Part 7

“Why, our men tried to stop that clock; hundreds of guns were turned upon it during the siege, but somehow they did not happen to hit it.”

The old man’s face was radiant. The joy of his heart was shining through the black skin, as he swayed and clapped his hands. “Oh, honey, dar’s no happen about dat. De good Lor’ he jus’ put his han’ over it, and kep’ it goin’ an’ goin’ for us poor color folks to pray by.”

What perfect trust! It is easier to accept the theory of the old colored preacher than to explain why it was that the army, with a cordon of guns pointing toward that clock, did not reach the clock, or stop the regular swing of its pendulum, or the merry chimes of its bell.

Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster and myself met at the house of a mutual friend on the banks of the Hudson River one beautiful cloudless day, and I told her this story of the clock at Vicksburg, and she immediately wrote the following poem:--

THE CLOCK AT VICKSBURG.

MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

Month by month the shot and shell ’Round the ’leaguered city fell.

Through its fiery tropic air Throbbed the anguish of despair.

Stubbornly the fated gray Struggled through each pallid day.

Stubbornly the loyal blue Fought the weary conflict through.

High above the central square Towered the old clock, white and fair.

Steadily its iron tongue Over strife and silence rung.

Till the sullen foemen swore “They shall keep that clock no more.”

All day long with bated breath Life looked steadily at death.

Little ones forgot to play, Christians ne’er forgot to pray.

Fair through all the siege it stood, That old clock in sober mood,

As though now and then ’twould frown On the sadness of the town.

Whistling balls around it flew, Black against the sky’s deep blue.

All untouched, it told the time With a regnant cheery chime,

Till the hour when victory Broke the spell--the place set free.

* * * * *

In the city’s open square Swarthy faces sobbed in prayer,

“Bless the Lord! the work is done; Bless the Lord! our freedom’s won.

By that clock in yonder street, True as steel our sad hearts beat.

In our homes or by the way, When it struck, we paused to pray.

_At its noon-hour day by day Every bondsman stopped to pray._”

Was it strange that old clock stood Safe amid the storm of blood?

Why, of course it could not fall, Guarded by the Lord of all,

Who through choiring songs of heaven Hears the cry of earth’s forgiven.

And till now its honest face Is a witness of His grace.

SHARING POOR QUARTERS WITH DOROTHY L. DIX.

In the winter of 1864-1865, the Union forces were concentrated in front of Petersburg and Richmond. There was more or less skirmishing and fighting all the while between the two great armies facing each other for the last desperate struggle.

The hospitals were overcrowded at City Point and Point of Rocks. Every cot was occupied, every tent was crowded, and the thousands of troops coming down quartered wherever they could find a vacant place.

I had not been in the cabin of a steamer bound for City Point very long till Miss Dorothy L. Dix came in. After the usual greetings, she informed me that she, too, was going to City Point.

Miss Dix was the stateliest woman I ever saw, and she was very dignified in manner and conversation.

Although at that time she was about sixty years old, she was tall, straight as an arrow, and unusually slender. Her hair, which was abundant, was very dark brown, almost black, and was combed and coiled on the top of her head, except two locks in front, which were combed smoothly over each ear and carried in a loop up over the coil on top of her head. This peculiar manner of dressing her hair seemed to add to her height and dignity. Her dress was always exceedingly plain, but neat, and her linen collar and cuffs were always immaculate. She wore no jewels, not even a breastpin. She required the same degree of plainness on the part of her nurses.

It was not long after the boat left the dock at Washington till we had passed Alexandria and Mount Vernon, and were steaming on to Fortress Monroe at the mouth of the Potomac, with the ocean in full view.

There was always a long stop at this point, as it was not only a strong military station, well-fortified and strongly guarded by troops and gunboats, but it was a great hospital centre. Thousands of sick and wounded lay sorely stricken in these great barracks and tents by the sea.

