Their work was, however, principally done in the Patent Office Hospital, where they took a regular charge of a certain number of patients, and rendered excellent service, where service was, at that time, greatly needed.
While thus engaged they were one day invited by a friend from New York to take a drive in the outskirts of the city. Washington was at that time like a great camp, and was environed by fortifications, with the camps of different divisions, brigades, regiments, to each of which were attached the larger and smaller hospitals, where the sick and suffering languished, afar from the comforts and affectionate cares of home, and not yet inured to the privations and discomforts of army life. It can without doubt be said that they were patient, and when we remember that the most of them were volunteers, fresh from home, and new to war, that perhaps was all that could reasonably be expected of them.
The drive of Mrs. Gibbons, and her friends extended further than was at first intended, and they found themselves at Fall's Church, fifteen miles from the city. Here was a small force of New York troops, and their hospital containing about forty men, most of them very sick with typhoid fever.
Mrs. Gibbons and her daughter entered the hospital. All around were the emaciated forms, and pale, suffering faces of the men—their very looks an appeal for kindness which it was hardly possible for these ladies to resist.
One of them, a young man from Penn Yan, New York, fixed his sad imploring gaze upon the face of Mrs. Gibbons. Pale as if the seal of death had already been set upon his features, dreadfully emaciated, and too feeble for the least movement, except those of the large, dark, restless eyes, which seemed by the very intensity of their expression to draw her toward him. She approached and compassionately asked if there was anything she could do for him. The reply seemed to throw upon her a responsibility too heavy to be borne.
"Come and take care of me, and I shall get well. If you do not come, I shall die."
It was very hard to say she could not come, and with the constantly recurring thought of his words, every moment made it harder. It was, however, impossible at that time.
After distributing some little offerings they had brought, the party was forced to leave, carrying with them a memory of such suffering and misery as they had not before encountered. Fall's Church was situated in a nest of secessionists, who would have been open rebels except for the presence of the troops. No woman had ever shown her face within the walls of its hospital. The routine of duty had probably been obeyed, but there had been little sympathy and only the blundering care of men, entirely ignorant of the needs of the sick. The men were dying rapidly, and the number in the hospital fast diminishing, not by convalescence, but by death.
After she had gone away, the scene constantly recurred to Mrs. Gibbons, and she felt that a field of duty opened before her, which she had no right to reject. In a few days an opportunity for another visit occurred, which was gladly embraced. The young volunteer was yet living, but too feeble to speak. Again his eyes mutely implored help, and seemed to say that only that could beat back the advances of death. This time both ladies had come with the intention of remaining.
The surgeon was ready to welcome them, but told them there was no place for them to live. But that difficulty was overcome, as difficulties almost always are by a determined will. The proprietor of a neighboring "saloon," or eating-house, was persuaded to give the ladies a loft floored with unplaned boards, and boasting for its sole furniture, a bedstead and a barrel to serve as table and toilet. Here for the sum of five dollars per week, each, they were allowed to sleep, and they took their meals below.