extreme deference and courtesy by the highest officials connected with the government, moving in the same social grade I had always occupied when beyond hospital bounds, the change was appalling.

_Wanted.—A Dose of Grammar._

The inundation of notes that followed for many months could not have been sent back unopened, the last refuge under the circumstances, for some of them might have related to the well-being of the sick. My pen certainly was ready enough, but could I waste my thunderbolts in such an atmosphere?

The depreciated currency, which purchased only at fabulous prices by this time; the poor pay the government (feeling the necessary of keeping up the credit of its paper) gave to its officials; the natural craving for luxuries that had been but common food before the war, caused appeals to be made to me, sometimes for the applicant, oftener for his sick wife or child, so constantly, that had I given even one-tenth of the gifts demanded there would have been but little left for my patients.

_Daily Trials._

It was hard to refuse, for the plea that it was not mine but merely a charge confided to me, was looked upon as a pretext; outsiders calculating upon the quantity issued to my department and losing sight of the ownership of the quantity received.

Half a dozen convalescent men would lose their tasteless dinner daily at the steward’s table, and beg for “anything,” which would mean turkey and oysters. Others “had been up all night and craved a cup of coffee and a roll,” and as for diseases among commissioned and non-commissioned men, caused by entire destitution of whiskey, and only to be cured by it—their name was legion. Every pound of coffee, every ounce of whiskey, bushel of flour or vegetables duly weighed before delivery, was intended for its particular consumers; who, if they even could not eat or drink what was issued for them watched their property zealously, and claimed it too. So what had I to give away?

_The Ishmaelite._

The necessity of refusing the live-long day, forced upon naturally generous tempers, makes them captious and uncivil, and under the pressure the soft answer cannot be evoked to turn away wrath. Demands would increase until they amounted to persecutions when the refusals became the rule instead of the exception, and the breach thus made grew wider day by day, until “my hand was against every man, and every man’s hand against me.”

Besides, there was little gratitude felt in a hospital, and certainly none expressed. The mass of patients were uneducated men, who had lived by the sweat of their brow, and gratitude is an exotic plant, reared in a refined atmosphere, kept free from coarse contact and nourished by unselfishness. Common natures look only with surprise at great sacrifices and cunningly avail themselves of the benefits they bestow, but give nothing in return,—not even the satisfaction of allowing the giver to feel that the care bestowed has been beneficial; _that_ might entail compensation of some kind, and in their ignorance they fear the nature of the equivalent which might be demanded.

_Mrs. Marthy Brown’s Son._

Still, pleasant episodes often occurred to vary disappointments and lighten duties.

“Kin you writ me a letter?” drawled a whining voice from a bed in one of the wards, a cold day in ’62.

The speaker was an up-country Georgian, one of the kind called “Goubers” by the soldiers generally; lean, yellow, attennuated, with wispy strands of hair hanging over his high, thin cheek-bones. He put out a hand to detain me and the nails were like claws.

“Why do you not let the nurse cut your nails?”

“Because I aren’t got any spoon, and I use them instead.”

“Will you let me have your hair cut then? You can’t get well with all that dirty hair hanging about your eyes and ears.”

“No, I can’t git my hair cut, kase as how I promised my mammy that I would let it grow till the war be over. Oh, it’s onlucky to cut it!”

“Then I can’t write any letter for you. Do what I wish you to do, and then I will oblige you.”

This was plain talking. The hair was cut (I left the nails for another day), my portfolio brought, and sitting by the side of his bed I waited for further orders. They came with a formal introduction,—“for Mrs. Marthy Brown.”

_A Circular Letter._

“My dear Mammy:

“I hope this finds you well, as it leaves me well, and I hope that I shall git a furlough Christmas, and come and see you, and I hope that you will keep well, and all the folks be well by that time, as I hopes to be well myself. This leaves me in good health, as I hope it finds you and——”

But here I paused, as his mind seemed to be going round in a circle, and asked him a few questions about his home, his position during the last summer’s campaign, how he got sick, and where his brigade was at that time. Thus furnished with some material to work upon, the latter proceeded rapidly. Four sides were conscientiously filled, for no soldier would think a letter worth sending home that showed any blank paper. Transcribing his name, the number of his ward and proper address, so that an answer might reach him—the composition was read to him. Gradually his pale face brightened, a sitting posture was assumed with difficulty (for, in spite of his determined effort in his letter “to be well,” he was far from convalescence). As I folded and directed it, contributed the expected five-cent stamp, and handed it to him, he gazed cautiously around to be sure there were no listeners.

