At 9 A. M., the Webster started on her second trip, and there was time to look after the other vessels which were being fitted for the service. One company had been put at work on the Elm City, and another on the Knickerbocker, both these river boats having been handed over by the Quartermaster's Department to the Commission, to be fitted for hospital service. Stores had also been ordered to the State of Maine, a government hospital in need. All was found proceeding well with the limited force on the Elm City; but the Knickerbocker, where was she?
(M.) Steamboat Knickerbocker, May 13th.—If my letter smells of Yellow B, it has a right to, as my paper is the cover of the sugar-box. Since I last wrote, we have been jerking about from boat to boat, fitting up one, and starting her off, then doing the same by another. We came on board this boat Saturday night. She had then about two hundred wounded men on board, taken from the Williamsburg fight, and bound for Fort Monroe, two of the ladies and assistants to look after the sick during the few hours' run, and others to get things on hand, and fit up the wards. We had fifty-six Commission beds made on the upper ward floor that night, and were ready to go on shore at Fort Monroe after the three and a half hours from Yorktown. Dr. C. came on board and had all the men carefully removed to the Hygeia Hospital, and we improved the opportunity to get some roses from the garden for our wounded men left on the Small, and to see Mr. Lincoln driving past to take possession of Norfolk. We lay at the fort all night, and were blown awake the next morning by the explosion of the Merrimack, when I found to my amazement that along-side of us lay the Daniel Webster, No. 2, Government hospital, with four or five of our Commission company on board, whom we had left at Yorktown. She ran, in passing, along-side our supply ships, (all our boats of the Sanitary Commission are known by their flags,) just after we came away, and begged for help. Mr. A. tossed on board everything necessary, including two ladies, two surgeons, and blankets, and started them off after us to the Fortress, with two hundred badly wounded men. They had been wholly uncared for till our people got on board. They did all they could for them in so short a time, washed them, gave them good suppers and breakfasts, and Drs. W. and W. dressed the worst wounds, watching them all night as tenderly as women could. This boat was all the next day unloading her sick; they were miserably wounded, and had to be lifted with great care. We on the Knickerbocker started up the river again, and anchored off Yorktown.... We wanted a stove for our hospital kitchen on board, which has to be kept distinct from the kitchen of the ship's crew; so we went ashore with —— to seize upon anything we could find; poked about in all the rebel barracks, asked all the soldiers we met about it, and finally came upon the sutler's hut,—sutler of the Enfans Perdus, who was cooking something nice for the officers' mess over a stove with four places for pots! This was too much to stand, so under a written authority given to "Dr. Olmsted" by the Quartermaster of this department, we proceeded to rake out the sutler's fire and lift his pots off;—and he offered us his cart and mule to drag the stove to the boat, and would take no pay! So, through the wretched town, filled with the débris of huts and camp furniture, old blankets, dirty cast-off clothing, smashed gun-carriages, exploded guns, vermin and filth everywhere,—and along the sandy shore covered with cannon-balls, tossed into the river, and rolled back,—we followed the mule, a triumphant procession, waving our broken bits of stove-pipe and iron pot-covers. I left a polite message for the "Colonel perdu,"—which had to stand him in place of his lost dinner,—and I shall never understand what was the matter with that sutler, whose self-sacrifice secured our three hundred men their meals promptly.
The next morning the Knickerbocker, to the surprise of the Commission, was not to be found. They searched the fleet twice through for us, but in vain, and finally heard at the Quartermaster's office, that a requisition had been received at midnight for a boat to go at once to the advance of the army, on the Pamunkey River, and the Knickerbocker had been taken for it, the fact of her having been assigned to the Commission being entirely forgotten. The only mitigation of the anxieties of those who remained, for the ladies on board, was the assurance that the boat would soon return. Meantime, we, on board, sailed up the Pamunkey, getting a fine chance to perfect the hospital arrangements. We unpacked tins and clothing, filled a linen closet in each ward, had beds put in order for three hundred, got up our stove, set kitchen in order, filled store closets, and arranged a black-hole with a lock to it, where oranges grow, and brandy and wine are stored box upon box; and on reaching Franklin's head-quarters, the messenger transacted his business, we landed a file of soldiers and a surgeon of the division, who had shown us great kindness on the voyage, and were allowed to push off again unmolested. The army lay all along the shore, and General Franklin's head-quarters were in a large storehouse back from the river. We found on our return to Yorktown every one at work fitting up the Spaulding.
