GETTING 2,000 SICK AND WOUNDED OUT OF HELENA, ARK.
ON the 10th of August, 1863, accompanied by my secretary, Miss Mary Shelton, now Mrs. Judge Houston of Burlington, Iowa, I started on my return trip to Vicksburg, with a heavy shipment of hospital supplies.
The Van Phul, the steamer on which we took passage at St. Louis, reached Helena, Ark., on the 16th of August.
When the boat landed at that post, we found, on inquiry, that there were over two thousand sick and wounded there, and so stopped over with a part of our supplies, the rest going on to Vicksburg, where I had a covered barge that had done duty on the Yazoo River during the siege, but which was then lying at the wharf of Vicksburg.
We found the hospitals at Helena, if they may be called hospitals, in a dreadful condition. The Methodist and Baptist churches were crowded with very sick and severely wounded men.
There were very few cots in these two churches; most of the men were lying in the narrow pews, with the scant, uneven cushions for their beds. The weather was extremely hot, and flies swarmed over everybody and everything. The faces of some of the men, who were too helpless to keep up a continual fight with them, were black with swarms of hungry, buzzing flies. A few pieces of mosquito-bars were spread over the faces of some of the weakest patients; but, lying loose over their faces, they were of little advantage. Barrels in which had been shipped pickled pork now served as water-tanks, and were placed near the pulpit. They were filled every morning with the tepid water of the Mississippi River.
There was a barge of ice lying at the landing, brought down on purpose for the sick; but I could find no one who had authority to issue it, and so it was slowly melting away under the blaze of an August sun.
The men in charge were, however, willing to sell, and I had money to buy; and soon great crystal cakes of Northern ice were floating in every barrel of water in every hospital in Helena.
Acres of tents had been pitched by the roadside; and the mud, that in the winter had made the streets and roadways almost impassable, had now turned to dust, and every breeze sent it in clouds into the faces of the sick and wounded men.
There was another camp, called the Convalescent Camp, on the sandy beach of the river, the water being very low at the time. We found no convalescence there. The sun beat down on the white tents and the glistening sand till the heat was like a furnace.
Just back of these hospital tents and churches, there was a wide cypress swamp, stagnant and green and deadly.
The men were discouraged. “We have been left here to die;” “No man could recover in such a place as this,” was the verdict of all who had the strength and courage to express their feelings. The air was heavy with the deadly malaria, that ladened every breeze with poison.
It was good service to provide them with light hospital garments to take the place of their heavy soiled clothing, and with delicate food to take the place of coarse army rations; but, as one man said, “It’s no use, ladies; we are all doomed men. It is only a question of time—your efforts will only prolong our suffering; we are all the same as dead men.”
For two long days, through sun and dust, we went from hospital to hospital, till we, too, became hopeless.
Every wrong that they had suffered, every peril that had threatened them, was burned into our hearts and brains, till they became our own.
There were no high officials that we could appeal to. General Steele was pushing the Confederate forces toward Little Rock. There was no one having authority nearer than Memphis, Tenn.; and I determined to go to Memphis, and invoke the help of the authorities there.
I waited for an up-bound steamer all night. I could not sleep; my heart and brain and blood seemed to be on fire. Thousands of despairing, suffering men were all around me; it seemed as if sleep had forever left my eyes and slumber my eyelids. All night long I waited for an upward-bound steamer, and while I waited I wrote letters to the wives and mothers of the men who had asked me to write for them. About daylight a boat came up from Vicksburg, bound for St. Louis; and I boarded her for Memphis, leaving Miss Shelton at the house where we had taken board, to complete the task of letter-writing. When I reached Memphis, I drove directly to the office of the medical director. An orderly was the sole occupant of the office. He informed me that the medical director had gone out hunting, and would not be back till evening. I was greatly disappointed, as I had hoped much from him, but I was not discouraged. I decided to appeal to the commanding general.
The adjutant-general was the only person in the office.
“I wish to see the general,” I said, addressing the adjutant.
“The general is sick to-day, and cannot see any one. Perhaps he can see you to-morrow.”
“My business is important and urgent; I cannot wait till to-morrow. Will you take a message to the general for me?”
“I cannot do that, madam; the general is very sick, and I cannot disturb him, but perhaps I can attend to the business.”
