(N.) June 5th.... We had been helping the ladies on the Elm City all night, had returned to our quarters, and just washed and dressed, when Captain —— came on board, to say that several hundred wounded men were lying at the landing,—that the Daniel Webster No. 2 had been filled, and the surplus was being sent on board the Vanderbilt,—that the confusion was terrible; there were no stores on board either vessel. Of course the best in our power had to be done. Our supply-boat Elizabeth came up. We begged Mr. —— not to refrain from sending us because we had been up all night; he said that he wouldn't send us, but if, in view of so much misery, we chose to offer our services to the United States surgeon in charge, he thought it would be merciful. We went on board, and such a scene as we entered and lived in for two days I trust never to see again. Men in every condition of horror, shattered and shrieking, were being brought in on stretchers, borne by contrabands, who dumped them anywhere, banged the stretchers against pillars and posts, and walked over the men without compassion. There was no one to direct what ward or what beds they were to go into. The men had mostly been without food since Saturday, but there was nothing on board for them, and the cook was only engaged to cook for the ship, and not for the hospital.
The first thing wounded men want is lemonade and ice (with the sick, stimulants are the first thing); after that, we give them tea and bread. Imagine a boat like the Bay State, filled on every deck, every berth,—and every square inch of room covered with wounded men,—even the stairs and gangways and guards filled with those who are less badly wounded,—and then imagine fifty well men, on every kind of errand, hurried and impatient, rushing to and fro over them, every touch bringing agony to the poor fellows,—while stretcher after stretcher still comes along, hoping to find an empty place; and then imagine what it was to keep calm ourselves, and make sure that each man on our own boat, the Elm City, and then on this, was properly refreshed and fed. We got through about one o'clock at night, Mrs. —— and Miss —— having come off other duty, and reinforced us. We were sitting for a few moments resting and talking it over, and bitterly asking why a government, so lavish and so perfect in its other departments, should leave its wounded almost literally to take care of themselves, when a message came that one hundred and fifty men were just arriving by the cars. It was raining in torrents, and both boats were full. We went on shore again; the same scene repeated. The Kennebec was brought up, and the one hundred and fifty men carried across the Daniel Webster No. 2 to her, with the exception of some fearfully wounded ones who could not be touched in the darkness and rain, and were, therefore, left in the cars. We gave refreshments to all; a detail of young men from the Spaulding coming up in time to assist, and the officers of the Sebago (gunboat), who had seen how hard pressed we were in the afternoon, volunteering for the night-watch. Add to this sundry members of Congress, who, if they talked much, at least worked well. We went to bed at daylight with breakfast on our minds. At half past six we were all on board the Webster No. 2, and the breakfast of six hundred men was got through with before our own.
(A lady on the Knickerbocker.) Sunday.—"Three hundred wounded to come on board!" I wish you could see the three hundred white beds, with a clean shirt and drawers laid ready for each man.... They began to bring them in about noon. Many of them were shockingly hurt; but the men were proud of their wounds, and one of them, an artist, private of a New York regiment, was thankful that he had only lost a leg,—"so glad it wasn't his arm!" We went directly at work washing them, doing what we could, too, at dressing wounds which had been hastily bandaged on the battle-field thirty-six hours before. Men very patient and grateful always.
(A.) Sunday Night.—The Knickerbocker had, by estimate, three hundred and fifty on board. The night being fine, many were disposed of on the outer decks, and before I left, at eleven o'clock, nearly all had been washed, dressed, and put to bed decently, and were as comfortable as circumstances would admit of our making them. All had received needed nourishment, and such surgical and medical attention as was immediately demanded. Leaving the Knickerbocker in this satisfactory condition, I came back in a small boat, at midnight, to the landing, where I found that the Elm City already had five hundred wounded on board. I ordered her to run down and anchor near the Knickerbocker. There had been a special order in her case from the Medical Director to go to Washington. (I judge that this was given under the misapprehension that she had failed to go to Yorktown, and had her sick still on board.) She was unable to go at once for want of coal, which could not be furnished her till the evening of the next day (Monday). This finished the Commission's boats for the present. The State of Maine had been ordered to the landing by the Harbor-master, and the wounded remaining on shore, excluded from the Elm City, were flocking on board of her. Our ladies on the Elm City sent them some food, and we put on board from our supply-boat bedding and various stores, of which there was evident need, without waiting to be asked, and without finding any one to receive them, the surgeons being fully engrossed in performing operations of pressing necessity.