An order had been obtained from the Quartermaster for the planks and boards of some rebel platforms, with which to put up bunks, etc., and a gang of contrabands were set at the business. While this was going on, a visit was made to the surgeon in charge of the shore hospitals, with whom, after debate, it was agreed that the Elm City should be made ready by two o'clock to take on the sick who were waiting transport near the shore. The State of Maine was at the same time to be supplied and made ready to follow without delay. Going on board the Small again to carry out these arrangements, A. was met by a note from the Quartermaster enclosing a telegram from the Medical Director of the army at Williamsburg, demanding a boat provided with "straw and water to be ready to take on two hundred sick and wounded within two hours at Queen's Creek." The despatch concluded, "This is of the utmost urgency. See the Sanitary Commission." The only boat in the fleet that had a fair supply of water on board was the Elm City, already assigned for other duty, and she had no stores of food. There was about one day's supply of provisions for two hundred men on the Small, and A. wrote at once to the surgeon in charge of the shore hospitals, that, to meet an order of the Medical Director, it had become necessary to change the arrangements just before made with him. He would have to withdraw the Elm City, but as supplies could be sent immediately to the State of Maine, she could be got ready before night to take her place. The Small was then put in motion, and first the Elm City was hailed in passing, with orders to "fire up and heave short, and be all ready to move in half an hour," thence to the Alida, which was sent with the supplies to the State of Maine, and then back past the Elm City, ordering her to follow, and so in good time up to the mouth of Queen's Creek, by the side of the Kennebec, loading with wounded Secession prisoners, brought out of the creek by light-draft stern-wheelers. The process of embarkation, witnessed at a point some distance up the creek, was rude, careless, and quite unnecessarily painful; the miserable wretches of rebels being made to climb a plank, set up at an angle of forty-five degrees, which they could only do by the aid of a rope thrown to them from the deck. Strange to say, they themselves made no complaint, but appeared to think that they were well treated. So much for habit. The only assistance the Commission could render was to make the pathway less slippery by nailing cleats closely together across the steep planks. To do this, nails were bought of an old man near by, who at first asserted decidedly that not a nail could be found on his premises, until he was offered one dollar for twenty-five, when an abundant supply was discovered.
Notwithstanding the Medical Director's telegram, that the case was one of the "utmost urgency," no sick men were found at the place of embarkation on the creek, nor could any be heard of nearer than at Williamsburg. Proceeding thither, with great difficulty,—passing on the way directly through the field of the late battle,—A. inquired of the first man he met after entering the town, "Where is the hospital?" "The hospital, sir? Every house in the town is a hospital; you cannot go amiss for one." And this seemed to be literally true. Finding the Medical Director, he learned that he thought it important to relieve the hospitals by transportation as fast as he, in any way, could; but not supposing it possible that the telegraphic order could be literally complied with, he had taken no measures as yet to send the two hundred patients in question to the place appointed for embarkation. It was agreed, however, that a convoy of ambulances should be started at daylight, and A. returned to the mouth of Queen's Creek, and despatched B. with the Small to Yorktown to bring up additional stores from the Elm City, upon which the half-completed work of filling bed-sacks and other preparations also continued through the night. With the first boat-load of the wounded brought off in the morning, arose one of those conflicts of authority which so often embarrassed the Commission at this time in its work.
(A.) At the first step I was met by a Brigade Surgeon coming on board from the Kennebec, who went about giving orders over my head, changing my arrangements. As he persisted, and refused to compromise after I showed my written authority from the Medical Director, I told him that I should allow no sick to come on board until I was satisfied with the arrangements. He then declared that he should go to the Medical Director. "The very thing I want, and I will go with you. Meantime the sick, if any arrive, shall come on board, and Dr. Ware, here, will see to their disposition, if you please." He assented, and we then went to the landing and saw the lighter again loaded with sick, in the same manner as yesterday. When she was full, the surgeon said he should return upon her to the Elm City, "But I thought we were to go together to the Medical Director, sir!" "I have concluded not to do so, but have written to inform him that my authority is questioned." I deemed it best, after this, to go again to the Medical Director myself, and, after a tedious delay, got passage on a forage-wagon loaded with oats. What with the continuous atmosphere of thick yellow dust, and the jar of the heavy wagon over execrable roads, this was a hard ride.
I found the Medical Director, got a copy of an order which the Brigade Surgeon should have received yesterday, but which had failed of transmission to him, which failure justified officially his assertion of authority over any transport coming at that time to that anchorage.