Nurse and Spy in the Union Army Part 22

"For two miles, without a gesture of impatience, he traveled in this tedious way, until he reached an ambulance train and placed the sick man in one of the ambulances.

"This was our n.o.ble Sedgwick--our brave general of the Sixth Corps--pressed with great anxieties and knowing the preciousness of every moment. His men used to say: 'We all know that great things are to be done, and well done, when we see that earnest figure in its rough blouse hurrying past, and never have we been disappointed in him. He works incessantly, is unostentatious, and when he appears among us all eyes follow him with outspoken blessings.'"

I have often been asked: "Have you ever been on a battle-field before the dead and wounded were removed?" "How did it appear?" "Please describe one."

I have been on many a battle-field, and have often tried to describe the horrible scenes which I there witnessed, but have never yet been able to find language to express half the horrors of such sights as I have seen on those terrible fields.

The Rev. Mr. Alvord has furnished us with a vivid description of a battle-field, which I will give for the benefit of those who wish a true and horrifying description of those b.l.o.o.d.y fields:

"To-day I have witnessed more horrible scenes than ever before since I have been in the army. Hundreds of wounded had lain since the battle, among rebels, intermingled with heaps of slain--hungering, thirsting, and with wounds inflaming and festering. Many had died simply from want of care. Their last battle was fought! Almost every shattered limb required amputation, so putrid had the wounds become.

"I was angry (I think without sin) at your volunteer surgeons. Those of the army were too few, and almost exhausted. But squads of volunteers, as is usual, had come on without instruments, and without sense enough to set themselves at work in any way, and without any idea of dressing small wounds. They wanted to see amputation, and so, while hundreds were crying for help, I found five of these gentlemen sitting at their ease, with legs crossed, waiting for their expected reception by the medical director, who was, of course, up to his elbows in work with saw and amputating knife. I invited them to a.s.sist me in my labors among the suffering, but they had 'not come to nurse'--they were 'surgeons.'

"The disgusting details of the field I need not describe. Over miles of shattered forest and torn earth the dead lie, sometimes in _heaps_ and _winrows_--I mean literally! friend and foe, black and white, with distorted features, among mangled and dead horses, trampled in mud, and thrown in all conceivable sorts of places. You can distinctly hear, over the whole field, the hum and hissing of decomposition. Of course you can imagine shattered muskets, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, caps, torn clothing, cannon-b.a.l.l.s, fragments of sh.e.l.l, broken artillery, etc. I went over it all just before evening, and after a couple of hours turned away in sickening horror from the dreadful sight. I write in the midst of the dead, buried and unburied--in the midst of hospitals full of dying, suffering men, and weary, shattered regiments."

This is a very mild ill.u.s.tration of some battle-fields, and yet it presents an awful picture.

O G.o.d! this land grows rich in loyal blood Poured out upon it to its utmost length!

The incense of a people's sacrifice-- The wrested offering of a people's strength.

It is the costliest land beneath the sun!

'Tis purchaseless! and scarce a rood But hath its t.i.tle written clear, and signed In some slain hero's consecrated blood.

And not a flower that gems its mellowing soil But thriveth well beneath the holy dew Of tears, that ease a nation's straining heart When the Lord of Battles smites it through and through.

Now a word about female nurses who go from the North to take care of the soldiers in hospitals. I have said but little upon this point, but could say much, as I have had ample opportunity for observation.

Many of the n.o.ble women who have gone from the New England and other loyal States have done, and are still doing, a work which will engrave their names upon the hearts of the soldiers, as the name of Florence Nightingale is engraved upon the hearts of her countrymen.

It is a strange fact that the more highly cultivated and refined the ladies are, they make all the better nurses. They are sure to submit to inconvenience and privations with a much better grace than those of the lower cla.s.ses.

It is true we have some sentimental young ladies, who go down there and expect to find everything in drawing-room style, with nothing to do but sit and fan handsome young mustached heroes in shoulder-straps, and read poetry, etc.; and on finding the _real_ somewhat different from the _ideal_, which their ardent imaginations had created, they become homesick at once, and declare that they "cannot endure such work as washing private soldiers' dirty faces and combing tangled, matted hair; and, what is more, won't do it." So after making considerable fuss, and trailing round in very long silk skirts for several days, until everybody becomes disgusted, they are politely invited by the surgeon in charge to migrate to some more congenial atmosphere.

But the patriotic, whole-souled, educated woman twists up her hair in a "cleared-for-action" sort of style, rolls up the sleeves of her plain cotton dress, and goes to work washing dirty faces, hands and feet, as if she knew just what to do and how to do it. And when she gets through with that part of the programme, she is just as willing to enter upon some new duty, whether it is writing letters for the boys or reading for them, administering medicine or helping to dress wounds. And everything is done so cheerfully that one would think it was really a pleasure instead of a disagreeable task.

But the medical department is unquestionably the greatest inst.i.tution in the whole army. I will not attempt to answer all the questions I have been asked concerning it, but will say that there are many true stories, and some false ones, circulated with regard to that indispensable fraternity.

I think I may freely say that there is a shadow of truth in that old story of "whiskey" and "incompetency" which we have so often heard applied to individuals in the medical department, who are intrusted with the treatment, and often the lives of our soldiers.

There is a vast difference in surgeons; some are harsh and cruel--whether it is from habit or insensibility I am not prepared to say--but I know the men would face a rebel battery with less forebodings than they do some of our worthy surgeons.

There is a cla.s.s who seem to act upon the principle of "no smart no cure,"

if we may be allowed to judge from the manner in which they twitch off bandages and the scientific twists and jerks given to shattered limbs.

