THE SEVEN DAYS’ BATTLE
[Mrs. R. A. Pryor’s Reminiscences.]
All the afternoon the dreadful guns shook the earth and thrilled our souls with horror. I shut myself in my darkened room. At twilight I had a note from Governor Letcher, telling me a fierce battle was raging, and inviting me to come to the governor’s mansion. From the roof one might see the flash of musket and artillery.
No; I did not wish to see the infernal fires. I preferred 84 to watch and wait alone in my room. And so the night wore on and I waited and watched. Before the dawn a hurried footstep brought a message from the battlefield to my door:
“The general, madame, is safe and well. Colonel Scott has been killed. The general has placed a guard around his body, and he will be sent here early to-morrow. The general bids me say he will not return. The fight will be renewed, and will continue until the enemy is driven away.”
My resolution was taken. My children were safe with their grandmother. I would write. I would ask that every particle of my household linen, except a change, should be rolled into bandages, all my fine linen be sent to me for compresses, and all forwarded as soon as possible. I would enter the new hospital which had been improvised in Kent & Paine’s warehouse, and would remain there as a nurse as long as the armies were fighting around Richmond.
But the courier was passing on his rounds with news to others. Presently Fanny Poindexter, in tears, knocked at my door.
“She is bearing it like a brave, Christian woman.”
“She? Who? Tell me quick.”
“Mrs. Scott. I had to tell her. She simply said, ‘I shall see him once more.’ The general wrote to her from the battlefield and told her how nobly her husband died, leading his men in the thick of the fight, and how he had helped to save the city.”
Alas! that the city should have needed saving. What had Mrs. Scott and her children done? Why should they suffer? Who was to blame for it all?
Kent & Paine’s warehouse was a large, airy building, which had, I understood, been offered by the proprietors for a hospital immediately after the battle of Seven Pines. McClellan’s advance upon Richmond had heavily taxed the capacity of the hospitals already established.
When I reached the warehouse, early on the morning after the fight at Mechanicsville, I found cots on the lower floor already occupied, and other cots in process of 85 preparation. An aisle between the rows of narrow beds stretched to the rear of the building. Broad stairs led to a story above, where other cots were being laid.
The volunteer matron was a beautiful woman, Mrs. Wilson. When I was presented to her as a candidate for admission, her serene eyes rested doubtfully upon me for a moment. She hesitated. Finally she said:
“The work is very exacting. There are so few of us that our nurses must do anything and everything—make beds, wait upon anybody, and often a half a dozen at a time.”
“I will engage to do all that,” I declared, and she permitted me to go to a desk at the farther end of the room and enter my name.
As I passed by the rows of occupied cots, I saw a nurse kneeling beside one of them, holding a pan for a surgeon. The red stump of an amputated arm was held over it. The next thing I knew I was myself lying on a cot, and a spray of cold water was falling over my face. I had fainted. Opening my eyes, I found the matron standing beside me.
“You see it is as I thought. You are unfit for this work. One of the nurses will conduct you home.”
The nurse’s assistance was declined, however. I had given trouble enough for one day, and had only interrupted those who were really worth something. A night’s vigil had been poor preparation for hospital work. I resolved I would conquer my culpable weakness. It was all very well,—these heroics in which I indulged, these paroxysms of patriotism, this adoration of the defenders of my fireside. The defender in the field had naught to hope from me in case he should be wounded in my defence.
I took myself well in hand. Why had I fainted? I thought it was because of the sickening, dead odor in the hospital, mingled with that of acids and disinfectants. Of course, this would always be there—and worse, as wounded men filled the rooms. I provided myself with sal volatile and spirits of camphor,—we wore pockets in our gowns in those days,—and thus armed I presented 86 myself again to Mrs. Wilson. She was as kind as she was refined and intelligent. “I will give you a place near the door,” she said, “and you must run out into the air at the first hint of faintness. You will get over it, see if you don’t.”
Ambulances began to come in and unload at the door. I soon had occupation enough, and a few drops of camphor on my handkerchief tided me over the worst. The wounded men crowded in and sat patiently waiting their turn. One fine little fellow of fifteen unrolled a handkerchief from his wrist to show me his wound. “There’s a bullet in there,” he said proudly. “I am going to have it cut out, and then go right back to the fight. Isn’t it lucky it’s my left hand?”
As the day wore on I became more and more absorbed in my work. I had, too, the stimulus of a reproof from Miss Deborah Couch, a brisk, efficient, middle-aged lady, who asked no quarter and gave none. She was standing beside me a moment, with a bright tin pan filled with pure water, into which I foolishly dipped a finger to see if it were warm, to learn if I would be expected to provide warm water when I should be called upon to assist the surgeon.
“This water, madame, was prepared for a raw wound,” said Miss Deborah, sternly. “I must now make the surgeon wait until I get more.”
Miss Deborah, in advance of her time, was a germ theorist. My touch evidently was contaminating.
