A Story of the Red Cross; Glimpses of Field Work

Surgeon Hutton's headquarter tent was politely tendered for the first meeting, and as one could never, while memory lasts, forget this scene, so no words can ever adequately describe it. The ample tent was filled. Here on the right the Mayor, broad shouldered, kind faced and efficient, officers of camp, and many visitors, wondering what it all meant; in the center the tall doctor and his faithful band – Eliza Lanier, Lena Seymour (mother and daughter), Elizabeth Eastman, Harriet Schmidt, Lizzie Louis, Rebecca Vidal, Annie Evans, Arthur Duteil, Frederick Wilson, and Edward Holyland.

I give these names because they are worthy a place in the history of any epidemic; but no country, race, nor creed could claim them as a body: four Americans, one German, one French, one Irish, three Africans, part Protestant, and part Catholic, but all from New Orleans, of grand old Howard stock, from Memphis down, nursing in every epidemic from the bayous of the Mississippi to Tampa Bay; and hereafter we will know them as the "Old Guard."

Here, in the winds of approaching winter they stand in the light garb of early September in New Orleans, thin, worn, longing for home, but patient, grateful, and glad, some trifling "nubia" or turban about the head, but only one distinguishing feature in common. A pitiful little misshapen Red Cross, made by their own hands, of two bits of scarlet ribbon, soiled, fringed, and tattered, pinned closely upon the left breast of each, strove in mute appeal to say who they were, and what they served. A friendly recognition and some words of thanks from their President, opened the way for those anxious to follow. The rich, warm eloquence of Mayor Watkins plainly told from how near his heart the stream of gratitude was flowing, and his manly voice trembled as he reverted to the condition of his stricken people, on that pitiless night, when this little band of pilgrim strangers strayed back to them in the rain and darkness. "I fear they often worked in hunger," he said, "for then, as now, we had little for ourselves, our sick, or our well; but they brought us to our feet, and the blessing of every man, woman, and child in Macclenny is on them."

It was with a kind of paternal pride that Dr. Gill advanced and placed before us his matchless record of cases attended, and life preserved. "This is the record of our work," he said. "I am proud of it, and glad that I have been able to make it, but without the best efforts of these faithful nurses I could not have done it; they have stood firm through everything; not a word of complaint from, nor of, one of them, in all these trying months, and I thank you, our President, for this opportunity to testify to their merits in your presence." The full cups overflowed, and as we took each brown calloused hand in ours, and felt the warm tears dropping over them, we realized how far from calloused were the hearts behind them. The silence that followed was a season of prayer.

Then came opportunity for some conversation, questions, and explanations. "We wish to introduce to our President our chief nurse, whom Colonel Southmayd placed in charge of us when we left the car, and directed us to obey him; he is younger than any of us, Ed. Holyland." A slight young man with clear, olive complexion, and dark-browed earnest eyes that looked you straight in the face, came forward; his apparent youthfulness gave rise to the first remark:

"How old are you, Mr. Holyland?"

"Twenty-nine, madam."

"And you have taken charge of these nurses?"

"I have done what I could for their comfort; I think that was what the colonel desired; he knew they would need only care and advice, they would do their best of themselves. During the few days that Colonel Southmayd remained in Jacksonville," he continued, "he was able to send us some such comforts as we needed for the sick, and some nourishing food for ourselves; but this was only a few days, you know, and after that we got on as well as we could without. I know that after he left the nurses gave to the sick, the children, the old and the helpless, what they needed for their own strength."

"But you did not tell us this, Mr. Holyland."

"No, we were dazed and frightened by the things we heard. We felt that your organization was having enough to bear. We knew we must look to you for our pay, and we thought, under the circumstances, that would be your share. But permit me, please, to call your attention to Mr. Wilson (a stout colored man advanced), who took charge of a little hospital of six cases, and carried them all through, day and night, without an hour's relief from any person, and never lost a single case."

