Although the Lacy house was exposed to fire she was not permitted to remain within the shelter of its walls. While the fight was at its hottest, she crossed the river under fire for a place of greater danger and of greater need:
At ten o’clock of the battle day when the rebel fire was hottest, the shell rolling down every street, and the bridge under the heavy cannonade, a courier dashed over and, rushing up the steps of the Lacy house, placed in my hand a crumpled, bloody slip of paper, a request from the lion-hearted old surgeon on the opposite shore, establishing his hospitals in the very jaws of death.
The uncouth penciling said: “Come to me. Your place is here.”
The faces of the rough men working at my side, which eight weeks ago had flushed with indignation at the very thought of being controlled by a woman, grew ashy white as they guessed the nature of the summons, and the lips which had cursed and pouted in disgust trembled as they begged me to send them, but save myself. I could only permit them to go with me if they chose, and in twenty minutes we were rocking across the swaying bridge, the water hissing with shot on either side.
Over into that city of death, its roofs riddled by shell, its very church a crowded hospital, every street a battle-line, every hill a rampart, every rock a fortress, and every stone wall a blazing line of forts!
Oh, what a day’s work was that! How those long lines of blue, rank upon rank, charged over the open acres, up to the very mouths of those blazing guns, and how like grain before the sickle they fell and melted away.
An officer stepped to my side to assist me over the débris at the end of the bridge. While our hands were raised in the act of stepping down, a piece of an exploding shell hissed through between us, just below our arms, carrying away a portion of both the skirts of his coat and my dress, rolling along the ground a few rods from us like a harmless pebble into the water.
The next instant a solid shot thundered over our heads, a noble steed bounded in the air, and, with his gallant rider, rolled in the dirt, not thirty feet in the rear! Leaving the kind-hearted officer, I passed on alone to the hospital. In less than a half-hour he was brought to me—dead.
I mention these circumstances not as specimens of my own bravery. Oh, no! I beg you will not place that construction upon them, for I never professed anything beyond ordinary courage, and a thousand times preferred safety to danger.
But I mention them that those of you, who have never seen a battle, may the better realize the perils through which these brave men passed, who for four long years bore their country’s bloody banner in the face of death, and stood, a living wall of flesh and blood, between the invading traitor and your peaceful homes.
In the afternoon of Sunday an officer came hurriedly to tell me that in a church across the way lay one of his men shot in the face the day before. His wounds were bleeding slowly and, the blood drying and hardening about his nose and mouth, he was in immediate danger of suffocation.
(Friends, this may seem to you repulsive, but I assure you that many a brave and beautiful soldier has died of this alone.)
Seizing a basin of water and a sponge, I ran to the church, to find the report only too true. Among hundreds of comrades lay my patient. For any human appearance above his head and shoulders, it might as well have been anything but a man.
I knelt by him and commenced with fear and trembling lest some unlucky movement close the last aperture for breath. After some hours’ labor, I began to recognize features. They seemed familiar. With what impatience I wrought. Finally my hand wiped away the last obstruction. An eye opened, and there to my gaze was the sexton of my old home church!
I have remarked that every house was a hospital. Passing from one to another during the tumult of Saturday, I waited for a regiment of infantry to sweep on its way to the heights. Being alone, and the only woman visible among that moving sea of men, I naturally attracted the attention of the old veteran, Provost Marshal General Patrick, who, mistaking me for a resident of the city who had remained in her home until the crashing shot had driven her into the street, dashed through the waiting ranks to my side, and, bending down from his saddle, said in his kindliest tones, “You are alone and in great danger, Madam. Do you want protection?”
Amused at his gallant mistake, I humored it by thanking him, as I turned to the ranks, adding that I believed myself the best protected woman in the United States.
The soldiers near me caught my words, and responding with “That’s so! That’s so!” set up a cheer. This in turn was caught by the next line and so on, line after line, till the whole army joined in the shout, no one knowing what he was cheering at, but never doubting there was a victory somewhere. The gallant old General, taking in the situation, bowed low his bared head, saying, as he galloped away, “I believe you are right, Madam.”
