Robert Merry's Museum, Volumes V-VI (1843)

by Various

He was distinguished alike for manly beauty, fine intellect, and true nobleness of soul. Eminent in his profession, he had acquired wealth, which had been used to embellish his home, bestow the advantages of education upon his family, and dispense charity around him. His wife was in every respect his equal.

I remember her well, for she lived to the age of threescore and ten, and when I was a boy, and sat upon her knee, she told me the tales which I am now telling. In her old age, her tall form was erect, her eye black and piercing, and as she walked upon her high-heeled shoes, she seemed the very image of dignity. She was still scrupulous as to her toilette; and though she had the long waist, the tall cap, the frizzed gray hair, the rich, stiff, black silk of the olden time, there was a graciousness of manner, a heavenly sanctity of countenance about her, which rendered her, as my memory has preserved her portrait, one of the most beautiful beings I have ever beheld. There is surely no extravagance in conceiving that the two noble elms that stood before the old mansion, were emblematic of the master and mistress who presided over it.

For a series of years, an unbroken tide of prosperity had seemed to attend the Joinly family. In the enjoyment of wealth and respectability, they also possessed the confidence and good will of all around. They might, perhaps, be considered a little aristocratic, and there was doubtless something of family pride in their hearts.

But these things were common in that day; the English custom of dividing society into different ranks was prevalent in the country. Where there was wealth, talent, and good character, a certain degree of superiority was assumed. It did not then, as in our day, give offence, for such was the practice of the people; and especially in the case of the Joinlys, was the rank assumed on the one hand, and accorded on the other, without provoking unpleasant feelings. In the dignity they maintained, there was nothing of strutting, of haughtiness, or pride; and such was their reputation for kindness, hospitality and charity to all, that envy was disarmed and scandal silenced.

Such was the state of things when the hospital on Duck Island was destroyed. This was a serious disaster; for the amount of property that was lost was considerable. It was, however, followed by other calamities. Colonel Joinly expended a large sum of money in preparing his own outfit and that of the regiment, all of which was speedily dissipated. Beside this, the unfortunate result of his expedition, though in no respect occasioned by want of skill or courage, had impaired the reputation of the colonel, and served in no small degree to mortify the feelings of the family.

But more than all, his prolonged captivity, and the circumstances which attended it, served to harass both himself and those who were nearest and dearest to his heart. He was detained at the western extremity of Long Island, contiguous to New York, where a large number of American prisoners were kept. Some of these were in barracks, and others in the hulks of large vessels, which were moored near the shore of the present town of Brooklyn.

Crowded closely together in these dismal apartments, with unwholesome and scanty food, surrounded with a putrid atmosphere, and deprived of every comfort, the poor wretches suffered everything that humanity could endure. Many of them fell victims to these miseries, as well as to diseases engendered by destitution, famine, and an infectious atmosphere.—Colonel Joinly, from his rank, was spared these miseries; but he was a physician, and seeing the sufferings of these poor wretches, his generous heart was touched with pity, and, from the first, he devoted himself to their alleviation as far as was in his power. He expended the little money he possessed in the purchase of medicines, and when this was exhausted, he sent home to his family, begging them to forward him all the money in their power to be employed in this pressing charity.

Though already impoverished, and struggling under many difficulties, his wife despatched all the money she could collect, and added several articles of jewelry. All this was soon expended, and still there was a demand for more. The colonel, at length, exchanged his gold watch and his gold sleeve buckles for medicines; and finally he proceeded to some of the merchants in New York, and ran in debt to a considerable amount for the same object.

From the earliest dawn, till late at night, he was devoted to the poor, suffering soldiers. Sometimes an hundred of them were prostrate with disease, and he was the only physician. Naturally of a kind and sympathizing nature, he felt the sorrows of these poor creatures as if they were his own. He not only administered to them as a physician, but he alleviated their sorrows in every way that his ingenuity could suggest.

The soldiers looked upon him as their only friend, and they regarded him with an affection almost bordering upon idolatry. In a multitude of cases, he was called by the dying soldiers to communicate their last words to their friends, and a large part of his time was taken up in writing letters of this nature. Nothing could exceed the patience, the gentleness, the sympathy, with which he would sit by the bedside of the dying, soothing their agonies of body and softening their mental sorrows.