_My First Proposal._

“Did you writ all that?” he asked, whispering, but with great emphasis.

“Yes.”

“Did _I_ say all that?”

“I think you did.”

A long pause of undoubted admiration—astonishment ensued. What was working in that poor mind? Could it be that Psyche had stirred one of the delicate plumes of her wing and touched that dormant soul?

“Are you married?” The harsh voice dropped very low.

“I am not. At least, I am a widow.”

He rose still higher in bed. He pushed away desperately the tangled hay on his brow. A faint color fluttered over the hollow cheek, and stretching out a long piece of bone with a talon attached, he gently touched my arm and with constrained voice whispered mysteriously:

“You wait!”

And readers, I _am_ waiting still; and I here caution the male portion of creation who may adore through their mental powers, to respect my confidence, and not seek to shake my constancy.

_Compliments._

Other compliments were paid me, perhaps not of so conclusive a nature, and they were noticeable from their originality and novelty, but they were also rare. Expression was not a gift among the common soldiers. “You will wear them little feet away,” said a rough Kentuckian, “running around so much. They ar’n’t much to boast of anyway.” Was not this as complimentary as the lover who compared his mistress’s foot to a dream; and much more comprehensible?

_More flattering than agreeable._

At intervals the lower wards, unused except in times of great need, for they were unfurnished with any comforts, would be filled with rough soldiers from camp, sent to recuperate after field service, who may not have seen a female face for months; and though generally too much occupied to notice them much, their partly concealed, but determined regard would become embarrassing. One day, while directing arrangements with a ward-master, my attention was attracted by the pertinacious staring of a rough-looking Texan. He walked round and round me in rapidly narrowing circles, examining every detail of my dress, face, and figure; his eye never fixing upon any particular part for a moment but traveling incessantly all over me. It seemed the wonder of the mind at the sight of a new creation. I moved my position; he shifted his to suit the new arrangement—again a change was made, so obviously to get out of his range of vision, that with a delicacy of feeling that the roughest men always treated me with, he desisted from his inspection so far, that though his person made no movement, his neck twisted round to accommodate his eyes, till I supposed some progenitor of his family had been an owl. The men began to titter, and my patience became exhausted.

_Compliments again._

“What is the matter, my man? Did you never see a woman before?”

“Jerusalem!” he ejaculated, not making the slightest motion towards withdrawing his determined notice, “I never did see such a nice one. Why, you’s as pretty as a pair of red shoes with green strings.”

These were the two compliments laid upon the shrine of my vanity during four years’ contact with thousands of patients, and I commit them to paper to stand as a visionary portrait, to prove to my readers that a woman with attractions similar to a pair of red shoes with green strings must have some claim to the apple of Paris.

————

_Love unto Death._

Scenes of pathos occurred daily—scenes that wrung the heart and forced the dew of pity from the eyes; but feeling that enervated the mind and relaxed the body was a sentimental luxury that was not to be indulged in. There was too much work to be done, too much active exertion required, to allow the mental or physical powers to succumb. They were severely taxed each day. Perhaps they balanced, and so kept each other from sinking. There was, indeed, but little leisure to sentimentalize, the necessity for action being ever present.

After the battle of Fredericksburg, while giving small doses of brandy to a dying man, a low, pleasant voice, said “Madam.” It came from a youth not over eighteen years of age, seeming very ill, but so placid, with that earnest, far-away gaze, so common to the eyes of those who are looking their last on this world. Does God in his mercy give a glimpse of coming peace, past understanding, that we see reflected in the dying eyes into which we look with such strong yearning to fathom what they see? He shook his head in negative to all offers of food or drink or suggestions of softer pillows and lighter covering.

“I want Perry,” was his only wish.