It was about nine o’clock that evening when we reached City Point. We had discussed the question of lodging before we left the boat, and Miss Dix had said,--

“I have no concern. There are always plenty of cots, and I’ll find room in some of the nurses’ tents,” and she urged me to go with her.

But I was equally confident, and assured her that the Christian Commission would take care of me. Mr. Cole, of Boston, the chief agent, was standing beside a tent, in deep thought, when I approached. When he saw me he lifted up his hand in dismay.

“I have no place for you; every foot of space is occupied,” was his greeting.

“How about the little tent where I stayed the last time?”

“It is full of delegates lying on the ground on their blankets. I’ve given up my little corner to Dr. ----, and have no place to sleep myself.”

“How about the storeroom?”

His face brightened.

“I never thought of that; but it’s full of barrels and boxes, and is not in order.”

“No matter; there will be shelter and room, and there is a lock on the door, and I’ll get on all right.”

A candle and some matches were procured, and, accompanied by the agent and his assistant, I went into the storeroom near by. It was a great, rough, strong plank barracks; boxes and barrels were piled up nearly to the roof. There was a vacant space where they handled the supplies, near the door.

“There is not a cot on the premises; they have all been taken for the sick and wounded. What will you do?”

“I’ll sleep on the floor, of course,” I answered cheerfully.

But they turned some of the boxes around, and gathered up all the straw and shavings that were in sight, that had been used in packing, and put them together, and I placed my satchel for a pillow; and after I had assured them that it would be all right, they left, and I locked the door after them.

They had not been gone ten minutes till there was a knock at the door. I went very close to the door and called,--

“What is wanted?”

“Mrs. Wittenmyer, Miss Dix is here, and she has no place to stay. Can she come in?”

“Certainly; of course she can.”

And I opened the door, and that stately woman, with all her dignity upon her, which was really a part of herself, entered, glad to find even such a shelter as that. My candle lighted up the building sufficiently to show its unsightliness, and the dust and rubbish that were all about us. As Miss Dix was old enough to have been my mother, of course there was but one thing to do, and that was to give up my bed of shavings and straw to her, and with the stub of an old broom try to clear a place on another part of the floor for myself. She generously offered to divide her bed; but there was not enough to divide, so I spread my blanket-shawl down on the rough, uneven floor for my bed, and I took my satchel for a pillow.

I was weary and anxious, and for a few moments I felt the service was too hard to be endured much longer. But there came another train of thought, as I heard the booming of the cannon at no great distance.

“How glad the brave men on the picket-line, where to sleep is death, the men in the trenches, and working the guns, would be to have a good dry floor to sleep on, and the right and privilege to sleep,” I said to myself. Somehow my bed grew soft and my pillow downy, and all the clouds of care and spirit of self-pity cleared away before the magic power of patriotism and sympathy for the brave men who stood so gallantly for my country and its flag; and I never in all my life had a better bed, or a sweeter night’s sleep.

HARDSHIPS OF CAMP-LIFE AT VICKSBURG.

There was little level ground on which to camp about the lines. Excavations had to be made to get a level place to sleep. So all the bluffs around Vicksburg were catacombed to afford sleeping apartments. No wonder there was sickness--no wonder Death held high carnival on both sides of the lines. It was not only dangerous, but almost impossible, to reach the little hospitals under the shadow of the guns. Very many times driven at full speed I reached them, but it was at great peril. How the memory of those hospital scenes comes back to me now!

At one point I went down under the guns of the fort at one of the most exposed places, with a carriage-load of supplies for the little fort hospital under the bluff, just behind the heavy guns. I found when I reached there that the position was so dangerous that it would be madness, so the officers said, to try to get out of there till I could go under the cover of darkness. But the afternoon was well-spent in making lemonade and ministering to the men who had been stricken down with fever and hardships.