Others again are very gentle and tender with the men, and seem to study how to perform the necessary operations with the least possible pain to the patients.

But the young surgeons, fresh from the dissecting room, when operating in conjunction with our old Western pract.i.tioners, forcibly reminded me of the anecdote of the young collegian teaching his grandmother to suck an egg: "We make an incision at the apex and an aperture at the base; then making a vacuum with the tongue and palate, we suffer the contained matter to be protruded into the mouth by atmospheric pressure." "La! how strange!" said his grandmother; "in my day we just made a hole in each end, and then sucked it without half that trouble."

I once saw a young surgeon amputate a limb, and I could think of nothing else than of a Kennebec Yankee whom I once saw carve a Thanksgiving turkey; it was his first attempt at carving, and the way in which he disjointed those limbs I shall never forget.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

CLOSING INCIDENTS--PROFESSOR LOWE'S BALLOON--FITZ JOHN PORTER'S ADVENTURE--HIS UPWARD FLIGHT--RECONNOITERING FROM A DANGEROUS POSITION--COOL COURAGE--ENTHUSIASTIC GREETING--AN EARNEST INQUIRER--A BAPTISM IN THE ARMY--PREACHING BY MOONLIGHT--A MAGNIFICENT SCENE--A WEDDING IN CAMP--GAY TIMES--A CONTRAST--HOSPITAL IN WINCHESTER--SPIRIT OF REVENGE--SABLE HEROINE--A WHITE DARKEY--COLORED SOLDIERS--CONCLUSION.

In looking back over the events of the two years which I spent in the army, I see so much worthy of record I scarcely know where to stop.

A most thrilling incident occurs to my mind at this moment in connection with Professor Lowe and his balloon, which I must relate before closing.

It took place while McClellan's army was in front of Yorktown.

General Fitz John Porter having been in the habit of making frequent ascensions in company with Professor Lowe, learned to go aloft alone.

One morning he stepped into the car and ordered the cable to be let out with all speed. We saw with surprise that the flurried a.s.sistants were sending up the great straining canvas with a single rope attached. The enormous bag was only partially inflated, and the loose folds opened and shut with a sharp report like that of a pistol. Noisily, fitfully, the great yellow ma.s.s rose toward the sky, the basket rocking like a feather in the breeze. Presently a sound came from overhead like the explosion of a sh.e.l.l--the cable had snapped asunder, and the balloon was adrift.

All eyes were turned toward the receding car, where General Porter sat in his aerial castle, being borne heavenward as fast as if on eagle wings, without the power either to check or guide his upward flight.

The whole army was agitated by this unwonted occurrence, and the rebel army evidently partook in the general excitement.

Lowe's voice could be heard above the confusion and tumult shouting to the soaring hero--"Open--the--valve! Climb--to--the--netting--and--reach--the valve--rope!"

"The valve--the valve!" repeated a mult.i.tude of voices, but all in vain, for it was impossible to make him hear.

Soon the signal corps began to operate, and at last the general was made to understand by signals when it was impossible to reach him by the human voice.

He appeared directly over the edge of the car, and then clambered up the netting and reached for the cord, but he was so far above us then he looked no bigger than a great black spider.

It was a weird spectacle--that frail, fading object floating in the azure sky, with the miniature boat swinging silently beneath, looking no bigger than a humming-bird's nest; and a hundred thousand brave hearts beneath beating with the wildest excitement and warmest sympathy, yet powerless to render the least a.s.sistance to their exalted brother-in-arms.

"Had the general been floating down the rapids of Niagara he could not have been farther from human a.s.sistance."

We at length saw him descend from the netting and reappear over the edge of the basket, and he seemed to be motioning to the breathless crowd below the story of his failure.

Soon after the balloon began slowly to descend, and when we next saw him it was with spygla.s.s in hand, reconnoitering the rebel works. Shouts of joy and laughter went up from the long lines of spectators as this cool procedure was observed.

For a moment it seemed doubtful in which direction the balloon would float; it faltered like an irresolute being, and at length moved reluctantly toward Fortress Monroe. Bursting cheers, half uttered, quivered on every lip. All eyes glistened, and many were dim with tears.

But the wayward canvas now turned due west, and was blown rapidly toward the confederate works.

Its course was fitfully direct, and the wind seemed to veer often, as if contrary currents, conscious of the opportunity, were struggling for the possession of the daring navigator.

The south wind held the mastery for awhile, and the balloon pa.s.sed the Federal front amid groans of despair from the soldiers. It kept right on, over sharpshooters, rifle-pits, etc., until it stood directly over the rebel fortifications at Yorktown. The cool courage, either of heroism or despair, seemed to seize the general, for turning his tremendous gla.s.s upon the ramparts and masked batteries below, he viewed the remote camps, the beleaguered town, the guns of Gloucester Point, and distant Norfolk.

Had he been reconnoitering from a secure perch on the top of the moon he could not have been more vigilant; and the Confederates probably thought this some Yankee device to peer into their sanctum in spite of ball or sh.e.l.l. None of their large guns could be brought to bear upon the balloon, but there were some discharges of musketry, which seemed to have no effect whatever, and finally even these demonstrations ceased.

Both armies were gazing aloft in breathless suspense, while the deliberate general continued to spy out the land.

Suddenly another change of position, and the air craft plunged and tacked about, and steered rapidly for the Federal lines again. Making a desperate effort to catch the valve-rope, the general at length succeeded, and giving it a jerk, the balloon came suddenly to the ground; fortunately, however, it struck a tent as it descended, which perhaps saved the general from any serious injuries from the fall.