"And permit me," chimed in the clear-toned Irish voice of Lizzie Louis, "to tell of Mr. Holyland himself, who found a neglected Italian family a mile or more outside of the town. He went and nursed them alone, and when the young son, a lad of thirteen or fourteen years, died, knowing there was no one to bury him there, he wrapped him in a blanket and brought him into town on his back, for burial."

Holyland's face grew sad, and his eyes modestly sought the floor, as he listened to this unexpected revelation.

"I wish to speak of something else," added one of the men, "which we were held back from doing, and for which we are now very glad. We should not have thought of it ourselves. It is customary," he continued, "when a patient dies in an epidemic, to give the nurse ten dollars for preparing the body for burial; this was done in our first case, but Mr. Holyland had the gift promptly returned with thanks, and the explanation that we were employed by an organization which fully rewarded its nurses, and was too high and too correct to accept tribute for misfortune; it was enough that the patient was lost."

By this time poor black Annie Evans, the "Mammy" of the group, could hold quiet no longer, and broke silence with, "Missus President! whar is de colonel? Colonel Southmayd; dey tells me all de time he's gone away from New Orleans, and I can't b'l'eve 'em. He can't go away; he can't lib anywhar else, he was always dar. I'se nursed in yellow fever and cholera more'n twenty-five year, and I neber went for nobody but him; it arn't no New Orleans for us widout him dar. I doesn't know de name of dat place dey say he's gone to, and I doesn't want to; he'll be in New Orleans when we gets dar."

There were pitying glances among the group, at this little burst of feeling, for in some way it was an echo of their own; and Lena Seymour added tenderly: "We have been trying for these two months to convince Mammy about this, but she is firm in her faith and sometimes refuses to hear us." But the subject changed with "How many cases did you lose in this epidemic, Mammy?"

"I didn't lose no cases! Lor' bless you, honey, I doesn't lose cases if dey hasn't been killed afore dey gets to me; folks needn't die of yellow fever."

We didn't suppose that "Mammy" intended any reflection upon the medical fraternity.

"But now, friends, we must turn to our settlement, which can not be difficult. Three dollars a day for each nurse, for seventy-nine days, till you are home on Thanksgiving morning. But here are only ten. There are eighteen on our list who left with you and Colonel Southmayd; where are your comrades?" Some eyes flashed and some moistened, as they answered, "We do not know." "They remained in the car that night, and went on to Jacksonville." Swift, dark glances swept from one to another among them. Instinctively they drew closer to each other, and over knitted brows and firmly set teeth, a silence fell dark and ominous like a pall, which the future alone can lift.

The bugle sounded dinner, and this ended our little camp-meeting, than which few camp-meetings, we believe, ever came nearer to the heart of Him who offered His life a ransom, and went about doing good.

The winds blew cold across the camp; the fires shot out long angry tongues of flame and drifts of smoke to every passer-by. The norther was upon us. Night came down, and all were glad of shelter and sleep. The morning, quiet, crisp, and white with frost, revealed the blessing which had fallen upon a stricken land.

Thanksgiving was there before its time. The hard rules relaxed. One day more, and the quarantine was at an end. The north-bound train halted below the camp, and all together, President and agent, tall doctor and happy nurses, took places on it, the first for headquarters at Washington, the last for New Orleans, and home for Thanksgiving morning, full of the joys of a duty well done, rich in well-paid labor, in the love of those they had befriended, and the approval of a whole people, South and North, when once their work should be known to them.

To the last, they clung to their little home-made Red Crosses as if they had been gold and diamonds; and when at length the tracks diverged and the parting must be made, it was with few words, low and softly spoken, but meaning much, with a finger touch upon the little cross, "When you want us, we are there."

The supplies forwarded by us were estimated at ten thousand dollars. The money received was $6,281.58. Out of this sum we paid our twenty nurses three dollars a day, for seventy-nine days – their cost of living, and their transportation when needed. We paid our doctor in charge twenty dollars a day, the customary price, for the same period. We paid our office rent, assistants, telegraphing, drayage for supplies sent on by us (railroad transportation free), and all incidentals for a relief work of over three months' duration. This ran our debit column over on the other side over one thousand dollars. Our little part of the relief of that misfortune was estimated at fifteen thousand dollars, and only those relieved were more grateful than we.

