In the P.M., much to the consternation of everybody, the transports laden with troops all hove in sight. Soon the harbor was literally filled with ships and boats, the wharf crowded with disembarking troops with the camp equipage they had taken with them. What had they returned for? was the question hanging on every lip. Conjecture was rife; all sorts of rumors were afloat; but the one general idea seemed to prevail that the expedition “had fizzled,” if any one knows the precise meaning and import of that term. Troops landed all the evening and perhaps all night, and returned to the old camping grounds. The place is alive with soldiers. No one knows why he is here, or why he is not there; all seem disappointed and chagrined, but no one is to blame. For my part, I am rather pleased at the turn it has taken, as I thought from the first that we had “too few troops to fight and too many to be killed.” I have seen worse retreats if this be one.
“Fizzled” appears to have been a new word, but the country had abundant opportunity to learn its essential meaning. The expedition against Charleston was one of several that met this inglorious end, and the flag was not raised over Sumter until 1865.
Now followed an interesting chapter in Clara Barton’s career, but one quite different from anything she had expected when she came to Hilton Head. After the “fizzle” in early April, the army settled down to general inactivity. Charleston must be attacked simultaneously by land and sea and reduced by heavy artillery fire before the infantry could do anything. There was nothing for Clara Barton to do but to wait for the battle which had been postponed, but was surely coming. She distributed her perishable supplies where they would do the most good, and looked after the comfort of such soldiers as needed her immediate ministration. But the wounded were few in number and the sick were in well-established hospitals where she had no occasion to offer her services.
Moreover, she found the situation here very different from what she had seen only a few miles from Washington. There were no muddy roads between Hilton Head and New York Harbor. The Arogo was a shuttle moving back and forward every few days, and in time another boat was added. There was a regular mail service between New York and Hilton Head, and every boat took officers and soldiers going upon, or returning from, furloughs, and the boats from New York brought nurses and supplies. The Sanitary Commission had its own dépôt of supplies and a liberal fund of money from which purchases could be made of fruits and such other local delicacies as were procurable. It is true, as Miss Barton was afterward to learn, that the hospital management left something to be desired, and that fewer delicacies were purchased than could have been. But that was distinctly not her responsibility, nor did she for one moment assume it to be such. She came into conflict with official red tape quite soon enough in her own department, without intruding where she did not belong. She settled down to await the time when she should be needed for the special work that had brought her to Hilton Head. That time came, but it did not come soon, and its delay was the occasion of very mixed emotions on her part.
Clara Barton came to Hilton Head with a reputation already established. She no longer needed to be introduced, nor was there any difficulty in her procuring passes to go where she pleased, excepting as she was sometimes refused out of consideration for her own personal safety. But not once while she was in Carolina was she asked to show her passes. When she landed, she found provision made for her at regimental headquarters. Colonel J. G. Elwell, of Cleveland, to whom she reported, was laid up at this time with a broken leg. She had him for a patient and his gratitude continued through all the subsequent years. Her journal described him as a noble, Christian gentleman, and she found abundant occasion to admire his manliness, his Christian character, his affection for his wife and children, his courtesy to her, and later, his heroism as she witnessed it upon the battle-field. The custody of her supplies brought her into constant relations with the Chief Quartermaster, Captain Samuel T. Lamb, for whom she cherished a regard almost if not quite as high as that she felt for Colonel, afterward General, Elwell. Her room was at headquarters, under the same roof with these and other brave officers, who vied with each other in bestowing honors and kindnesses upon her. As Colonel Elwell was incapacitated for service, she saw him daily, and the care of her supplies gave her scarcely less constant association with Captain Lamb. General Hunter called upon her, paid her high compliments, issued her passes and permits, and offered her every possible courtesy. Her request that her cousin, Corporal Leander Poor, be transferred to the department over which her brother David presided, met an immediate response. The nurses from the hospital paid her an official call, and apparently spoke very gracious words to her, for she indicates that she was pleased with something they said or did. Different officers sent her bouquets; her table and her window must have been rather constantly filled with flowers. More than once the band serenaded her, and between the musical numbers there was a complimentary address which embarrassed, even more than it pleased her, in which a high tribute was paid “To Clara Barton, the Florence Nightingale of America.”
The officers at headquarters had good saddle horses, and invited her to ride with them. If there was any form of exercise which she thoroughly enjoyed, it was horseback riding. She procured a riding-skirt and sent for her sidesaddle, which the Arogo in due time brought to her. So far nothing could have been more delightful. The very satisfaction of it made her uncomfortable. She hoped that God would not hold her accountable for misspent time, and said so in her diary.
Lest she should waste her time, she began teaching some negro boys to read, and sought out homesick soldiers who needed comfort. Whenever she heard of any danger or any likelihood of a battle anywhere within reach, she conferred with Colonel Elwell about going there. He was a religious man, and she discussed with him the interposition of Divine Providence, and the apparent indication that she was following a Divine call in coming to Hilton Head exactly when she did. But no field opened immediately which called for her ministrations. She felt sometimes that it would be a terrible mistake if she had come so far away from what really was her duty, when she wrote: “God is great and fearfully just. Truly it is a fearful thing to fall into His hands; His ways are past finding out.” Still she could not feel responsible for the fact that no great battle had occurred in her immediate vicinity. Each time the Arogo dropped anchor, she wondered if she ought to return on her; but each time it seemed certain that it was not going to be very long until there was a battle. So she left the matter in God’s hands. She wrote: “It will be wisely ordered, and I shall do all for the best in the end. God’s will, not mine, be done. I am content. How I wish I could always keep in full view the fact and feeling that God orders all things precisely as they should be; all is best as it is.”
On Sunday she read Beecher’s sermons and sometimes copied religious poetry for Colonel Elwell, who, in addition to his own disability, had tender memories of the death of his little children, and many solicitous thoughts for his wife.
In some respects she was having the time of her life. A little group of women, wives of the officers, gathered at the headquarters, and there grew up a kind of social usage. One evening when a group of officers and officers’ wives were gathered together, one of the ladies read a poem in honor of Clara Barton. One day, at General Hunter’s headquarters and in his presence, Colonel Elwell presented her with a beautiful pocket Bible on behalf of the officers. If she needed anything to increase her fame, that need was supplied when Mr. Page, correspondent of the New York “Tribune,” whom she remembered to have met at the Lacy house during the battle of Fredericksburg, arrived at Hilton Head, and he, who had seen every battle of the Army of the Potomac except Chancellorsville, told the officers how he had heard General Patrick, at the battle of Fredericksburg, remonstrate with Miss Barton on account of her exposing herself to danger, saying afterward that he expected to see her shot every minute. The band of a neighboring regiment came over and serenaded her. Her windows were filled with roses and orange blossoms, and she wrote in her diary: “I do not deserve such friends as I find, and how can I deserve them? I fear that in these later years our Heavenly Father is too merciful to me.”
It would have been delightful if she could only have been sure that she was doing her duty. Surrounded by appreciative friends, bedecked with flowers, serenaded and sung to, and with a saddled horse at her door almost every morning and at least one officer if not a dozen eager for the joy and honor of a ride with her, only two things disturbed her. The first was that she still had no word from Stephen, and the other was the feeling that, unless the Lord ordained a battle in her vicinity before long, she ought to be back with what she called “my own army.”