The ceaseless roar of artillery, and scream of shot and shell; the sharp whiz and whirr of small shot just over our heads; the June sun blazing down upon us with torrid heat, and no shelter for the sick but the white canvas tents, perched on the sides of the bluffs in places excavated for them, the bank cutting off the circulation of air,--were almost unbearable. How the poor fever-racked heads and fainting hearts ached amid the ceaseless din and the dust and heat of these little camp hospitals! One poor fellow, with parched lips and cheeks red with the fever that was burning through every vein, said, “I got a little sleep a while ago, and I dreamed that I was at the old spring; but just as I was taking a good cool drink I waked up.”

I partially met his cravings for a drink from the well at the old home by giving him generous draughts of lemonade, but when night came on I had to leave him. Poor boy, I never knew whether he got back to the old spring and home or not. There was no cool water there to allay his burning thirst. One of the hardships of that long summer campaign was the lack of good cool water. There were some springs, and a few wells were dug; but at points water had to be hauled long distances. Think of thousands of men to be supplied--of the thousands of horses and mules, the great burden-bearers of the army, that must have their thirst quenched.

Most of the water for the use in camp was hauled up from the Mississippi River or the Yazoo, through the hot sun in barrels, and stood in camp all day.

During that dreadful day I sat down in one of the tents for a little while; there was a patch of weeds growing near the tent-door. I noticed the weeds shaking as though partridges were running through them. I called attention to the matter, which made the surgeon smile, as he explained, “Why, those are bullets!”

“Bullets? Do bullets come so near as that?”

“Oh, yes,” he answered cheerfully; “they are flying around here quite thick.”

“Do you consider yourself safe while in this tent? It seems to me the bullets are coming very close.”

“It is considered very safe. The bullets fall a little short you see.”

All the while I sat there I watched the bullets coming over and clipping through the weeds.

Three days from that time an officer was killed while sitting in the same chair on the same spot where I had sat and watched the bullets shaking the weeds.

A PAINFUL ACCIDENT.

The smoke of the battle-field at Shiloh had cleared away; the dead had been buried; the wounded gathered up, and their ghastly wounds dressed--so that the people who came crowding to the battle-field saw little of the horror of war.

Among the multitudes who came down with supplies and words of sympathy and encouragement was Governor Harvey of Wisconsin, a grand, loyal man. He walked over the battle-field, the scene of the recent terrible conflict, and through the hospitals improvised for the accommodation of the thousands who had been wounded, and over the score and more of steamboats where many of the wounded were quartered.

He had given his promise of support to the men who stood between the North and the sword and torch of war. And now, with a hasty farewell to the crowd of distinguished patriots and officers who came down to wish him Godspeed on his return to the loyal State of Wisconsin, he stepped upon the single plank that bridged the little space between the shore and the boat. There were a few steps forward--a misstep--a sudden plunge, and the flowing tide ingulfed him out of sight. There was a moment of awful suspense--he did not rise. Men plunged into the water, reaching out their hands in every direction to find the lost one, but alas! he was not found till life was extinct.

The boat on which he was going to take passage was lying just above our sanitary boat, and a number of us saw him make the misstep and fall.

That was a sad day to us all--a sad day for the Army of the Tennessee--a sad day for the State of Wisconsin--a sad day for the wife, a grand, noble woman, who, crushed by the heavy blow, waited in almost speechless agony for the bringing home of her dead.

But in those heroic days women did not sit down in speechless grief to weep over their dead, but, crushing back their tears, consecrated themselves to the cause of humanity and their country.

Mrs. Governor Harvey was no exception to this rule. Still staggering under this stunning blow, she consecrated herself to service in the Sanitary Commission and to the hospital work, and in blessed and unwearying service for others solaced her own deep grief. Who shall know how much comfort and encouragement the presence of this fair, beautiful, refined lady brought into the hospitals where so many homesick and pain-weary boys lay on their beds, longing for the sight of a woman’s face, and tender touch of a woman’s hand?

Often amid the sickening scenes of the overcrowded hospitals, I met her on her weary round of holy service.

And at the close of the war she was active in the establishment of a home for the orphan children of soldiers in Wisconsin.