IV

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD

On Sunday afternoon, May 31, 1889, with the waters of the Potomac two feet deep on Pennsylvania Avenue, a half dozen of us left Washington for Johnstown, over washed-out ties and broken tracks, with every little gully swollen to a raging torrent. After forty-eight hours of this, we reached the scene, which no one need or could describe, but if ever a people needed help it was these.

Scarcely a house standing that was safe to enter, the wrecks piled in rubbish thirty feet in height, four thousand dead in the river beds, twenty thousand foodless but for Pittsburg bread rations, and a cold rain which continued unbroken by sunshine for forty days.

It was at the moment of supreme affliction when we arrived at Johnstown. The waters had subsided, and those of the inhabitants who had escaped the fate of their fellows were gazing over the scene of destruction and trying to arouse themselves from the lethargy that had taken hold of them when they were stunned by the realization of all the woe that had been visited upon them. How nobly they responded to the call of duty! How much of the heroic there is in our people when it is needed! No idle murmurings of fate, but true to the god-like instincts of manhood and fraternal love, they quickly banded together to do the best that the wisest among them could suggest.

For five weary months it was our portion to live amid the scenes of destruction, desolation, poverty, want and woe; sometimes in tents, sometimes without; and so much rain and mud, and such a lack of the commonest comforts for a time, until we could build houses to shelter ourselves and those around us. Without a safe and with a dry-goods box for a desk, we conducted financial affairs in money and material to the extent of nearly half a million dollars.

I shall never lose the memory of my first walk on the first day – the wading in mud, the climbing over broken engines, cars, heaps of iron rollers, broken timbers, wrecks of houses; bent railway tracks tangled with piles of iron wire; bands of workmen, squads of military, and getting around the bodies of dead animals, and often people being borne away; the smouldering fires and drizzling rain – all for the purpose of officially announcing to the commanding general (for the place was under martial law) that the Red Cross had arrived in the field. I could not have puzzled General Hastings more if I had addressed him in Chinese; and if ours had been truly an Oriental mission, the gallant soldier could not have been more courteous and kind. He immediately set about devising means for making as comfortable as possible a "poor, lone woman," helpless, of course, upon such a field. It was with considerable difficulty that I could convince him that the Red Cross had a way of taking care of itself at least, and was not likely to suffer from neglect.

Not a business house or bank left, the safes all in the bottom of the river; our little pocketbook was useless, there was nothing to buy, and it would not bring back the dead. With the shelter of the tents of the Philadelphia Red Cross, that joined us en route with supplies, when we could find a cleared place to spread, or soil to hold them, with a dry-goods box for a desk, our stenographer commenced to rescue the first dispatches of any description that entered that desolate city. The disturbed rivers lapped wearily back and forth, the people, dazed and dumb, dug in the muddy banks for their dead. Hastings with his little army of militia kept order.

Soon supplies commenced to pour in from everywhere, to be received, sheltered as best they could be from the incessant rain, and distributed by human hands, for it was three weeks before even a cart could pass the streets.

But I am not here to describe Johnstown – the noble help that came to it, nor the still more noble people that received it – but simply to say that the little untried and unskilled Red Cross played its minor tune of a single fife among the grand chorus of relief of the whole country, that rose like an anthem, till over four millions in money, contributed to its main body of relief, with the faithful Kreamer at its head, had modestly taken the place of the twelve millions destroyed. But after all it was largely the supplies that saved the people at first, as it always is, and the distribution of which largely consumed the money that was contributed later.

From one mammoth tent which served as a warehouse, food and clothing were given out to the waiting people through the hands of such volunteer agents, both women and men, as I scarcely dare hope to ever see gathered together in one work again. The great cry which had gone out had aroused the entire country, and our old-time helpers, full of rich experience and still richer love for the work, faithful to the cross of humanity as the devotee to the cross of the Master, came up from every point – the floods, the cyclones, the battle-fields – and kneeling before the shrine, pledged heart and service anew to the work. Fair hands laying aside their diamonds, and business men their cares, left homes of elegance and luxury to open rough boxes and barrels, handle second-hand clothing, eat coarse food at rough-board tables, sleep on cots under a dripping canvas tent, all for the love of humanity symbolized in the little flag that floated above them.

