Last Wednesday Miss O. and myself visited Hospital No. 1,
for the second time.
They were just robing one young boy in his soldier's suit of
blue for the last time. He was then borne to the deadhouse. His name was
Hickman Nutter, of the 31st Ohio. I secured the Post Office address of his
people and that of several others who had died and had no message sent home. I
passed the whole of the next day in writing soldiers' letters, and in my
journal. My fortitude was sorely tried and really broke down after getting
back, to find that in ward 1 alone from two to four boys are dying daily, while
the Chaplain has not been in to speak to a single sick or dying boy for two
weeks. Wards 2 and 3 have fared little if any better, as is the testimony of
ward-masters and nurses. It is his duty also to write to the relatives of those
who die, and common humanity would dictate that it be done, and every
comforting message sent to them. I was told by the clerk, whose duty it was to
collect the names for report in the public prints, that in no single instance
had he known the Chaplain to attend to that duty. I was indignant and
determined to report him, but was given to understand by more than one
Christian minister, that the expression of indignation was considered a bad
omen for my future success in hospitals.
"People here," said one, kindly in explanation,
"must learn to see and hear of all manner of evil and wickedness going on
around them, and be as though they saw and heard not."
Being by nature and birth an outspoken New Englander, and
having inhaled freedom of speech from the breezes which blow from the hills of
the "Old Bay State," I fancy it will not be very easy becoming
initiated into this phase of military service.
We found several interesting cases on passing through wards
1, 2 and 3.
In the first, saw one man in a dying condition, who was
brought the night before. He was lifted from the ambulance and brought in by
two men, who immediately left without being questioned or saying anything about
him. The attendants were busy and expected to find all needed information in
the medical papers, which it is rulable and customary to send, but which were
not to be found. No one had observed the ambulance or men sufficiently to
identify either. The disease could not be determined. There were no wounds and
the lungs were in a healthy condition, but he was dying and insensible. A
letter was fortunately found in his pocket, from his wife, which gave his name,
company and regiment, as being Henry Clymer, Co. K., 128th Indiana.
In passing through ward 2 we came to a handsome young man,
who was looking so well compared with others that we were passing without
speaking. But the nurse said to us:
"This man is blind!"
Could it be possible! His eyes to a casual observer were
perfectly good, but upon a closer examination one saw that the pupil was
greatly enlarged and the expression staring and vacant. Questions revealed the
fact that he could see nothing except a faint light when looking towards the
window. I asked the cause.
"Medicine, the Surgeon here says," was the reply.
"I had chills and fever while at the front, and the physician gave me large
quantities of quinine, which made me blind. I have the ague now, but the Doctor
dare not give any more quinine. I have been blind two weeks."
"Doesn't the Surgeon think the medicine will leave your
system, and that you may recover your sight?"
"Well, he doesn't speak very encouragingly says he
doesn't know."
And we now see that although the eyes cannot do duty in one
way they can in another, for they absolutely rain tears, as he tells us with
quivering lips, that his wife does not know anything about it; that he is
dreading to send her word by stranger hands, he cannot bear to think that may be
he can never write again,—never see her or other friends in this world. He is
yet young and life has looked so pleasant; he is a professing Christian, but
finds it so hard to bear this affliction. And he sobs like a
whipped child, as, kneeling by the head of his low bed, with hand upon his
forehead, we listen to this recital and strive to comfort him. We tell him of
others afflicted in the same way who have not passed a life of idleness in
consequence, but of mental or physical activity. Of those who have risen
superior even to this calamity, and in the battle of life have learned
"How sublime a thing it is
To suffer and grow strong."
He says our words have been a blessing, as we take his hand
in a good-bye, and with a promise to break the news to his wife, as gently and
hopefully as possible. [We do so subsequently and upon the last visit find that
he has been gaining his sight so that he can distinguish forms, though not
features. Again we stand by his vacant bed and learn that he with many others
have been sent North to make room for more sufferers from the front. But he was
still gaining his sight.]
In the same ward we find one slight young boy, who looks as
if he ought to be at home with his mother, and we sincerely believe is crying
because he isn't—though he'd be bayonetted sooner than own it. He draws his
sleeve across his red eyes as we approach, and upon our questioning informs us
that he is "almost seventeen," and furthermore that he is
"nearly half a head taller and two pounds heavier than another boy in his
regiment;" but confesses that he is "right tired a' laying this way
day after day—fact is I'd a heap sight rather be at home if I could get to go
there, for I enlisted to fight, not to be sick!"
Now we ask him if he ever thought while lying there that he is suffering in the
service of his country, and a quick flash of the eye, a smile and an emphatic
"no," tell us that it is entirely a new thought. Then we beg him not
to forget that he is, and assure him that it requires a much braver soldier to
suffer day after day in a hospital than on the hardest battle-field, and we
leave him with a look of heroic endurance on his childish brow.
Here is a good-faced German, who is moaning with pain from
an amputation. It is twenty days since the operation, but he suffers terribly
every few moments from a spasmodic contraction of the muscles. And we also find
upon conversing, that the fact of the amputation hurts his feelings in more
ways than one, and we must needs tell him to bear the pain like a good brave
soldier, and that it will grow less and less each day, and really last but a
few days more altogether, and that as to being without a limb he will not be
the only one capable of exhibiting such a proof of the service rendered his
country, that it is an honor rather than a disgrace to lose limbs while
battling for the right; and now the hero's look of determination settles over his features also. But
just as we turn to leave, he expresses his opinion that two or three more
such "cookies" as we brought him the other day wouldn't hurt him,
indeed,
"Dey was mosht as goot vot my moder used to make."
SOURCE: Elvira J. Powers, Hospital
Pencillings: Being a Diary While in Jefferson General Hospital, Jeffersonville,
Ind., and Others at Nashville, Tennessee, as Matron and Visitor, pp. 19-23
