[TO BE CONTINUED]
WITH THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE CORPS AT PARIS.
We were sitting under the trees in the Champs Élysées, in sight of the ruined Tuileries, when my friend gave me the following reminiscences. In repeating what I can recall of them, as nearly as I can in his own language, I shall use names with almost as great freedom as he did—a fact for which I think I owe no apology.
"Restore that wreck of the Tuileries," said my friend—but I shall let him tell his story without quotation-marks, and without the interruption of my urging and questionings, that finally got him almost as much interested in his subject as I was myself—Restore that wreck of the Tuileries, and these gay equipages and these loiterers in the Avenue would repeat for you, very nearly, the scene of my first service with the American ambulance. That was before I was a regular member of the corps—in fact, before the corps which operated at the siege of Paris had been properly formed. Dr. Sims, Dr. Tom Pratt, Frank Hayden and others, with three ambulance-wagons, were going to the front: we heard a great deal of "à Berlin!" in the streets in those days. I came down this way to the Palais d'Industrie to see them off, and when I did see the American ladies raising the colors to march through the crowd, I couldn't help taking part in the procession. So I put on the brassard of Geneva—a red cross on a white band strapped on the arm, being the ambulance badge established in 1864 by the International Convention of Geneva—and seized one of the sticks with a sack on the end of it, and began asking contributions for the wounded as the cortege moved on.
It was one of the most exciting scenes I ever witnessed, our march for miles through the crowded boulevards to the station of the Northern Railway. Dr. Sims walked behind his own horses, which headed the procession, and the throng everywhere commented admiringly upon the chic of the fine animals. The American ladies—there were three of them—marched beside the wagons, bearing the French and American colors and the red cross of the International ambulance. We filled and emptied and refilled our sacks with the Napoleons from the monde in their flash barouches and from the loungers of the clubs, and with the greasy sous of the workingmen and grisettes. Many took out purses containing five sous and gave three: many took out purses containing silver and copper, and gave the silver. Old men with feeble sight and hearing would hobble up to us through the crowd and ask, "What is this?"
"For the wounded," we would say—"for France!"
And trembling hands would be thrust into pockets, and "God's blessing on you!" would go with their silver or sous.
Well, well, it was a great day. It was, I believe, the largest collection ever taken up in Paris for the wounded. We shouted ourselves hoarse when the train bore the corps away for Mézières. They served through the war, part of the time with the French, part of the time with the Prussians. Many of them have since been decorated by both governments.
It is to Dr. Evans that the American ambulance owes more perhaps than to any one man. It supported itself, our corps did, and Dr. Evans furnished the largest portion of the money. He had some American ambulance-wagons and the material for a field hospital brought over and exhibited at the Exposition of 1867, and these were still in his possession. They were early offered to the American corps, but a misunderstanding between Dr. Evans and Dr. Sims caused the latter to go to the field with wagons, etc. furnished by the International ambulance. So we who formed the American corps at Paris during the siege had the use of Dr. Evans's wagons and material. The doctor himself accompanied the empress in her flight; but from England he sent money whenever he could get it into Paris, and did all in his power for the ambulance.