Her presence in the hospital was soon evident. The surgeons found with surprise that her skill and knowledge were equal to every requirement, that she shrank from no task, however fearfully repelling it might be, and they quickly began to avail themselves of her womanly deftness. To the soldiers she was a perpetual blessing. Every means which her thoughtful experience could suggest she put in requisition to soothe their pain or strengthen them to bear it. Nature, who never denies all gifts to any of her children, had given her a good voice, not powerful, but sweet and penetrating, and often, when all else failed, I have seen her lull a patient to sleep with some favorite tune set to appropriate words. Priceless indeed were her services, and priceless was the recompense she received.
But for the humor that peeped out occasionally in Miss Sunderland, to an ordinary observer her character—as she moved unambitiously through the wards, doing always the right thing at the right time, unexpectant of blame and regardless of praise, obeying directions apparently to the very letter, yet never allowing the mistakes or carelessness of the director to mar her own work—would have seemed almost colorless; but I have never considered myself an ordinary observer where character is concerned, and I soon saw that hers was not the unreasoning goodness of instinct, that it derived life and tone from a past full of culture and discipline. I noticed in her three things particularly: First, complete and unusual happiness, a happiness entirely independent of the incidents of the day. It was as if an unclouded sun were perpetually shining in her heart. This came, I knew afterward, from the fact that she was serving the cause she loved most, that she was doing her work well, and that through it and connected with it she found place for all her best qualities and highest knowledge. Second, her thorough refinement. Without, as I perceived, hereditary breeding, and without conventional pruderies, she had a rare purity and elevation of feeling, which exerted a manifest and constant influence, sadly needed in a soldiers' hospital. Third, her life within. From choice, not from necessity, her life continually turned upon itself; from within she found her chief motive, sanction, and reward, and this took from her intercourse with others all pettiness, and made their relations to herself uncommonly truthful.
From time to time, as the scene of battle shifted, we removed to other hospitals, I always accompanying Miss Sunderland; but at last, in the spring, we again got back to Washington. The battles all around were raging fearfully, and the wounded were continually brought to us in scores. Day and night Miss Sunderland was engaged. Usually careful of herself in the extreme, she seemed now to forget all prudence.
'You cannot endure this,' said I one day to her. 'Your first duty is to take care of your health.'
'No, no,' said she, 'my first duty is to save the lives of these men; the second, to take care of my health for their future benefit; but I cannot give out now. Don't you see how necessary my work is?'
'Yes, I see it,' I replied. 'I don't know how you could spare yourself, but it does not seem right that you should be entirely worn out.'
'Yes, it is right,' answered she; 'a life saved now is of as much consequence as one saved next year. I am useful at this time, for I understand my profession; but others are learning the art of nursing in no feeble school, and if I die, you will find plenty of new comers ready to fill my place.'
I knew from this that she anticipated the result, yet neither did I myself see how it could be avoided; but I resolved to watch and spare her all I could.
During all the year, notwithstanding her unceasing cares, she had kept herself well informed on public affairs. She knew every incident of the war, and particularly all its moral defeats and victories. At one time defeats of both kinds seemed to come thick and fast. She would shudder sometimes, as she laid down the newspaper, and say: 'This prolongs the war such a time;' weeks, months, or years, as it might be; but she never was really disheartened. She did not doubt that the contest, when it did come to a conclusion, would end in the triumph of the right, in the triumph of freedom, in the regeneration of the nation; and her courage never yielded, her resolution never faltered, till one day in the latter part of May.
She went out then in the afternoon to breathe the fresh air she so much needed, but in a half hour came back with a new look in her face. A stern, forbidding expression did not leave her during the day, and at night she tossed about on her bed, wakeful and disturbed. At length she rose, and sat for more than an hour by the window in the darkness, seeking that peace which had left her so unaccountably. A new thought, in time, took possession of her. She went back, and slept. In the morning she called me to her, and told me that on the previous day she had seen a black man knocked down in the streets of Washington and carried in chains to slavery. Then she said in earnest tones: 'Child' (she always called me child, though I was not much younger than herself), 'have you in your life done all that you could do against this abomination?'