It was so with the Hammond Hospital at Beaufort. A pack of idle, worthless fellows, in the enjoyment of the most robust health—who should have been doing duty with their regiments in the field—were employed as clerks and orderlies, who, by a system of espionage upon the actions of the men and of persecution to all who incurred their displeasure, exercised a kind of petty tyranny which made them obnoxious but at the same time feared. These understrappers, while the patients were often deprived of some of the most common and desirable necessaries, reveled in the choicest dishes and delicacies to be obtained, including wines and preserves. This I have seen myself, and mentally contrasted it with the coarse fare of the poor patients who were forced to swallow the barely parboiled salt junk and dry bread, and the abominable milkless and unsweetened slops dignified with the name of tea or coffee.
And yet there was one man in authority, who seemed to do all in his power to remedy the too palpable evils. This was the assistant surgeon, Dr. Vaughan—a New Yorker, I believe. He was a kind, humane man—and to his exertions were due, in a great measure, the reforms that had been made in affairs. I have seen him day after day in the kitchen enforcing a reform in its arrangements; and I noticed, too, that on such occasions our meals were so much better than usual as to elicit remarks of satisfaction from the partakers.
'Red tape,' I presume, is indispensable in the conduct of all affairs pertaining to Government; but no where does its knotted folds tighten with more deadly effects around the destiny of its victims than in the hospitals. Hundreds die in the hospitals every year, who, if transferred to their homes at the North, might recover—if not, they would at least have the consolation of dying among their friends, which is the least that might be accorded by the Government to the poor fellows who become disabled in its service; but as they can not be sent North without a discharge from the service, and often while the discharge papers are passing through the tedious processes of signature ('the mill of the gods grinds slowly') the unfortunate patient becomes impatient, fretful and gloomy at the delay, and that 'hope deferred which maketh the heart sick' in many cases increases the virulence of the disease or brings on a relapse—and the poor fellow, so lately warmed with the pleasing hope of seeing once more his friends and his home, closes forever in blank despair his eyes in the bitterness of death.
[Since the above was written, I find that, through the efforts of Governors of different States and other good men in power, this evil has been partially remedied. I would respectfully but earnestly call the attention of those in power—and especially our good Governor of Massachusetts, who has always been the soldier's friend—to the adoption of some system whereby all sick men who will bear transportation can be sent home to their friends, and by this means thousands of lives may be saved.]
I will instance a case in point, to show the fatal effects of delay in the matter of discharges of sick men. A young man, named Palmer, who belonged to a New York regiment, was sent to the hospital at Beaufort, very sick from chronic dysentery. It was thought by the surgeons, after they had treated his case for a while, that nothing could save his life but a change to a more northern climate; but this could not be effected without a discharge. They interested themselves, however, and the discharge papers were forthcoming in an unusually short space of time. The poor fellow, buoyed with the hope of again seeing his friends, rallied a little, and actually gained considerably in strength; but just as he had got on board the boat at the wharf, which was to take him with a squad of other discharged men to the steamer in waiting, an order came from the surgeon that he must return, as there was some informality in his papers, and a new set would have to be made out. The poor fellow returned; but the shock occasioned by the disappointment was too much for his enfeebled constitution to bear. A relapse ensued, and in a few days he was a corpse—the victim of 'red tape,' or incompetency, or criminal carelessness—which?
I have said the understrappers at the hospital made a 'good thing' out of the necessities of the patients. They did more. The whisky intended for hospital uses was not only used by them, but frequently disposed of to the man-o'-war's men, who paid liberally for the same. The loss to the hospital (or rather the patients) was made up in this wise: When a pail-full of whisky was drawn from the cask, it was said that an equal quantity of water was thrown in—so that when the cask got pretty well down from the withdrawal of the legitimate supplies for hospital use, it was remarked by the patients that they got water diluted with whisky, instead of whisky weakened with water as in the earlier stages of this peculiar process.
There were many other things in the management of this hospital open to criticism—though, doubtless, the fault did not always lay at the door of the surgeon in charge. For example—there was quite a large number of disabled men, whose discharge papers had been made out and sent to headquarters for signature, but had been kept back two, three, and even six months—for no reason whatever save some contemptible quibble or pretense that these papers were not made out correctly. Here were a large number of men unfit for any duty—some of them permanently disabled, others in the last stages of decline, and all anxious to be sent home as soon as possible, since they could be of no further use to and only a burthen upon the Government—kept against their own wishes, at a heavy public expense, and all because Dr. So-and-so, or Medical Director Bobolink, or their understrappers, were too indolent or careless to do their duty properly. Many of the nine-months men who had become disabled and were placed in the hospitals for discharge, were retained for some time after their regiments had been mustered out of service. No doubt it is a good and a very charitable thing to retain disabled men in hospitals whose discharge therefrom would throw them upon the charity of the world; but cases of this kind are very rare. Nearly all have friends who would willingly care for them, or belong to communities who have providently considered such contingent demands upon their charity, and made liberal arrangements to that end. In any case, I believe the condition of such men would be eminently improved by a transfer to the North—either to their friends or to some convalescent hospital or home for disabled soldiers.
I have now drawn towards the close of my narrative, and find that, instead of having room left for an elaborate essay (were I capable of writing one) upon the condition, character and habits of the freedmen, I have only space for a few general remarks. I do not regret this, however, when I reflect that there are many others better qualified for such a task than me.
In the course of my experience with the contrabands, I have been favorably impressed with their capacity for becoming a free people. The negroes seem, as a general thing, to possess a superior vitality to the white men of the South; for, with comparatively poor domestic arrangements and an inferior style of nutriment, they seem to thrive better and be capable of greater endurance and more continued physical exertion. They display a thirst for knowledge—a desire for information—an indomitable faculty of acquisitiveness, and a superior power of imitation, which must lead the social philosopher to but one conclusion, viz., their eminent fitness for advancement in the social scale from the position of bondmen to that of freemen. And the necessity of some such change in the social condition of the negroes of the South cannot but be too apparent to every fair-minded man who has beheld the universal manifestations of the desire for freedom displayed by them. They are endowed with a temperament at once docile and energetic, light and serious. They have considerable aptitude for the mechanic arts, and are probably, some of them, the best practical farmers of the South. They are generally moral and deeply impressed with the sacredness of religion; but it is true at the same time that they have many petty vices—and the wonder is, that under so debasing a system they have any virtues at all. Of the length, breadth and depth of their mental capacity I do not pretend to judge—all white men are not equal in that respect; and I trust I am not one of those who believe that nothing good can come out of Nazareth. As to the radical mental and physical difference which is said to exist between the black and the mulatto, I must confess I could never perceive it—there are the weak, puny and imbecile of both shades of color, at well as the strong and active, intelligent and energetic.
It cannot be denied that, above all other things, the negroes have an unbounded desire for freedom—extravagant only in the risks it will cause them to run to obtain that boon; for, once free, they are content—nay, happy—to begin on the most humble scale to climb the ladder of fortune. They are very domestic in their habits, and where they can find no habitation ready for them when they come into our lines, will set to work, and with such materials as very few white men would make available, erect a hut—not an elaborate one, to be sure, but all sufficient for their humble wants.