This proposition of organizing a large field hospital with women nurses was at first generally looked upon as impracticable. It was urged that it had never been done, that women could not endure the hardships of field life, and that they would be an embarrassment in the camps, and so it was altogether as an experiment that the nurses were allowed to begin their work at the Sternberg Hospital. Something of the success of the experiment in changing the attitude of the surgeons toward the idea of women nurses in the field is shown by the following letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Hoff to Miss Cromelien, in which he says:
I desire to express my sense of obligation to you and the society you represent for the generous offer made on the 2d of August to supply Sternberg Hospital with trained nurses and meet all their natural wants, which offer, with the approval of the surgeon-general of the army, I accepted on the 3d instant.
A very short time after this you established a nursing service in this field hospital, which I venture to say is not surpassed in any hospital, and is equaled in few,—a service which already has brought to our sick soldiers untold comfort, and is aiding materially in their restoration to health and strength. Certainly no nobler undertaking could be inaugurated and carried out by the women of our country, and none deserving of greater appreciation.
The following tribute from Major Giffen, the surgeon in command at the Sternberg Hospital, is equally significant:
The Red Cross Society for the Maintenance of Trained Nurses can truly say, Veni, Vidi, Vici, for without their helping hand I would have been unable to have stayed the dread disease that has been raging in our camp. Their helping hand came in the hour of need, and the history of the future shall record each and every member of the Red Cross Society as the guardian angels of the Sternberg Hospital. My experience of years of hospital work has enabled me to judge of the abilities of nurses, and I am proud to say that this corps of nurses, under the excellent supervision of Miss Maxwell, has never before been equaled.
About the first of August the arrival of the transports from Santiago, and the opening of Camp Wikoff, at Montauk Point, afforded another great opportunity. The call, however, was sudden, and no chance was given to the auxiliary to provide tents specially fitted for the comfort of the nurses, as was done at the Sternberg Hospital. By special arrangement with the surgeon-general, the nurses ordered by him to Montauk reported to the acting president of the auxiliary and were sent forward immediately, or, as the occasion demanded, were cared for over night. Much has been said in criticism of the hospital conditions at Montauk, and too little of the fine service of the surgeons and nurses, who, under trying conditions, worked day and night to save the lives of their patients. Under the efficient management of Mrs. L.W. Quintard, of St. Luke’s Hospital, the nurses took up their labors with enthusiasm and with a determination to make the best of existing circumstances. By personal visits to the camp the acting president was enabled to ameliorate in many ways the hard conditions under which the nurses were so bravely working. Supplies of all sorts were sent down with the least possible delay.
In the Detention Hospital, at Camp Wikoff, the fifty nurses to whose special needs Miss Virginia C. Young devoted herself on behalf of the auxiliary, cared for nearly eighteen hundred seriously ill soldiers, many of whom had had yellow fever in Cuba, and were suffering, when brought to the hospital, from typhoid fever, pernicious malarial fever and dysentery. A few had measles or diphtheria. Sixty-two, or rather less than 4 per cent, of these patients died, a result which is believed to bear striking testimony to the quality and success of the care they received. In a graphic account of her experience at this hospital Miss Young writes:
I wish I could make the women of the auxiliary fully understand what their splendid generosity meant to us who had the joy of ministering in their name. For the fifty women who fought day by day that grim battle with disease and death could but have wrung their hands in hopeless impotence had it not been for the hundreds of other women by whose aid we were able to carry on our work. One could have no more eloquent testimony to this than that furnished by a walk through one of the fever wards of Detention Hospital, where the men lay on Red Cross cots, in Red Cross pajamas, covered by Red Cross sheets and blankets, and taking their Red Cross medicines or broth or delicacies from Red Cross cups and glasses at the hands of Red Cross nurses.
Through the energy of Mrs. M.H. Willard, agent for the auxiliary, and with the permission of Colonel Forwood, a diet kitchen was opened at the General Hospital, at Camp Wikoff, for the sick and convalescent soldiers. The expense of maintaining this kitchen was shortly afterwards entirely assumed by the government and by the Massachusetts Volunteer Aid Association. So successful was its operation under Mrs. Willard’s administration that four additional kitchens were opened. It is estimated that more than twenty thousand specially prepared meals for the sick and the convalescent have been served from these five kitchens.
When the rooms of the Long Island City Relief Station were opened, near the railroad station, this auxiliary offered to supply the services of a physician and nurses, and continued to do so until, by reason of the removal of the troops, the need for the relief station ceased. One does not soon forget the first days when the soldiers began to arrive, the kindly interest felt by every one in and about the railroad station, the eagerness of the small newsboy to show the soldiers where the “Red Cross” was. To the soldier himself, weakened by illness and the fatigue of the journey, the place seemed a veritable haven of rest. Arrangements were made by the ladies in charge to send the very sick men immediately to the hospitals in Brooklyn and New York. The others were given proper food and cared for until morning, or for the several days that sometimes elapsed until the soldier was able to continue his journey.