While at this diet kitchen some one stole my journal, money, and pass,—the latter the most serious loss, as no one could remain in camp without written authority. Happily, and to my surprise, when I applied to Surgeon Dalton as to what I must do, he said, “As I know of your good work in New York, Miss Smith, I will be happy to have you remain, but hope you will get a pass as soon as possible. The Provost Marshall, General Patrick, has authority higher than mine.” The General was a strict disciplinarian, and had he known that my pass was lost he could have ordered me to “report to Washington at once.”
Many strange things occurred in our daily work. While I was helping at the Pennsylvania Agency, a wild-eyed, simple-minded woman found her way to our tents. Twice before she had somehow either eluded the guards or had worried officers into giving her a temporary pass. She had come for “the bones of her son” who had died at White House Landing and was supposed to have been buried there in the early skirmishes of the war. Hoping to satisfy this persistent woman, Mrs. Painter, whose pass gave her authority, ordered a transport to take her with a detachment of men to the golgotha of her hopes.
We took the short sail and landed at White House Point, where it was thought the boy might possibly have been buried, as the men had been in a skirmish there. They tried to locate the body by driving down in many places a long slender iron bar, but no trace of it was found. The half-demented woman continued to declare that she would “yet hold those dear bones in her arms.” She was finally persuaded to go home and come another time, which was the only way of relieving the hospital of her presence.
According to army usage everything movable might be taken from a deserted point. The White House was still standing in good order, with green lattice shutters, and Mrs. Painter directed the men to take them off and bring them to our tents, and a small summer house was added to our army property.
CHAPTER XII
CITY POINT, VIRGINIA—A DAY IN THE ARMY
From a letter written Nov. 8, 1864
November 8th (Election Day) dawned upon a cloudy sky and misty atmosphere as peculiar to Virginia as is also the renowned and “Sacred Soil,” after a few days’ rain. This however, we observed after we had risen from our narrow hospital bed, which stood close by the side of the tent, that flapped in the face of the sleeper (or waker) as the wind rose or fell. The rain descended in torrents during the night, and all was damp as usual in our rag houses. Our sleeping apartment, or tent, the second one of the Maine Agency, was well stored with boxes of goods and delicacies for the sick, leaving little moving space. Late as was the season our tents were made comfortably warm with army fireplaces, and stoves, though the floors, made of broken boxes, were sometimes covered with mud. “Oh, were you ever into an Irishman’s shanty?” I can not here describe our excellent agency which did more for the relief of soldiers, and more fully realized the idea of an army home, than any agency or commission on the field.
I accepted a pressing invitation from the New Jersey State Agent, Doctor Hettie K. Painter, to join a pleasure excursion. She, by the by, was a living example of the usefulness of a lady in the army, who can frequently effect more good by personal influence than would be allowed through regular channels.