The battle had been renewed in the morning of this day (Sunday), and we had sent a relief party, composed of medical students and male nurses, with supplies of stimulants, lint, etc., to the battle-field hospitals. A portion of this party returned about midnight, with another large train of wounded. All our force that could possibly be withdrawn from duty on the boats was immediately employed in distributing drink, and in carrying the wounded from the railroad to the boat. Some men died on the cars. I made another visit to the Knickerbocker in the morning, and on my return (Monday), found that a train had just arrived, and the wounded men were walking in a throng across the scow to the Webster No. 2, Government Hospital, the only boat remaining at the landing. I knew that she was not prepared for them, and sent for Dr. S., the representative of the Medical Director. Dr. S. could not be found. I asked for the medical officer in charge of the Webster No. 2. The Captain said there was none, and that he had no orders except to bring his boat to the landing. I inquired for the surgeon in charge of the railroad train, but could find none. There was no one in charge of the wounded. Meantime they were taken out of the cars, and assisted towards the landing by volunteer bystanders, until the gang-planks of the boat, the landing-scow, and the adjoining river-banks were crowded. I finally concluded that Dr. S. must have intended them to go on board the Webster No. 2. I could find no one in the crowd who professed to have received his orders, but, as many were nearly fainting in the sun, I advised the Captain to let them come on board. He did so, and they hobbled on, till the boat was crowded in all parts. The Small was outside the Webster No. 2, and our ladies administered as far as possible to their relief. Going on shore, I found still a great number, including the worst cases, lying on litters, gasping in the fervid sun. I do not describe such a scene. The worst cases I had brought upon the Small. Two died on the forward deck, under the shade of the awning, within half an hour. One was senseless when brought on; the other revived for a moment, while Mrs. G. bathed his head with ice-water, just long enough to whisper the address of his father, and to smile gratefully, then passed away, holding her hand.
... At the time of which I am now writing (Monday afternoon), wounded men were arriving by every train, entirely unattended, or with at most a detail of two soldiers, two hundred or more of them in a train. They were packed as closely as they could be stowed in the common freight-cars, without beds, without straw, at most with a wisp of hay under their heads. Many of the lighter cases came on the roof of the cars. They arrived, dead and living together, in the same close box, many with awful wounds festering and swarming with maggots. Recollect it was midsummer in Virginia, clear and calm. The stench was such as to produce vomiting with some of our strong men, habituated to the duty of attending the sick. How close they were packed, you may infer from a fact reported by my messenger to Dr. Tripler, who, on his return from Head-quarters, was present at the loading of a car. A surgeon was told that it was not possible to get another man upon the floor of the car. "Then," said he, "these three men must be laid in across the others, for they have got to be cleared out from here by this train!" This outrage was avoided, however.
Need I tell you that the women were always ready to press into these places of horror, going to them in torrents of rain, groping their way by dim lantern-light, at all hours of night, carrying spirits and ice-water; calling back to life those in despair from utter exhaustion, or again and again catching for mother or wife the last faint whispers of the dying?
One Dr. —— was at this time the only man on the ground who claimed to act as a medical officer of the United States. He was without instructions and without authority, and, though miraculously active, could do nothing toward bringing about the one thing wanted, orderly responsibility, and while he was there, ——, who might otherwise have done something, would not interfere. Dr. Ware, of our party, was at one time the only other medical man on the ground. The Spaulding, Dr. —— in charge, arrived Monday night, but not in a condition to be made directly useful, being laden with government stores, which could not at once be removed by the quartermaster. Her physicians and students, however, could never have been more welcome. I put one half her eager company at once at work on the Webster No. 2. Captain Sawtelle, at my request, pitched a hospital tent for the ladies at the river-bank by the railroad, behind which a common camp-kitchen was established. To this tent quantities of stores have now been conveyed, and soup and tea in camp-kettles are kept constantly hot there. Before this arrangement was complete, and until other stores arrived, we were for a time very hard put to it to find food of any kind to meet the extraordinary demand upon us. Just as everything was about giving out, B. found a sutler, who told him that he had five hundred loaves of bread on board of a boat which had just arrived at Cumberland, but he had no way of getting it immediately up. A conditional bargain was immediately struck, and the Elizabeth hastened off to Cumberland to bring up the bread. When it arrived, to our horror, it proved to be so mouldy it could not be used. B., almost crying with disappointment, started again to make a search through the exhausted sutlers' stores of the post. While doing so, he came upon a heap of boxes and barrels unopened and "unaccounted for." "What's all this?" "Sutlers' goods." "Who owns them?" "I do. I am the sutler of the —— New York, up to the front. I want to get them up there, but I can't get transportation." "What's in here?" said B. in great excitement. "Mack'rel in them barrels." "What's in the boxes!" "That's wine biscuit. There's two barrels of molasses and a barrel of vinegar. I've got forty barrels of soft tack, too." "Where's that?" "That's one of 'em"; and B., hardly waiting for leave, seized a musket, and jammed a head off. It was aerated bread, and not a speck of mould upon it! He bought the sutler's whole stock on the spot, and in half an hour the ladies were dealing out bread spread with molasses, and iced vinegar and water....