A Southern Woman's Story

by Phoebe Yates Pember

Startling Proposition.

About this time one of these large hospitals was to be opened, and the wife of the then acting secretary of war offered me the superintendence—rather a startling proposition to a woman used to all the comforts of luxurious life. Foremost among the Virginia women, she had given her resources of mind and means to the sick, and her graphic and earnest representations of the benefit a good and determined woman’s rule could effect in such a position settled the result in my mind. The natural idea that such a life would be injurious to the delicacy and refinement of a lady—that her nature would become deteriorated and her sensibilities blunted, was rather appalling. But the first step only costs, and that was soon taken.

First Appearance on any Stage.

A preliminary interview with the surgeon-in-chief gave necessary confidence. He was energetic—capable—skillful. A man with ready oil to pour upon troubled waters. Difficulties melted away beneath the warmth of his ready interest, and mountains sank into mole-hills when his quick comprehension had surmounted and leveled them. However troublesome daily increasing annoyances became, if they could not be removed, his few and ready words sent applicants and grumblers home satisfied to do the best they could. Wisely he decided to have an educated and efficient woman at the head of his hospital, and having succeeded, never allowed himself to forget that fact.

Petticoat Government.

The day after my decision was made found me at “headquarters,” the only two-story building on hospital ground, then occupied by the chief surgeon and his clerks. He had not yet made his appearance that morning, and while awaiting him, many of his corps, who had expected in horror the advent of female supervision, walked in and out, evidently inspecting me. There was at that time a general ignorance on all sides, except among the hospital officials, of the decided objection on the part of the latter to the carrying out of a law which they prognosticated would entail “petticoat government;” but there was no mistaking the stage-whisper which reached my ears from the open door of the office that morning, as the little contract surgeon passed out and informed a friend he met, in a tone of ill-concealed disgust, that “one of them had come.”

Dull, but necessary Details.

To those not acquainted with hospital arrangements, some explanations are necessary. To each hospital is assigned a surgeon-in-chief. To each division of the hospital, a surgeon in charge. To each ward of the division, an assistant surgeon. But when the press of business is great, contract doctors are also put in charge of wards. The surgeon-in-chief makes an inspection each day, calling a board of inferior surgeons to make their report to him. The surgeon in charge is always on the ground, goes through the wards daily, consulting with his assistants and reforming abuses, making his report daily to the surgeon-in-chief. The assistant surgeon has only his one or two wards to attend, passing through them twice each day and prescribing. In cases of danger he calls in the surgeon in charge for advice or assistance. The contract surgeons performed the same duties as assistant surgeons, but ranked below them, as they were not commissioned officers and received less pay. Each ward had its corps of nurses, unfortunately not practised or expert in their duties, as they had been sick or wounded men, convalescing and placed in that position,—however ignorant they might be,—till strong enough for field duty. This arrangement bore very hard upon all interested, and harder upon the sick, as it entailed constant supervision and endless teaching; but the demand for men in the field was too imperative to allow those who were fit for their duties there to be detained for nursing purposes, however skillful they may have become.

Besides these mentioned, the hospital contained an endless horde of stewards and their clerks; surgeons’ clerks; commissaries and their clerks; quartermasters and clerks; apothecaries and clerks; baggage-masters; forage-masters; wagon-masters; cooks; bakers; carpenters; shoemakers; ward-inspectors; ambulance-drivers; and many more; forgotten hangers-on, to whom the soldiers gave the name of “hospital rats” in common with would-be invalids who resisted being cured from a disinclination to field service. They were so called, it is to be supposed, from the difficulty of getting rid of either species. Still, many of them were physically unfit for the field.

Initiation.