Very truly,
D. G. MORGAN,
Supt. N. Y. S. Military Agency.”
Mr. Morgan directed me to report to City Point and to relieve Mrs. Spencer.
On my return to City Point I met Major and Mrs. Eden. Having received his promotion and a furlough, they were on their wedding trip North. I was glad to return to City Point camp life and duty, with congratulations on all sides. The next day, with an ambulance and a friend, I went to Mrs. Spencer’s quarters and showed her my commission, saying, “I would like to take possession in a few days.”
Mrs. Spencer had been charged with partiality to McClellan men, and refusing Republican soldiers tobacco, etc. Politics, even in the army, caused many somersaults, and were quite beyond my management; and through some strategy my commission was revoked at City Point, though I retained the commission as New York agent in general!
There were then some indications of the collapse of the Confederacy, and that when this frightful war was over the agencies would also collapse. However, I kept on working in the old way, while my indignant Republican friends threatened, and tried to storm the New York State Agency. Politics ran high and many lost their heads politically. Many convalescent copperheads and Democrats, enlisted men, were allowed to go home to vote for president.
Doctor Painter, a strong Republican, incurred the displeasure of General Patrick, a Democrat, by some manipulations which enabled her to get enough passes for Jersey soldiers to go home to vote and so balance the Democratic vote.
Many one-armed and one-legged men were moving about camp, waiting orders to report to Washington, where the Government would supply them with artificial limbs and discharge them. It was surprising how many were well fitted with these limbs, and that many could walk so well that only a slight limp betrayed them; while others with neatly gloved hands, which they could sometimes use quite well, were seldom observed in passing.
A young lieutenant from Maine, had lost a leg, and was lying, weary and helpless, on his hospital cot. He had written, as had many another poor fellow crippled for life, to his fiancée, offering to resign his claim, and he was now feverishly awaiting her reply. Day after day passed, and still no answer, while we tried every device to encourage him. He said “I know how it will be!” He became bitter and scornful and made no effort to live. While it was scarcely possible in any case that he could recover from this usually fatal thigh fracture, we still hoped that he might at least receive some word of comfort before he died.
I seldom went into the wards after nightfall, but the dying boy sent for me quite late one night. Hoping that some kind word had come at last, I hastened to his side. None had come and, conscious that his life was fast ebbing away, he had only bitterness for his former sweetheart and died with these cruel thoughts.
I wrote his friend, simply announcing his death; but a few days later came her reply, full of grief. She had received no letter, nor knew anything of his wounds. They had been friends from childhood and she could not believe she would never see him again. “Had he not mentioned her or left some word?” My reply was the saddest and most difficult of all sad letters, for—“It might have been.” I tried to think of some word which he had dropped which might be happily construed, and I certainly strained a point to give this poor heart-stricken girl some little comfort to remember from the boy lover of her childhood.