It would be difficult for persons in ordinary life to realize the troubles arising from want of space merely for wounded men to occupy when gathered together for surgical treatment and care. You may suggest that “all out-of-doors” ought to be large, and so it would seem, but the fact did not always prove so. Civilized men seek shelter in sickness, and of this there was ever a scarcity.
Twelve hundred men were crowded into the Lacy house, which contained but twelve rooms. They covered every foot of the floors and porticoes, and even lay on the stair landings! A man who could find opportunity to lie between the legs of a table thought himself lucky: he was not likely to be stepped on. In a common cupboard, with four shelves, five men lay, and were fed and attended. Three lived to be removed, and two died of their wounds.
Think of trying to lie still and die quietly, lest you fall out of a bed six feet high!
Among the wounded of the 7th Michigan was one Faulkner, of Ashtabula County, Ohio, a mere lad, shot through the lungs and, to all appearances, dying. When brought in, he could swallow nothing, breathed painfully, and it was with great difficulty that he gave me his name and residence. He could not lie down, but sat leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.
I observed him carefully as I hurried past from one room to another, and finally thought he had ceased to breathe. At this moment another man with a similar wound was taken in on a stretcher by his comrades, who sought in vain for a spot large enough to lay him down, and appealed to me. I could only tell them that when that poor boy in the corner was removed, they could set him down in his place. They went to remove him, but, to the astonishment of all, he objected, opened his eyes, and persisted in retaining his corner, which he did for some two weeks, when, finally, a mere bundle of skin and bones, for he gave small evidence of either flesh or blood, he was wrapped in a blanket and taken away in an ambulance to Washington, with a bottle of milk punch in his blouse, the only nourishment he could take.
On my return to Washington, three months later, a messenger came from Lincoln Hospital to say that the men of Ward 17 wanted to see me. I returned with him, and as I entered the ward seventy men saluted me, standing, such as could, others rising feebly in their beds, and falling back—exhausted with the effort.
Every man had left his blood in Fredericksburg—every one was from the Lacy house. My hand had dressed every wound—many of them in the first terrible moments of agony. I had prepared their food in the snow and winds of December and fed them like children.
How dear they had grown to me in their sufferings, and the three great cheers that greeted my entrance into that hospital ward were dearer than the applause. I would not exchange their memory for the wildest hurrahs that ever greeted the ear of conqueror or king. When the first greetings were over and the agitation had subsided somewhat, a young man walked up to me with no apparent wound, with bright complexion, and in good flesh. There was certainly something familiar in his face, but I could not recall him, until, extending his hand with a smile, he said, “I am Riley Faulkner, of the 7th Michigan. I didn’t die, and the milk punch lasted all the way to Washington!”
The author once inquired of Miss Barton how she dressed for these expeditions. She dressed simply, she said, so that she could get about easily, but her costume did not greatly differ from that of the ordinary woman of the period. She added humorously that her wardrobe was not wholly a matter of choice. Her clothes underwent such hard usage that nothing lasted very long, and she was glad to wear almost anything she could get.
This was not wholly satisfactory, for those were the days of hoop-skirts and other articles of feminine attire which had no possible place in her work. From Mrs. Vassall the author obtained somewhat more explicit information. She said:
When Clara went to the front, she dressed in a plain black print skirt with a jacket. She wished to dress so that she could easily get about and not consume much time in dressing. Her clothing received hard usage, and when she returned from any campaign to Washington, she was in need of a new outfit. At one time the women of Oxford sent her a box for her own personal use. Friends in Oxford furnished the material, and Annie Childs made the dresses. The box was delivered at her room during her absence, and she returned from the field, weary and wet, her hair soaked and falling down her back, and entered her cold and not very cheerful room. There she found this box with its complete outfit, and kneeling beside it she burst into happy tears.