As she charged down the aisle, with a pan of water in her hand, everybody made way. She had known of my “fine-lady faintness,” as she termed it, and I could see she despised me for it. She had volunteered, as all the nurses had, and she meant business. She had no patience with nonsense, and truly she was worth more than all the rest of us.
“Where can I get a little ice?” I one day ventured of Miss Deborah.
“Find it,” she rejoined, as she rapidly passed on; but find it I never did. Ice was an unknown luxury until brought to us later from private houses.
But I found myself thoroughly reinstated—with surgeons, matrons and Miss Deborah—when I appeared a few days later, accompanied by a man bearing a basket of clean, well-rolled bandages, with promise of more to come. The Petersburg women had gone to work with a will upon my table-cloths, sheets, and dimity counterpanes—and even the chintz furniture covers. My springlike green and white chintz bandages appeared on many a manly arm and leg. My fine linen underwear and napkins were cut, by the sewing circle at the Spotswood, according to the surgeons’ directions, into two lengths two inches wide, then folded two inches, doubling back and forth in a smaller fold each time, until they formed pointed wedges or compresses.
Such was the sudden and overwhelming demand for such things that but for my own and similar donations of household linen the wounded men would have suffered. The war had come upon us suddenly. Many of our ports were already closed and we had no stores laid up for such an emergency.
The bloody battle of Gaines’ Mill soon followed. Then Frazier’s farm, within the week, and at once the hospital was filled to overflowing. Every night a courier brought me tidings of my husband. When I saw him at the door my heart would die within me. One morning John came in for certain supplies. After being reassured as to his master’s safety, I asked, “Did he have a comfortable night, John?”
“He sholy did. Marse Roger sart’nly was comfortable las’ night. He slep’ on de field ’twixt two daid horses.”
The women who worked in Kent & Paine’s hospital never seemed to weary. After a while the wise matron assigned us hours, and we went on duty with the regularity of trained nurses. My hours were from 7 to 7 during the day, with the promise of night service should I be needed. Efficient, kindly colored women assisted us. Their motherly manner soothed the prostrate soldier, whom they always addressed as “son.”
Many fine young fellows lost their lives for want of prompt attention. They never murmured. They would 88 give way to those who seemed to be more seriously wounded than themselves, and the latter would recover, while from the slighter wounds gangrene would supervene from delay. Very few men ever walked away from that hospital. They died, or friends found quarters for them in Richmond. None complained. Unless a poor man grew delirious, he never groaned. There was an atmosphere of gentle kindness; a suppression of emotion for the sake of others.
Every morning the Richmond ladies brought for our patients such luxuries as could be procured in that scarce time. The city was in peril, and distant farmers feared to bring in their fruits and vegetables. One day a patient-looking, middle-aged man said to me, “What would I not give for a bowl of chicken broth like my mother used to give me when I was a sick boy?” I perceived one of the angelic matrons of Richmond at a distance, stooping over the cots, and found my way to her and said, “Dear Mrs. Maben, have you a chicken? And could you send some broth to No. 39?” She promised, and I returned with her promise to the poor, wounded fellow. He shook his head. “To-morrow will be too late,” he said.
I had forgotten the circumstance next day, but at noon I happened to look toward cot No. 39, and there was Mrs. Maben herself. She had brought the chicken broth in a pretty china bowl, with napkin and silver spoon, and was feeding my doubting Thomas, to his great satisfaction.
It was at this hospital, I have reason to believe, that the little story originated, which was deemed good enough to be claimed by other hospitals, of the young girl who approached a sick man with a pan of water in her hand and a towel over her arm.
“Mayn’t I wash your face?” said the girl, timidly.
“Well, lady, you may if you want to,” said the man, wearily. “It has been washed fourteen times this morning. It can stand another time, I reckon.”
I discovered that I had not succeeded, despite many efforts, in winning Miss Deborah. I learned that she was affronted because I had not shared my offerings of jelly 89 and fruit with her, for her special patients. Whenever I ventured to ask a loan from her, of a pan or a glass of water, or the little things of which we never had enough, she would reply, “I must keep them for the nurses who understand reciprocity. Reciprocity is the rule some persons never seem to comprehend.” When this was hammered into my slow perception, I rose to the occasion. I turned over the entire contents of a basket the landlord of the Spotswood had given me to Miss Deborah, and she made my path straight before me ever afterward.
At the end of a week the matron had promoted me. Instead of carving the fat bacon, to be served with corn bread, for the hospital dinner, or standing between two rough men to keep away the flies, or fetching water, or spreading sheets on cots, I was assigned to regular duty with one patient.
The first of these proved to be a young Colonel Coppens, of my husband’s brigade. I could comfort him very little, for he was wounded past recovery. I spoke little French, and could only try to keep him, as far as possible, from annoyance. To my great relief, place was found for him in a private family. There he soon died—the gallant fellow I had admired on his horse a few months before.
Then I was placed beside the cot of Mr. (or Captain) Boyd, of Mecklenburg, and was admonished by the matron not to leave him alone. He was the most patient sufferer in the world—gentle, courteous, always considerate, never complaining.
