A Southern Woman's Story

by Phoebe Yates Pember

The whiskey barrel, as I have said before, and suppose I shall often say again, had been a bone of contention from the beginning, and as it afterward proved, continued so to the end. Liquor commanded an enormous price in Dixie, and often if its lovers had the means to procure it, the opportunity was wanting, as the hospital was some distance from Richmond. When first installed in my office, the desire to conciliate, and the belief that men generally had some conscience even on the whiskey question led me to yield to urgent solicitations for it from many quarters; but the demands increased fearfully upon any concession. A reference to Dr. M. about this matter settled the heretofore open question. The doctor said the liquor was intended exclusively for the use of patients, and should only be used through a prescription accompanied by a written order. Also that I was personally responsible for the quantity confided to my care, and must each month produce the surgeon’s receipts to balance with the number of gallons drawn from the medical purveyor. There were at different times half a dozen surgeons and officials around, who absolutely made my life wretched by their importunities, and yet who could not be sent away except by preferring charges against them, and proving those charges; for my hospital was a military organization. I did not feel inclined to brave the publicity of preferred charges, for I seemed to have no recognized rank, and if even I could prove them, the complaints made would be ludicrously petty in detail, though distracting as mosquito bites in the aggregate.

Rats—Hopeless Inebriates.

The modes adopted to outflank me were named “legion.” Some of them can be recalled. A quart bottle of whiskey would be ordered by the officer of the day for each ward, for night use, so that it would be ready at hand should any of the patients need this stimulant during the night. The next morning, on inquiry being made, there had been no case requiring its use, but the bottles would be empty, and expostulation on my part be met with explanations that the rats (who were a very plague), had knocked all the bottles over. On refusing to honor any more demands of the same kind, not believing in the rat story, the surgeon in charge would be appealed to, hear all sides, and favor none. This was just what I anticipated and wanted, for having, for the first few months of my occupation, lived in a state of active terror for fear of violating rules, however injurious the results of obeying, I recompensed myself from that time till the end of my sojourn by acting exactly as I thought right, braving the consequences, and preferring to be attacked to attacking.

What Constitutes a Lady?

One mode of annoying me was particularly offensive—sending a negro boy with a cup and a simple request for whiskey, as if it was the most natural act in the world. At first a polite refusal would be written, but if this mode should have been persevered in, a private secretary would have been necessary; so in time it was replaced by a curt “No.” A few minutes later the boy would again stand before me with the same message, and this would occur half a dozen times consecutively. I did not believe in vicarious punishment, so could not make the messenger responsible—he was compelled to obey; and sometimes, stung to irritation by this senseless pertinacity, I would write a note to the offending party, brief but sharp. The reply would be the same silly question I so often had to meet: “Did Mrs. —— consider herself a lady when she wrote such notes?” “No,” was always the indignant answer. “How could she be, when brought into contact with such elements?” It was strange, with so little outward self-assertion, always dressed in Georgia homespun, often the worse for wear, leather shoes, worsted gloves, and half the time with a skillet or coffee-pot in my hands, that all the common element around me should contest my right to a title to which I never aspired in words.

This fact, which must have been patent to them from the active persecution it entailed, seemed to be a crying grievance. My life at my hospital quarters when relieved from care for the patients was exclusive, from habit, inclination and prudence. Living a great part of my time away from all intercourse with my own sex, in a solitude that was unbroken after dark, it was better that no intimacies should be formed and no preferences shown; and in an exposed position where Argus eyes were always watching, a woman could not be too careful.

The Hero again.

But still the wars of the whiskey barrel continued. One day the men of one of the distant wards sent for me in the absence of their ward-master, and complained that the liquor issued for them never reached them. All concurred in this report, and said the champagne bottles in which it was kept were hid behind a certain vacant bed, from whence they would be abstracted that night. A search on my part brought them to light, still full, although the hour of administering had long past. The ward-master was summoned, the full bottles exhibited, and expressing my surprise at the inhumanity and dishonesty of one I had heretofore thought so honest, I warned him of the consequences that would result to him. His protestations were so earnest that he never tasted liquor, that I could not disbelieve him. What then had “become of the quantity issued, had he sold it?”

The charge was met by indignant surprise, and then the truth began to dawn upon me. That he had been false to his charge and his patients was true, if even he had not been guilty of taking it, and I warned him that on my representing the matter to the proper authorities he would be sent to the field. An hour after this conversation the surgeon of his ward entered my office with belligerent aspect.

Military Law Declared.