“Nevertheless, Colonel,” I replied, “the men remain.”
With some excitement he replied, “If you can get me the names of these men, and I find that orders have not been followed, I will close that hospital, at once.”
This decision and the fact that General Grant had given me his autograph during my visit, made me very happy. I diplomatically secured a list of about twenty men who were being wrongfully detained, and this was at once conveyed to Colonel Bowers. This was my “Coup d’ état” in Washington; and I thought it a good time to retire from hospital work and to return to my home for rest. Two weeks later I saw by a Washington paper that all patients at this hospital able to travel had been sent home, and a small remainder of those still sick had been carried to Harewood Hospital, the former hospital having ended its career.
I had hoped to meet General Grant’s Military Secretary, General Eli Parker, who wrote the draft of the surrender of Appomattox. He was said to have been of imposing appearance. He was chief of the Senecas and of the Six Nations, and his Indian name was Donehogawa. When at home on their reservation with their father, his sisters, who, when in Washington, were among the cultured society of the Capitol, wore the rich costumes of princesses of the tribe and were treated with the homage due to their rank.
Thus ended my work in Washington for the “Boys in Blue.”
CHAPTER XXXI
TRANSPORTATION HOME
The war was over, and government passes and government roads were of the past, only regular army transportation was now allowed, except to the Medical Department for the purpose of sending home delayed patients. My “Grant Pass,” that had made me so independent, became at once only a relic. Therefore, being entitled to transportation to my home, I went to Surgeon General Barnes, U. S. A., to receive that privilege. After a pleasant conversation with the General, he remarked, “Your name is not on the pay roll, and you are entitled to pay for army service. If you will make out your claim I will endorse it.”
To this I replied,—with more sentiment, as I now see it, than judgment,—“General, I thank you, but I do not wish pay for my services in hospital work. If I had been a man I would have enlisted as a soldier. But being only a woman it was all I could do, and I wish to give that service to my country.”
Often, since then, I have thought of the quizzical expression of the General’s eyes, though he said not a word about an impractical girl who did not think far enough to see what good she might have done with that accumulated wage of several years.