Some months later, being almost the only young woman still visiting the hospital, I felt obliged to report to that rarely good man, Mr. McMullen,—whose benevolence and generosity had at first brought the patients to the hospital and to the care of the people,—the neglect of soldiers, who were then treated like charity patients. He immediately reported these conditions to the medical department, and the men were removed to the government hospitals, which were by this time systematized and in good running order.
After the patients had been transferred from the Long Island College Hospital, I secured a pass on the steamboat Thomas P. Way, to visit hospitals of the “Department of the East,” in charge of Surgeon McDougall, a thorough disciplinarian, and a just, kind man.
David’s Island, on the Sound, had a finely conducted hospital, with a diet kitchen in charge of ladies. There I saw hundreds of well-fed, happy Confederate patients, so many, indeed, that they could not be supplied at once with proper clothing, and so made a unique appearance as they walked about in dressing gowns, white drawers, and slippers. They were soon to be exchanged for our own poor skeleton “Boys” who were coming home slowly and painfully, some dying on the way, to be met by kindly hands and aching hearts eagerly awaiting them.
Fort Schuyler Hospital, on the East River, was formed like a wheel, the hub being headquarters and the spokes extending into wards for patients. One young man of much refinement had been at one of our home suppers, and afterwards the company made a pact that if we were alive one year from that date we should hear each from the other. He exclaimed—“Dead or alive, you shall hear from me!” Being a spiritualist he believed this possible. He was sent to Fort Schuyler and one month later died of small-pox. At the appointed date and hour a year later, I thought of this pact and tried to put myself in a receptive state. I did not, however, see him nor feel any manifestation of his spirit.
CHAPTER III
BEDLOE’S ISLAND (NOW LIBERTY)
A number of influential ladies of New York City had formed a society named “Park Barracks Association.” By permission of the Mayor, barracks were put up in the City Hall Park for temporary accommodation of soldiers. But of that particular work I knew very little. These ladies had, however, extended their benevolence to Bedloe’s Island. They had, somehow, heard of my work, and a committee waited upon me with an invitation to accompany them, by the Thomas P. Way, on its regular trip to the department hospitals on the river, including Bedloe’s Island, three and a half miles down New York Bay, where they wished me to take charge of their “diet kitchen.” Fort Wood still stands on one side of the island, little changed since 1862. At that time twenty wards were filled with about eighty patients.
The first floor of the square brick building on the New York side was used as a dispensary, and the diet kitchen was also located here. On the second floor were the quarters of sick officers, occupied at that time by only one officer who had been wounded at Antietam. Comfortable rooms on the third floor became my apartments.
SURGEON CAMPBELL