BURSTING OF A SHELL BEHIND MY CARRIAGE.

The line of battle was so closely drawn around Vicksburg that every camp, and hospital, and wagon-train with provisions and ammunition, was under fire.

Every worker of the Christian and Sanitary Commissions, who ventured out to labor with the sick and the dying, knew that the Confederate sharpshooters at many points were within easy range, and that the flying shot and shell, that at times almost darkened the sky, were liable to drop in the pathway of the worker, and blot him or her out of existence.

None but the more courageous remained on the field. Curiosity-hunters, and bombastic dress-parade workers, fled from the scene as from a battle-field; for in truth every inch of ground about Vicksburg was a battle-field.

The perplexities of the service, and the dangers attending every effort made to relieve the suffering, were so great, and the laborers in consequence so few, that every helper was overwhelmed and overworked.

One day, coming in from a weary round, a day’s work of unusual peril and hardship, we reached a point in the road sheltered from the enemy by a clump of trees.

Though at no great distance from the Confederate guns, it seemed more secure because we were out of sight of the frowning batteries.

Suddenly there was a crash in the timber, and we knew and heard no more. We were all so stunned that we did not know that a shell, crushing through the tops of the trees, had struck the ground in the middle of the roadway not forty feet behind our carriage.

If it had come a moment sooner, we would all have been scattered in fragments to the four winds.

As it was, the road was torn up so that it was impossible for teams to pass till it was repaired; the horses fell to the earth, the driver seemed dazed for a time, the carriage was covered with the dirt thrown out, for an ox might have been buried in the pit that that one shell dug out. Though it was the main thoroughfare, along which much of the ammunition and provisions were hauled, fortunately no teams were nearer than our own, and no one was killed or hurt.

If these lines should fall under the eyes of George, the driver, a soldier detailed for that service, he will excuse me for saying that he was about the worst frightened person I ever saw. That evening he said,--

“I wish you would release me, and ask for some one else. I’d rather be with my regiment behind the fortifications than driving around this way all the time.”

“You’ll feel better about it in the morning, George--you will get over the shock. And then, too, remember that those who are behind the fortifications may be ordered at any time to make a charge, which would be more dangerous than the work you are now doing. But think about it; and if in the morning you would rather go back to your regiment, I will have the change made.”

The next morning George was all right, and he continued to drive for me until after Vicksburg was taken.

MEETING A REBEL WOMAN AT NASHVILLE.

There was great rejoicing over the fall of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The gunboats and transport vessels were pressing on to Nashville, which was occupied by the Union army soon after the fall of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. I went up on the first transport.

The women were mostly left behind in the scramble to get out of the city, and they were more intense in war spirit and partisan feeling than the men. In the heat of the excitement the chief hotel was thronged with both parties, where I took lodgings. The women sung ditties about Beauregard and Davis before the door of my bedroom till midnight, at intervals.

The great parlor of the hotel was a scene of the utmost confusion, judging from the tumult of angry voices.

The women blamed the men about them. “Every man who is able to bear arms ought to be ashamed to be seen outside of a war-camp in days like these,” was the sharp rejoinder of a woman to her husband. I did not hear his answer, but suppose from her reply that he said he would only be throwing away his life.

“Throwing away your life, indeed! A man that is not true to our cause at such a time _ought not to live_.”

Some one was sitting at the piano, and banged the keys of the instrument in wildest fury to drown the sound of the contentions.

The next morning, in the dining-room, every Southern man and woman gave us all a wide berth, not deigning to sit at the same end of the dining-room.

After breakfast I went for a few minutes into the parlor. The lady whose voice I heard in falsetto the night before followed me, accompanied by her colored nurse-girl carrying her baby, perhaps six months old.

I had no purpose of controversy in my heart; and so when the lady said, “My baby is named after the best man in the world--Beauregard,” I only smiled.

“I suppose you Yankees think you can conquer us?”

“That is what the people of the North hope to do.”