Thus encouraged, I began in a very energetic manner a statement of the condition of the sick and wounded at Helena. In the midst of it the door opened, and the general stood before me. I took in the situation in an instant, realizing that, sick or well, or whatever his condition, he was the man who had the authority, and I immediately turned to him with the case. I pleaded for those men as one would plead for his own life, and I concluded with a definite request: “I want you, General, to send down four steamers immediately, fitted out with cots and supplies, to bring all these suffering men away from that death-trap.” He said that it should be done. “But, General,” I continued, “I want the order issued before I leave this office. I want to go back and tell the men that the boats are coming—it may save some lives.”
“I assume, madam, that the order has been given,” said the adjutant, “and I will promulgate it immediately.”
“May I depend on you to send the boats down there by to-morrow noon?”
“The boats will be there without fail.”
“Remember,” I said, “I have no other appeal but the newspapers and the great, generous people of the North who sustain them, if you fail.”
“I hope, dear madam, that you will make no mention of this in the papers—the boats will be there.” These last words were uttered as he closed the door of my carriage. I hurried away, as a steamer was coming in, and I desired, if possible, to get back to Helena that night.
I felt a little more certain of the boats coming because of my threat to appeal to the North through the newspapers, of which officials stood in some fear. There were, however, other reasons why I was justified in putting the case in that way of which it is not best to speak now. I reached Helena at half-past eleven o’clock that night, full of hope, and ready to rest and sleep.
The next morning early we were out in the hospitals, not for the purpose of distributing supplies, but as the messengers of glad tidings. And never did women go with gladder hearts to bear good news, since Mary left the tomb of her risen Lord, than we did that morning, as we went from hospital to hospital telling the men the boats were coming. We went to the two churches first; and in each I took a position in the pulpit, and called out at the top of my voice,—
“Attention, soldiers! Four hospital steamers will be here to-day to take you to Northern hospitals.” The effect was magical. Men who were lying seemingly half-dead in their hopeless despair lifted their heads, and questioned anxiously,—
“What did you say?” and the glad message was repeated again and again, with the assurance that the boats would surely come.
“Then I’ll get well.” “Where are my shoes?” “Where is my hat?” and so we left them getting ready for the journey, and went from hospital to hospital with the glad message.
In one tent by the roadside, a beautiful brown-eyed boy about sixteen years old, after I had made the glad proclamation, questioned, “Is that so, lady?”
“Yes, it is so; we are looking for the boats every minute.” He slipped out of his cot; and, kneeling beside it, he lifted his eyes heavenward, and the tears running down his face, he repeated over and over,—
“Thank God, deliverance has come at last.”
In one ward a man looked at us very earnestly, and then questioned,—
“Is it the truth ye are telling us, now?”
“Yes, it is the truth.”
“Now, surely, ye wouldn’t be after decavin’ a poor sick man that’s most dead with the heat, and the flies, and the cypress swamp, would ye, now?”
“No, sir, I would not.”
My anxiety was intense. What if the boats should not come? I stepped out of the tent and looked up the river, and there in full view the little fleet of four boats were coming around the bend of the river.
We both cried out in our joy, “The boats! the boats are coming!” but tears of thankfulness almost choked our voices. The excitement was intense. No one stood on the order of his going. The surgeons were willing all should go, and desired to go with them, and they did. Every man who could, rushed for the boats. Some who were not able to walk managed some way to get from their cots and crawl out toward the boats.
Oh! it was pitiful to see the helpless ones, the wounded ones, who could not move, waiting with anxiety for their turn to be carried to the boats, and pleading, “Please, ladies, don’t let me be left behind.”
“No, no! Don’t be alarmed, you shall go,” was repeated over and over. At last all were crowded into the four steamers, and the boats steamed away with their precious freight up the Mississippi River. We stood at the landing as the boats moved away. The poor fellows out on the guards tried to give three cheers, but the effort was a failure. We waved our handkerchiefs, and they waved their hats, or their hands, as long as the boats were in sight.
What a load of anxiety and responsibility was lifted from our hearts!
Gathering up the supplies still left over, we took the first steamer bound for Vicksburg.
When we reached the conquered city we found thousands of sick and wounded still crowded into the hospitals there, and we remained for some time ministering to them as best we could.