University of Virginia Library

99. "How are you, Sanitary ?"
By MARY ASHTON LIVERMORE (1863)

IT is early morning,— not nine o'clock, for the children are flocking in merry droves to school. The air is resonant with their joyous treble and musical laughter, as with clustering heads and interlacing arms they recount their varied experiences since they parted the night before, and rapturously expatiate on the delights of a coming excursion or promised picnic. With a good-bye kiss, I launch my own little ones, bonneted, sacqued, and ballasted with books, like the rest, into the stream of childhood that is setting in a strong, full current toward the schoolroom. I then catch the first street-car and hasten to the rooms of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission.

Early as is my arrival, a dray is already ahead of me, unloading its big boxes and little boxes, its barrels and firkins, its baskets and bundles. The sidewalk is barricaded with the nondescript and multiform packages, which John, the faithful porter, with his inseparable truck, is endeavoring to stow away in the crowded receiving-room. Here, hammers and hatchets, wedges and chisels are in requisition, compelling the crammed

boxes to disgorge their heterogeneous contents' which are rapidly assorted, stamped, repacked, and reshipped, their stay in the room rarely exceeding a few hours.

I enter the office. Ladies are in waiting, desirous of information. The aid society in another state, of which they are officers, has raised at a Fourth of July festival some six hundred dollars, and they wish to know how to dispose of it, so as to afford the greatest amount of relief to the sick and wounded of our army. They were also instructed to investigate the means and methods of the Commission, so as to carry conviction to a few obstinate skeptics, who persist in doubting if the Sanitary Commission, after all, be the best means of communication with the hospitals. Patiently and courteously the history, methods, means, views, and successes of the Commission are lucidly explained for the hundredth time in a month, and all needed advice and instruction imparted; and the enlightened women leave.

An express messenger enters. He presents a package, obtains his fee, gets a receipt for the package, and without a word departs.

Next comes a budget of letters-the morning's mail. One announces the shipment of a box of hospital stores which will arrive to-day. Another scolds roundly because an important letter sent a week ago has not been answered, while a copy of the answer in the copying-book is indisputable proof that it has received attention, but has in some way miscarried. A third narrates a bugaboo story of surgeons and nurses in a distant hospital, with gluttonous habits, who are mainly occupied in "seeking what they can devour "of the hospital delicacies, so that little is

saved for their patients. A fourth pleads passionately that the writer may be sent as a nurse to the sad, cheerless, most poorly furnished and far-away hospitals.

A fifth is the agonized letter of a mother and widow, blistered with tears, begging piteously that the Commission will search out and send to her tidings of her only son, who has not been heard from since the battle of Grand Gulf. A sixth asks assistance in organizing the women of a distant town, who have just awakened to their duty to their brothers in the field. A seventh is a letter from two nine-year-old girls, who have between them earned five dollars, and wish to spend it for the poor sick soldiers. An eighth begs that one of the ladies of the Commission will visit the aid society of the town in which the writer lives, and rekindle the flagging zeal of the tired ' workers. They propose to cease work during the hot weather, forgetting that our brave men halt not on their marches, and postpone not their battles, because of the heat or of weariness. A ninth announces the death of one of our heroic nurses, who was sent by the Commission a few months ago to Tennessee—a serious, comely girl, with heart as true as steel, and soul on fire with patriotic desire to do something for her country, and who has now given her life. And so on through a package of twenty, thirty, forty, sometimes fifty letters; and this is but one mail of the day.

Now begins the task of replying to these multitudinous epistles— a work which is interrupted every five minutes by some new comer. A venerable man enters, walking slowly, and my heart warms towards him. I remember my aged father, a thousand miles

away, who is, like him, white-haired and feeble. He has been here before, and I immediately recognize him.

"Have you heard anything yet from my son in Van Buren Hospital, at Milliken's Bend? "

"Not yet, sir; you know it is only nine days since I wrote to inquire for him. I will telegraph if you think best."

"No matter;"and the old man's lip quivers, his figure trembles violently, a sob chokes him, his eyes fill with tears, as with a deprecating wave of the hand he says, "No matter now!"

