SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
My work for sick soldiers began early in 1862, in the “Department of the East,” which included Long Island Hospital, Willett’s Point, David’s Island, Fort Schuyler and Bedloe’s Island (now Liberty); all of these hospitals being in charge of Surgeon McDougall.
This extensive experience prepared me for work at the front, which, after many futile efforts, I could now reach through a society known as “Masonic Mission,” by which a pass was secured from General Ben Butler for myself and three assistant nurses, and which gave me the anxiously desired privilege and authority of going to the “front,” with these nurses, who were quite unknown to me.
We sailed July 24th, 1864, on the Patapsco, a government transport that had carried sick soldiers to New York, and was returning to City Point for orders, and were the only passengers on board.
Fatigue and the odor of bilge water induced intense “mal de mer,” which, added to insubordination on the part of two of my assistants, caused the usual distress and despair.
The atmosphere of my state room was intolerable, and the captain kindly ordered a mattress placed on deck for me, where I was comparatively comfortable until I was obliged to stagger below on hearing of unseemly conduct on the part of the two nurses. I threatened, with good effect, to have the captain put them ashore at the first island we came to. Fortunately they did not know that we would sight no island on that short voyage. The third assistant, good Mrs. Dunbar, in her kindly, motherly way, was my only comfort.
The captain had tried, in vain, to arouse me by an alarm that the Alabama was chasing us. But sea-sickness knows not even the law of self-preservation, and I replied, “I’d as lief as not go down by the Alabama or in any other way.”
At night I refused to go below to my stateroom and bilge water odor, quite regardless of the captain’s perplexity. After some hesitancy, however, he gave me the only stateroom on deck. This was filled with the accoutrements of a Confederate officer whom, as a prisoner of war, the captain had just delivered over to the government prison at Fort Lafayette, in the narrows of New York Bay. I awoke at night in such perfect peace and comfort that for a time I imagined the Alabama had really run us down, and that I was now happy in heaven.
My stateroom door had been left open for air, and, stepping out on deck, I found there was no motion or sound, save a soft ripple of water against the bow. A full perfect moon cast a broad silvery path across the quiet waters, so intense that it seemed quite possible that Jesus had indeed walked upon the Sea of Galilee. There was no one in sight, nor was there a sound of anything living or moving, though the “watch” probably saw me leaning over the railing. We had anchored at the mouth of the James River, waiting for the pilot.
On the morning of July 29th, we again anchored, this time before City Point, Virginia, at the junction of the James and Appomatox Rivers, headquarters of the United States armies in the field under command of General Grant.