Half a Century Part 31

LIFE AND DEATH.

When released from the hospital, I had neither money nor clothes, and this is all the account I can render to the generous people who sent me hospital stores. I could not answer their letters. Some of them I never read. I could only give up my life to distributing their bounty, and knew that neither their money nor my own had remained in my hands when it was necessary for me to borrow two dollars to get a dress. My cloth traveling suit was no longer fit for use, and my platform suit too good.

These were all I had brought to Washington; but the best men never refused me audience because I wore a shaker bonnet, a black lawn skirt and gray linen sack. Some thought I dressed in that way to be odd, but it was all I could afford.

The Quarter-Master-General had canceled my appointment, because I had not reported for duty, but Secretary Stanton reinstated me, and I went to work on the largest salary I had ever received--fifty dollars a month. After some time it was raised to sixty, and I was more than independent; but my health was so broken that half a dozen doctors commanded me to lie on my back for a month, and I spent every moment I could in that position.

I had grown hysterical, and twice while at work in the office, broke out into pa.s.sionate weeping, while thinking of something in my hospital experience, something I had borne, when it occurred, without a tear, or even without feeling a desire to weep.

In September I had twenty days' leave of absence to go to St. Cloud, settle my business and bring my household G.o.ds. There were still no railroads in Minnesota, and I was six days going, must have six to return, and one to visit friends at Pittsburg, yet in the time left, sold _The Democrat_, closed my home, and met Gen. Lowrie for the first and last time.

He called and we spent an hour talking, princ.i.p.ally of the war, which he thought would result in two separate governments. His reason seemed to be entirely restored; but his prestige, power, wealth and health were gone. I tried to avoid all personal matters, as well as reference to our quarrel, but he broke into the conversation to say:

"I am the only person who ever understood you. People now think you go into hospitals from a sense of duty; from benevolence, like those good people who expect to get to heaven by doing disagreeable things on earth; but I know you go because you must; go for your own pleasure; you do not care for heaven or anything else, but yourself." He stopped, looked down, traced the pattern of the carpet with the point of his cane, then raised his head and continued: "You take care of the sick and wounded, go into all those dreadful places just as I used to drink brandy--for sake of the exhilaration it brings you."

We shook hands on parting, and from our inmost hearts, I am sure, wished each other well. I was more than ever impressed by the genuine greatness of the man, who had been degraded by the use of irresponsible power.

We reached Washington in good time, and I soon realized the great advantage of rest. Six hours of office work came so near nothing to do, that had I been in usual health I should probably have raised some disturbance from sheer idleness; but I learned by and by that the close attention demanded to avoid mistakes, could not well have been continued longer.

Several ladies continued distributing hospital stores for me all that fall and winter, and next spring I still had some to send out. When able I went myself, and in Carver found a man who had been wounded in a cavalry charge, said to have been as desperate as that of "the Light Brigade;" and who refused to take anything from me, because he had "seen enough of these people who go around hospitals pretending to take care of wounded soldiers."

I convinced him it was his duty to take the jelly in order to prevent my stealing it. Also, that it was for my interest to save his life, that I might not have to pay my share of the cost of burying him and getting a man in his place. Nay, that it was my duty to get him back into the saddle as fast as possible, that my government need not pay him for lying abed. He liked this view of the case, and not only took what I offered him, but next time I went asked for Jefferson-tie shoes to support his foot, and when I brought them said he would be ready for duty in a week.

In Judiciary Square, a surgeon asked me to give a jar of currant jelly to a man in Ward Six, who was fatally wounded.

I found the man, those in the neighboring cots and the nurse, all very sad, talked to him a few moments, and said:

"You think you are going to die!"

"That is what they all say I must do!"

"Well, I say you are not going to do anything of the kind!"

"Oh! I guess I am!"

"Not unless you have made up your mind to it, and are quite determined.

Those hip wounds kill a great many men, because folks do not know how to manage them, and because the men are easy to kill; but it takes a good deal to kill a young man with a good conscience, who has never drank liquor or used tobacco; who has muscle like yours, a red beard and blue gray eyes."

I summoned both his day and night nurse, told all three together of the surgical trap-door that old Mother Nature wanted made and kept open, clear up to the center of that wound. The surgeon would always make one if the patient wanted it. I told them about the warmth and nourishment and care needed, and left him and them full of hope and resolution.

Next time I was in Judiciary, a young man on crutches accosted me, saying:

"Were not you in Ward Six, about six weeks ago?"

"Yes!"

"Do you remember a man there, that every one said was going to die, and you said he wouldn't?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm the fellow."

I looked at him inquiringly, and said:

"Well, did you die?"

He burst into uproarious laughter, and replied:

"No, but I'm blamed if I wouldn't, if you hadn't come along."

I pa.s.sed on, left him leaning against the wall finishing his laugh, and saw or heard of him no more.

It was but a few days after he pa.s.sed out of my knowledge that news came of the death of Gen. Lowrie. It was the old story, "the great man down,"

for he died in poverty and neglect, but with his better self in the ascendent. His body lies in an unmarked grave, in that land where once his word was law.

Pondering on his death, I thought of that country boy going to his father's house, with the life restored by one he knew not, even by name, and the going home of that mature man, who thought he knew my inmost soul, and with whose political death I was charged. Only the wisdom of eternity can determine which, if either, I served or injured. To the one, life may lack blessing, to the other, death be all gain.

CHAPTER LXVI.

MEET MISS DIX AND GO TO FREDERICKSBURG.

I sat down stairs, for the first time after a two weeks' illness, when Georgie Willets, of Jersey City, came in, saying:

"Here is a pa.s.s for you and one for me, to go to Fredericksburg! A boat leaves in two hours, and we must hurry!"

For several days the air had shuddered with accounts of the terrible suffering of our men, wounded in the battle of the Wilderness; and a pall of uncertainty and gloom hung over the city.

I made a tuck in a queen's-cloth dress, donned it, selected a light satchel, put into one side a bottle of whiskey and one of sherry, half a pound of green tea, two rolls of bandage and as much old table-linen as packed them close; put some clothing for myself in the other side, and a cake of black castile soap, for cleansing wounds; took a pair of good scissors, with one sharp point, and a small rubber syringe, as surgical instruments; put these in my pocket, with strings attaching them to my belt; got on my Shaker bonnet, and with a large blanket shawl and tin cup, was on board with Georgie, an hour before the boat left.

It had brought a load of wounded from Belle Plain; some were still on board, and suffering intensely from thirst, and hard, dry dressings. It was a hot day, and we both went to work giving drinks of water, wetting wounds, and bathing hot heads and hands. As Georgie pa.s.sed the foot of the cabin stairs, Miss Dix was coming down, and called to her, saying:

"What are you doing here?"

She made no reply, but pa.s.sed on to her work, when the irate lady turned to where I was drawing water from a cooler, and asked, in a tone of high displeasure:

"Who is that young girl?"

"Miss Georgie Willets, of Jersey City," I replied.

"And where is she going?"

"To Fredericksburg."

"By whose authority?" she demanded.

"By authority of the Surgeon-General," I replied.