“Well, you can’t. There is not men enough in the North to conquer us; for when you kill the men off, the women will take up arms.”

“Well, madam, there are thousands of men gathering and drilling in the North, and they will soon be here; and it’s their firm purpose to maintain the Union, cost what it will.”

“They’ll kill the women, will they?”

“They will _conquer the South_.”

“Contemptible hirelings! they’ll kill the women, will they?” she hissed.

“I don’t think they want to kill the women; but if that is necessary for the maintenance of the Union, I suppose they will have to do it.”

“Wretches! wretches! They’ll kill the women, will they?” she screamed, and her eyes blazed fire and scintillated like the eyes of a maniac. I thought she was going to leap upon me in her fury. We were standing facing each other; and I made up my mind that if she did assault me that I would do my little share of fighting, and choke a little of the treason out of her. But she changed her mind, and rushed from the room, slamming the door after her with such force as to shake the house to its foundations. A year after that she was playing the _rôle_ of a Union woman, and was quite popular as a loyal Southerner among the officers.

No one in these calm days can imagine the fiery, cruel spirit of war. I was not afraid; the Stars and Stripes were over us, and the Union army within call.

But what seems laughable to me now, was exceedingly exasperating and insulting at that time. There is no question about the matter--the Southern women, in their blind, partisan fury, prolonged the contest to the last extreme of desperation. They could not believe defeat possible.

No longer we hear the clash of arms, And the cannon’s fearful booming; No longer the torch of war alarms, Our cities and homes consuming: The smoke of battle has cleared away, And Peace her vigil is keeping, Though wet with tears are the flowers we lay, Where our gallant dead are sleeping.

VISITING HOSPITALS UNDER THE GUNS.

I came down the river with a heavy lot of supplies at the beginning of the siege. I sent an order to the quartermaster for an ambulance. Instead of sending the ambulance, he sent me a fine silver-mounted, easy carriage captured at Jackson, which I afterwards found drew the fire of the enemy.

It was reported in Vicksburg that an old, experienced general, too crippled to ride on horseback, made his rounds in that carriage, and the Confederates made it a target every day.

One captain of sharpshooters told Dr. Maxwell of Davenport, Iowa, that his men had sent more than a hundred shots after that carriage, supposing some high official was the occupant. He was very much shocked to know that they had been shooting at a lady. In most cases the shot fell low, but the wheels were chipped till they were quite a curiosity.

I drove out in company with Mrs. General Stone to the nearest hospital one day. We had gone through the tents, and attended to the business that had brought us, and were standing beside the carriage, when a shell from Vicksburg burst near us, scattering fragments all around us. To me the shock was terrific. I could feel my flesh crawl in the most uncomfortable way, and every hair on my head seemed to stand upright.

“Are you so near the enemy’s guns?” I questioned.

“Oh, yes; all the hospitals are under fire. A shell burst in this hospital a few days ago, killing one man and wounding three others.”

“It’s horrible that sick men must be placed under fire. Why don’t the authorities remove the sick and wounded to a safe distance?” I spoke with some spirit.

“You forget,” said the surgeon, “that General Johnson’s army is near, and that we are forced to draw in our lines. We would rather take the risk of a random shell than to risk being between two contending armies during a battle.”

That was quite another view of the matter, and now I was brought face to face with the facts of the situation. If I visited the hospitals I must do it under fire. I had been under fire before, but only for an hour. To go out day after day under a rain of lead was quite a different thing.

I went back to the Sanitary boat at the Yazoo Landing in a very thoughtful mood. The muddy, sluggish stream was well named Yazoo, meaning the River of Death.

That night was spent in prayer. The next morning I arose with a courage born of faith. I seemed immortal; not a bullet had been moulded that could hit me.

I went out to my work without a fear. My carriage was struck time and again, and bullets whizzed past me, but never a feeling of fear crept into my heart. I was “under the shadow of His wings, and he covered me with His feathers.”