On inquiry I found that Perry was the friend and companion who marched by his side in the field and slept next to him in camp, but of whose whereabouts I was ignorant. Armed with a requisition from our surgeon, I sought him among the sick and wounded at all the other hospitals. I found him at Camp Jackson, put him in my ambulance, and on arrival at my own hospital found my patient had dropped asleep. A bed was brought and placed at his side, and Perry, only slightly wounded, laid upon it. Just then the sick boy awoke wearily, turned over, and the half-unconscious eye fixed itself. He must have been dreaming of the meeting, for he still distrusted the reality. Illness had spiritualized the youthful face; the transparent forehead, the delicate brow so clearly defined, belonged more to heaven than earth. As he recognized his comrade the wan and expressionless lips curved into the happiest smile—the angel of death had brought the light of summer skies to that pale face. “Perry,” he cried, “Perry,” and not another word, but with one last effort he threw himself into his friend’s arms, the radiant eyes closed, but the smile still remained—he was dead.

_The Silver Cord loosened._

There was but little sensibility exhibited by soldiers for the fate of their comrades in field or hospital. The results of war are here to-day and gone to-morrow. I stood still, spell-bound by that youthful death-bed, when my painful revery was broken upon by a drawling voice from a neighboring bed, which had been calling me by such peculiar names or titles that I had been oblivious to whom they were addressed.

_A Sweet Pur-ta-a-tur-r._

“Look here. I say, Aunty!—Mammy!—You!” Then, in despair, “Missus! Mauma! Kin you gim me sich a thing as a b’iled sweet pur-r-rta-a-a-tu-ur? I b’long to the Twenty-secun’ Nor’ Ka-a-a-li-i-na rigiment.” I told the nurse to remove his bed from proximity to his dead neighbor, thinking that in the low state of his health from fever the sight might affect his nerves, but he treated the suggestion with contempt.

“Don’t make no sort of difference to _me_; they dies all around _me_ in the field—don’t trouble _me_.”

The wounded men at this time began to make serious complaints that the liquor issued did not reach them, and no vigilance on my part appeared to check the improper appropriation of it, or lead to any discovery of the thieves in the wards. There were many obstacles to be surmounted before proper precautions could be taken. Lumber was so expensive that closets in each ward were out of the question, and if made locks could not be purchased for any amount of money. The liquor, therefore, when it left my quarters, was open to any passer-by in the wards who would watch his opportunity; so, although I had strong and good reasons for excluding female nurses, the supposition that liquor would be no temptation to them, and would be more apt to reach its proper destination through their care, determined me to engage them.

Unlucky thought, born in an evil hour!

_Sober Ladies wanted._

There were no lack of applications when the want was circulated, but my choice hesitated between ladies of education and position, who I knew would be willing to aid me, and the common class of respectable servants. The latter suited best, because it was to be supposed they would be more amenable to authority. They were engaged, and the very sick wards divided among three of them. They were to keep the bed-clothing in order, receive and dispense the liquor, carry any delicacy in the way of food where it was most needed, and in fact do anything reasonable that was requested. The last stipulation was dwelt upon strongly. The next day my new corps were in attendance, and the different liquors, beverages and stimulants delivered to them under the black looks of the ward-masters. No. 1 received hers silently. She was a cross-looking woman from North Carolina, painfully ugly, or rather what is termed hard-featured, and apparently very taciturn; the last quality rather an advantage. She had hardly left my kitchen when she returned with all the drinks, and a very indignant face.

_Delicate Sensibilities._

In reply to inquiries made she proved her taciturnity was not chronic. She asserted loudly that she was a decent woman, and “was not going anywhere in a place where a man sat up on his bed in his shirt, and the rest laughed—she knew they were laughing at her.” The good old proverb that talking is silver but silence is gold had impressed itself on my mind long before this, so I silently took her charge from her, telling her that a hospital was no place for a person of her delicate sensibilities, and at the same time holding up Miss G. and myself (who were young enough to be her daughters), as examples for her imitation.

She answered truly that we acted as we pleased and so would she; and that was the last I saw of her. What her ideas of hospital life were I never inquired, and shall never know.

_More of them._