Sometime in the month of January, 1864, the nurses in each of the three wards of the hospital escaped from the guards, and started for our lines. This necessitated another detail of nurses for the wards, and the detail was made from among the convalescents. The hospital steward did me the favor to appoint me as ward-master of Ward No. 1, giving me the privilege of selecting those who were to assist me as nurses in the ward. I selected those with whom I had become most intimately acquainted as convalescents. Lucien B. Smith, of Company F, Fourth Michigan Cavalry; William Sutherland, of Company H, Sixteenth United States Infantry; Watson C. Trippe, of Company H, Fifteenth United States Infantry, and John F. Wood, of Company G, Twenty-Sixth Ohio Infantry, were the persons selected. After a short time, Robert G. Taylor, of Company G, Second Massachusetts Cavalry, was added to our force of nurses, to make the burden of labor in the ward a little lighter on us. We attended the patients in Ward No. 1 day after day, and night after night, as well as we could with the scanty supplies of medicine and food furnished by the Confederates, until the night of February 19, 1864. Very many of our fellow-prisoners came under our care while we were acting the part of nurses. Many of them died, and we saw their bodies carted away to the burying-ground and deposited in their last earthly resting places.
By the 12th of February the small-pox had begun to abate. As a consequence, the convalescent camp and Ward No. 3 were discontinued. A day or two later and Ward No. 2 was cleared of patients and its doors closed. Those who had been attending as nurses were returned to prison. Two weeks, or three at most, could hardly elapse before the hospital would be entirely broken up. In this event we should be returned to the dreary prisons in Danville, whence escape was scarcely possible. To be kept in prison many months, perhaps until death alone should bring release, was an unwelcome prospect, and we looked upon it with feelings of dread. We had friends and comrades among the prisoners, whom we disliked to leave behind us, but as our presence with them could do neither them nor us any good, we determined to improve the first opportunity of attempting an escape from the Confederates, and avoid the prison entirely.
February 19, 1864, was a cool day for lower Virginia, and we would have deferred our escape for a few nights had we not luckily and accidentally ascertained that we should be sent into prison on the morning of the 20th. Our careful, though hasty, preparations for slipping off from the guards were accordingly commenced just before dark on the evening of February 19th. Before entering upon the detailed account of our escape and subsequent trip to the Union lines, it will be requisite to describe briefly the hospital buildings and surroundings.
The hospital was situated one mile south-west of Danville, on the right bank of Dan River. The river runs in a north-east course, consequently the hospital was on the south of it. There were three wards at the hospital, each capable of accommodating fifty patients. The wards were numbered one, two, and three. There were also a cook-house, a steward's office, and a dead-house. These buildings were constructed of undressed pine lumber. Ward No. 1 was located on the top of a high round hill; near its south-east corner, and almost adjoining it was the cook-house. A few steps north of the ward, and equidistant from its eastern and western extremities, stood the steward's office. At the west end of the ward was the dead-house. About one hundred yards south-west of the dead-house Ward No. 2 was situated, on the hill-side. At the foot of the hill, nearly one hundred yards south-west of Ward No. 2, stood Ward No. 3. Directly east of Ward No. 2, and south of Ward No. 1, was the row of tents which had been used by convalescents. Still further east, at the foot of the hill, was a considerable branch, coursing its way northward to Dan River. Just across the branch, on its right bank, was a large wall tent, in and near which all the clothes washing for the hospital was done. The persons detailed to do the washing slept in the tent. The Confederate surgeon in charge of the hospital had his quarters in Tent No. 1 of the row of tents formerly occupied by convalescents. His tent was nearest the cook-house and Ward No. 1. The tent we occupied, when not on duty in the ward, stood just south of the surgeon's tent, and so near it that the ropes supporting it interlocked or crossed those which supported the surgeon's tent. In Ward No. 1 was the receptacle or place of deposit for all clothing that had been washed. Quite a lot of clothing, belonging in part to patients in the different wards, but mainly to the unfortunate ones who had died, was stored away for the use and benefit of those who might be insufficiently clothed. Wards No. 1 and 3 had been whitewashed, but Ward No. 2, which had been put up between them, at a subsequent date, was not.
Near Ward No. 3, at the base of the hill, was a spring of water, from which the hospital was supplied. Between the wards and other hospital buildings, and all about over the hill-sides, stood tall and straight pines. To the north of the hospital, about three-quarters of a mile distant, was Dan River, with its swift, noisy waters, hedged in by steep, rugged banks. To the south-east and south were cleared lands, traversed by a branch and its tributaries. Still farther south were heavy woods, with one point of timber projecting some distance northward, into the cleared land toward the hospital.
During the afternoon of February 19th, William Sutherland and myself were wheeling wood on a wheelbarrow from Ward No. 3 to Ward No. 1. Having to wheel it up hill it was a wearisome task, and we occasionally stopped for rest. Near four o'clock in the evening, while resting about half-way up the hill-side, Sutherland said to me, "It looks to me very much as if this hospital would be broken up soon." I agreed with him in his opinion, and remarked that our lease of time at the hospital was growing short. After a little further conversation, we resolved to consult with the other nurses on the propriety of attempting an escape, and get them to set out with us for our lines on the next night.
In less than an hour's time we had finished our task of wheeling wood, and were resting on our bunks in the tent. Before either of us had met with our comrades, Smith, who was off duty that evening, came to us and informed us he had something to tell us that we would not like to hear. We told him to acquaint us with his news, however unwelcome it might be. We readily conjectured what it was that so interested Smith, and our conjecture proved correct. He had overheard some of the guards in their talking, and had learned that it was the purpose of the Confederates to send us to prison in the morning. This news did not surprise us, and we were heartily pleased to learn the intentions of the Confederates, although they were not of an amicable nature. We resolved to prevent, if possible, the carrying of these intentions into effect. Smith was then told of the resolution we had formed an hour before to set out on the next night for the Union lines. The sun had already disappeared behind the hills. We knew our fate if we remained at the hospital until its light should again break forth in the east. Our purpose to attempt at least, even if we did not succeed, to leave the hospital, the sick, the Confederate guards, and the Danville prisons that night was immediately and firmly fixed.
Our preparations were at once commenced. We were obliged to exercise the utmost caution in all our movements, as a few of the guards were standing about over the hospital grounds; some of them were in the cook-house. We wished by no word, or look, or act of ours, to lead them to suspect our purpose of eluding them and striking for liberty.
Smith left Sutherland and me in the tent and joined Trippe, Taylor, and Wood, who were on duty in the ward. Smith soon found an opportunity of conferring with his associates, and telling them of the meditated escape. Taylor and Wood were anxious to join it, but Trippe, who had but recently recovered from the small-pox, was distrustful of his strength; and as he had once before escaped, and got some fifty miles away, only to be recaptured and brought back, he did not so readily sanction the project. The nurses who were on duty in the ward now, assisted by Smith, gave their exclusive attention to the sick; they were even more attentive than usual. No one would have suspected from their conduct that they would ever forsake the sick ones under their care.