One incident should not be passed over. The ladies at the Wayside Hospital, one morning, noticed that a pine box, covered with flowers, was being put on the train. They inquired whose remains were there. The reply was: “In that box lies the body of a young man whose family antedates the Bourbons of France. He was the last Count de Choiseul, and he has died for the South.” So let him be held in perpetual remembrance by all who love the South and revere the past!
The Wayside Hospital was not the only means of lessening the pain and travail of strife devised by “Our Women in the War.” At Charlottesville, Virginia, on April 15, 1862, was organized “The Ladies’ Kitchen,” as it was called. It was first suggested by the daughters of Senator Mason, of Virginia, who came to Charlottesville directly from their old home in Winchester, “where the women were particularly noted for their devotion and systematic attention to disabled soldiers.” And surely what is true of Winchester is true of all the Virginians of all the Valley.
The arrangement at Charlottesville was for a storeroom where provisions were kept, and a kitchen where the Virginia women cooked, with their own hands, such food as the surgeons prescribed. They did not confine themselves to dainty preparations such as custards and jellies, although these were made with rare skill out of materials often inadequate to their presentment, according to prescribed rules. Unused to labor as they were, these gentle women kneaded huge trays full of bread and withheld not their hands from any task, however irksome and laborious. The necessities of the times taught those apt scholars many a strange lesson of economy and ingenuity combined, so that, if the receipts for many a dish concocted to suit the exigencies of Confederate supplies had been written down, they would have added a valuable chapter to the culinary lore of our country. The commissary furnished the storeroom with such substantial as meat, flour, sugar, and also fuel, but to voluntary contributions the managers looked for all else, and seldom was their larder empty.
The Ladies’ Kitchen, at Charlottesville, continued its merciful work from day to day, Sundays included, for three whole years. There was a roll of honor, on which every donation was recorded, but it is believed to have been destroyed at the time of “the great Yankee raid.” Well may it be said, however, that “with no thought of self-seeking were those gifts made, and surely we may look for their record on high, although every vestige of them may have departed from earth, save in the memories of a faithful few.”
There was infinite pathos in the scenes in the hospitals, but there was at times an element of humor in the sadness. Tears and smiles are near allied. An anecdote which is told by Miss Emily V. Mason, of Virginia, illustrates this.
In the field was Gen. R. E. Lee. At home, his gentle wife—Mary Custis Lee—spent most of her time in knitting gloves and socks for the soldiers. Mrs. Lee gave Miss Mason, at one time, several pairs of Gen. Lee’s old socks. Miss Mason says:
“The socks were so darned that we saw that, they had been well worn by our hero. We kept them to apply to the feet of those laggard old soldiers who were suspected of preferring the luxury of hospital life to the activity of the field, and such was the effect of the application of these warlike socks that even a threat of it had the effect of sending a man to his regiment who had been lingering for months in inactivity. It came to be a standing joke in the hospital, and was infinitely enjoyed by the men. If a poor wretch was out of his bed over a week he would be threatened with Gen. Lee’s socks, and through this means some most obstinate chronic cases were cured. Four of the most determined rheumatic patients, who had resisted scarifying of the limbs, and, what was worse, the smallest and thinest of diets, were sent to their regiments and did good service afterwards. With these men the socks had to be left on several hours amidst shouts of laughter from the assistants, showing that, though men may resist pain and starvation, they succumb at once to ridicule.”
To appreciate what was accomplished in hospitals and kitchens and by individual effort for the care and comfort of the soldiers, it is only necessary to compare the resources of the Southern people with those which were at the command of the Northern soldiers and their friends. To these the whole world was open; their means were boundless. In the South there was need of the utmost ingenuity to procure what was strictly requisite. Of all the marvels of Southern life, in those days, none was greater than the success of the women in making much out of little, and apparently something out of nothing. Their love, their devotion, gave them a patient ingenuity and enduring readiness which no phrase can adequately portray or define.