I understand it all. It is all over with his boy, and the cruel tidings have reached him. I rise and offer my hand. He encloses it convulsively in his, leans his head against the iron column near my desk, and his tears drop steadily.

"Your son has only gone a little before you,"I venture to say; "only a hand's breadth of time between you now."

"Yes,"adds the poor old father; "and he gave his life for a good cause— a cause worthy of it if he had been a thousand times dearer to me than he was."

"And your boy's mother— how does she bear this grief ? "

The tears rain down his checks now.

"It will kill her; she is very feeble."

Sympathy and comfort are proffered the poor father, and after a little the sorrowing man turns again to his desolate home.

A childish figure drags itself into the room, shuffles heavily along, drops into a chair, and offers a letter. I open the letter and read. He is a messenger-boy from Admiral Porter's gunboats, who is

sent North with the request that the child be properly cared for. Not thirteen years old, and yet he has been in many battles, and has run the gauntlet of the Vicksburg batteries, which for ten miles belched forth red-hot and steel-pointed shot and shell, in fruitless efforts to sink the invulnerable ironclads. Fever, too much medicine, neglect, and exposure, have done their worst for the little fellow, who has come North, homeless and friendless, with the right side paralyzed. He is taken to the Soldiers' Home, and for the present is consigned to the motherly care of the good ladies who preside there.

A bevy of nurses enter next with carpet-bags, shawls, and bundles. A telegram from the Commission has summoned them, for the hospitals at Memphis need them, and straightway they have girded themselves to the work. One is a widow, whose husband fell at Shiloh; another is the wife of a lieutenant at Vicksburg; a third lost her brother at Chancellorsville; a fourth has no family ties, and there is no one to miss her while absent, or to mourn her if she never returns. They receive their instructions, commissions, and transportation, and hurry onward.

Ah! that white, anxious face, whiter than ever, is again framed in the doorway. Is there no possible escape from it? One, two, three, four days she has haunted these rooms, waiting the answer to the telegram despatched to Gettysburg, where her son was wounded ten days ago. The answer to the telegram is this moment in my pocket-how shall I repeat its stern message to the white-faced, sorrow-stricken mother ? I involuntarily leave my desk, and bustle about, as if in search of something, trying to think

how to break the news. I am spared the effort, for the morning papers have announced her bereavement, and she has only come to secure the help of the Commission in obtaining possession of her dead. There are no tears, no words of grief ; only a still agony, a repressed anguish, which it is painful to witness. Mr. Freeman accompanies her to the railroad officials, where his pleading story wins the charity of a free pass for the poor woman to the military line. There she must win her way, aided by the letters of endorsement and recommendation we give her. Bowing under her great sorrow, she goes forth on her sacred pilgrimage.

Soldiers from the city hospitals visit us, to beg a shirt, a pair of slippers, a comb, or a well-filled pincushion, something interesting to read, or paper, envelopes, and stamps, to answer letters from wives, mothers, and sweethearts. They tarry to talk over their trials, sufferings, and privations, and their anxiety to get well and join their regiments, which is better than being cooped up in a hospital, even when it is a good one. They are praised heartily, petted in motherly fashion as if they were children, which most sick men become, urged to come again, and sent back altogether lighter-hearted than when they came.

So the day wears away. More loaded drays drive to the door with barrels of crackers, ale, pickles, sauerkraut, and potatoes, with boxes of shirts, drawers, condensed milk and beef, with bales of cotton and flannel for the sewing-room, all of which are speedily disposed of, to make room for the arrivals of the morrow. Men and women come and go—to visit, to make inquiries, to ask favors, to offer services, to criticise and find

fault, to bring news from the hospitals at Vicksburg, Memphis, Murfreesboro' and Nashville, to make inquiries for missing men through the Hospital Directory of the Commission, to make donations of money, always needed, to retail their sorrows, and sometimes to idle away an hour in the midst of the hurrying, writing, copying, mailing, packing and shipping of this busy place.

The sun declines westward, its fervent heat is abating, and the hands of the clock point to the hour of six, and sometimes to seven. Wearied in body, exhausted mentally, and saturated with the passing streams of others' sorrows, I select the letters which must be answered by to-morrow morning's mail, replies to which have been delayed by the interruptions of the day, and again hail the street-car, which takes me to my home.