“Are you in pain, Captain?”
“No, no,” he would say gently.
One day when I returned from my “rest,” I found the matron sitting beside him.
She motioned me to take her place, and then added, “No, no; I will not leave him.”
The captain’s eyes were closed, and he sighed wearily at intervals. Presently he whispered slowly: “There everlasting spring abides;” then sighed, and seemed to sleep for a moment.
The matron felt his pulse and raised a warning hand. The sick man’s whisper went on: “Bright fields beyond 90 the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green;” and in a moment more the Christian soldier had crossed the river and lain down to rest under the trees.
Each of the battles of those seven days brought a harvest of wounded to our hospital. I used to veil myself closely as I walked to and from my hotel, that I might shut out the dreadful sights in the streets—the squads of prisoners, and worst of all, the open wagons in which the dead were piled. Once I did see one of these dreadful wagons. In it a stiff arm was raised, and shook as it was driven down the street, as though the dead owner appealed to Heaven for vengeance—a horrible sight, never to be forgotten.
After one of the bloody battles—I know not if it was Gaines’ Mill or Frazier’s Farm or Malvern Hill—A splendid young officer, Colonel Brokenborough, was taken to our hospital, shot almost to pieces. He was borne up the stairs and placed in a cot—his broken limbs in supports swinging from the ceiling. The wife of General Mahone and I were permitted to assist in nursing him. A young soldier from the camp was detailed to help us, and a clergyman was in constant attendance, coming at night that we might have rest. Our patient held a court in his corner of the hospital. Such a dear, gallant, cheery fellow, handsome, and with a grand air even as he lay prostrate. Nobody ever heard him complain. He would welcome us in the morning with the brightest smile. His aid said, “He watches the head of the stairs and calls up that look for your benefit.”
“Oh,” he said one day, “you can’t guess what’s going to happen. Some ladies have been here and left all these roses, and cologne, and such; and somebody has sent champagne. We are going to have a party.”
Ah! but we knew he was very ill. We were bidden to watch him every minute and not be deceived by his own spirits. Mrs. Mahone spent her life hunting for ice. My constant care was to keep his canteen—to which he clung with affection—filled with fresh water from a spring not far away, and I learned to give it to him so well that I 91 allowed no one to lift his head for his drink during my hours.
One day, when we were alone, I was fanning him, and thought he was asleep. He said gravely, “Mrs. Pryor, beyond that curtain they hung up yesterday, poor young Mitchell is lying. They don’t know. But I heard when they brought him in. As I lie here I listen to his breathing. I haven’t heard it now for some time. Would you mind seeing if he is all right?”
I passed behind the curtain. The young soldier was dead. His wide-open eyes seemed to meet mine in mute appeal. I had never seen or touched a dead man, but I laid my hands upon his eyelids and closed them. I was standing thus when his nurse, a young volunteer like myself, came to me.
“I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I went for the doctor. I’m so glad you could do it.”
When I returned Colonel Brokenborough asked no questions and I knew that his keen senses had already instructed him.
To be cheerful and uncomplaining was the unwritten law of our hospital. No bad news was ever mentioned; no foreboding or anxiety. Mrs. Mahone was one day standing beside Colonel Brokenborough when a messenger from the front suddenly announced that General Mahone had received a flesh wound. Commanding herself instantly, she exclaimed merrily: “Flesh wound. Now you all know that is just impossible.”
The general had no flesh. He was thin and attenuated as he was brave.
As Colonel Brokenborough grew weaker, I felt self-reproach that no one had offered to write letters for him. His friend the clergyman had said to me: “That poor boy is engaged to a lovely young girl. I wonder what is best? Would it grieve him to speak of her. You ladies have so much tact; you might bear it in mind. An opportunity might offer for you to discover how he feels about it.”
The next time I was alone with him I ventured: “Now, Colonel, one mustn’t forget absent friends, you know, 92 even if fair ladies do bring perfumes and roses and what not. I have some ink and paper here. Shall I write a letter for you? Tell me what to say.”
He turned his head and with a half-amused smile of perfect intelligence looked at me for a long time. Then an upward look of infinite tenderness; but the message was never sent—never needed from a true heart like this.
One night I was awakened from my sleep by a knock at my door, and a summons to “come to Colonel Brokenborough.” When I reached his bedside I found the surgeon, the clergyman, and the colonel’s aid. The patient was unconscious; the end was near. We sat in silence. Once, when he stirred, I slipped my hand under his head, and put his canteen once more to his lips. After a long time his breathing simply ceased, with no evidence of pain. We waited awhile, and then the young soldier who had been detailed to nurse him rose, crossed the room, and stooping over, kissed me on my forehead, and went out to his duty in the ranks.
Two weeks later I was in my room, resting after a hard day, when a haggard officer, covered with mud and dust, entered. It was my husband. “My men are all dead,” he said, with anguish, and, falling across the bed, he gave vent to the passionate grief of his heart.
Thousands of Confederate soldiers were killed, thousands wounded. Richmond was saved!