The author counts it especially fortunate that he has been able to find a letter from Clara relating to this very experience, which was on the occasion of her return from the battle of Fredericksburg. It was addressed to Annie Childs, and dated four months later:
Port Royal, May 28th, 1863
My dear Annie:
I remember, four long months ago, one cold, dreary, windy day, I dragged me out from a chilly street-car that had found me ankle-deep in the mud of the 6th Street wharf, and up the slippery street and my long flights of stairs into a room, cheerless, in confusion, and alone, looking in most respects as I had left it some months before, with the exception of a mysterious box which stood unopened in the middle of the floor. All things looked strange to me, for in that few months I had taken in so much that yet I had no clear views. The great artist had been at work upon my brain and sketched it all over with life scenes, and death scenes, never to be erased. The fires of Fredericksburg still blazed before my eyes, and her cannon still thundered at my ear, while away down in the depths of my heart I was smothering the groans and treasuring the prayers of her dead and dying heroes; worn, weak, and heartsick, I was home from Fredericksburg; and when, there, for the first time I looked at myself, shoeless, gloveless, ragged, and blood-stained, a new sense of desolation and pity and sympathy and weariness, all blended, swept over me with irresistible force, and, perfectly overpowered, I sank down upon the strange box, unquestioning its presence or import, and wept as I had never done since the soft, hazy, winter night that saw our attacking guns silently stealing their approach to the river, ready at the dawn to ring out the shout of death to the waiting thousands at their wheels.
I said I wept, and so I did, and gathered strength and calmness and consciousness—and finally the strange box, which had afforded me my first rest, began to claim my attention; it was clearly and handsomely marked to myself at Washington, and came by express—so much for the outside; and a few pries with a hatchet, to hands as well accustomed as mine, soon made the inside as visible, only for the neat paper which covered all. It was doubtless something sent to some soldier; pity I had not had it earlier—it might be too late now; he might be past his wants or the kind remembrances of the loved ones at home. The while I was busy in removing the careful paper wrappings a letter, addressed to me, opened—“From friends in Oxford and Worcester”—no signature. Mechanically I commenced lifting up, one after another, hoods, shoes, boots, gloves, skirts, handkerchiefs, collars, linen,—and that beautiful dress! look at it, all made—who—! Ah, there is no mistaking the workmanship—Annie’s scissors shaped and her skillful fingers fitted that. Now, I begin to comprehend; while I had been away in the snows and frosts and rains and mud of Falmouth, forgetting my friends, myself, to eat or sleep or rest, forgetting everything but my God and the poor suffering victims around me, these dear, kind friends, undismayed and not disheartened by the great national calamity which had overtaken them, mourning, perhaps, the loss of their own, had remembered me, and with open hearts and willing hands had prepared this noble, thoughtful gift for me at my return. It was too much, and this time, burying my face in the dear tokens around me, I wept again as heartily as before, but with very different sensations; a new chord was struck; my labors, slight and imperfect as they had been, had been appreciated; I was not alone; and then and there again I re-dedicated myself to my little work of humanity, pledging before God all that I have, all that I am, all that I can, and all that I hope to be, to the cause of Justice and Mercy and Patriotism, my Country, and my God. And cheered and sustained as I have been by the kind remembrances of old friends, the cordial greeting of new ones, and the tearful, grateful blessings of the thousands of noble martyrs to whose relief or comfort it has been my blessed privilege to add my mite, I feel that my cup of happiness is more than full. It is an untold privilege to have lived in this day when there is work to be done, and, still more, to possess health and strength to do it, and most of all to feel that I bear with me the kindly feelings and perhaps prayers of the noble mothers and sisters who have sent sons and brothers to fight the battles of the world in the armies of Freedom. Annie, if it is not asking too much, now that I have gathered up resolution enough to speak of the subject at all (for I have never been able to before), I would like to know to whom besides yourself I am indebted for these beautiful and valuable gifts. It is too tame and too little to say that I am thankful for them. You did not want that, but I will say that, God willing, I will yet wear them where none of the noble donors would be ashamed to have them seen. Some of those gifts shall yet see service if Heaven spare my life. With thanks I am the friend of my “Friends in Oxford and Worcester.”
Clara Barton
CHAPTER XV
CLARA BARTON’S CHANGE OF BASE
SPRING OF 1863
The events we have been describing bring Miss Barton to the end of 1862. The greater part of the year 1863 was spent by her in entirely different surroundings. Believing that the most significant military events of that year would be found in connection with a campaign against Charleston, South Carolina, and that the Army of the Potomac, which she had thus far accompanied, was reasonably well cared for in provisions which were in large degree the result of her establishment, she began to consider the advisability of going farther south.