Clergymen left their pulpits and laymen their charge to tramp over the hillsides from house to house, to find who needed and suffered, and to carry to them from our tents on their shoulders, like beasts of burden, the huge bundles of relief, where no beast of burden could reach.

We had been early requested by official resolution of the Finance Committee of the City of Johnstown to aid them in the erection of houses. We accepted the invitation, and at the same time proposed to aid in furnishing the nucleus of a household for the home which should in any way be made up. This aid seemed imperative, as nothing was left for them to commence living with, neither beds, chairs, tables, nor cooking utensils of any kind; and there were few if any stores open, and no furniture in town.

Of this labor we had our share. Six buildings of one hundred feet by fifty, later known as "Red Cross Hotels," were quickly put up to shelter the people, furnished, supplied, and kept like hotels, free of all cost to them, while others were built by the general committee. Three thousand of the latter were erected, and the Red Cross furnished every one with substantial, newly purchased furniture, ready for occupancy. The books of the "Titusville Manufacturing Company" will show one cash order of ten thousand dollars for furniture. The three thousand houses thus furnished each accommodated two families.

A ponderous book of nearly two feet square shows the name, sex, and number of persons of each family, and a list of every article received by them. To-day one looks in wonder at such a display of clerical labor and accuracy, under even favorable conditions.

This was only accomplished by the hard, unpaid labor of every officer, and the large amount of volunteer friendly aid that came to us.

The great manufacturers of the country, and the heavy contributing agents, on learning our intentions, sent, without a hint from us, many of their articles, as, for instance, New Bedford, Mass., sent mattresses and bedding; Sheboygan, Wis., sent furniture and enameled ironware; Titusville, Pa., with a population of ten thousand, sent ten thousand dollars' worth of its well-made bedsteads, springs, extension-tables, chairs, stands and rockers; and the well-known New York newspaper, The Mail and Express, sent a large lot of mattresses, feather pillows, bedclothing, sheets, and pillow-slips by the thousand and cooking utensils by the ten thousands. Six large teams were in constant service delivering these goods.

When the contributions slackened or ceased, and more material was needed, we purchased of the same firms which had contributed, keeping our stock good until all applications were filled. The record on our books showed that over twenty-five thousand persons had been directly served by us. They had received our help independently and without begging. No child has learned to beg at the doors of the Red Cross.

It is to be borne in mind that the fury of the deluge had swept almost entirely the homes of the wealthy, the elegant, the cultured leaders of society, and the fathers of the town. This class who were spared were more painfully homeless than the indigent poor, who could still huddle in together. They could not go away, for the suffering and demoralized town needed their care and oversight more than ever before. There was no home for them, nowhere to get a meal of food or to sleep. Still they must work on, and the stranger coming to town on business must go unfed, with no shelter at night, if he would sleep, or, indeed, escape being picked up by the military guard.

To meet these necessities, and being apprehensive that some good lives might go out under the existing luck of accommodations, it was decided to erect a building similar to our warehouse. The use of the former site of the Episcopal Church was generously tendered us by the Bishop early in June, for any purpose we might desire. This house, which was soon erected, was known as the "Locust Street Red Cross Hotel"; it stood some fifty rods from our warehouse, and was fifty by one hundred and sixteen feet in dimensions, two stories in height, with lantern roof, built of hemlock, single siding, papered inside with heavy building paper, and heated by natural gas, as all our buildings were. It consisted of thirty-four rooms, besides kitchen, laundry, bath-rooms with hot and cold water, and one main dining-hall and sitting-room through the center, sixteen feet in width by one hundred in length.

It was fully furnished with excellent beds, bedding, bureaus, tables, chairs, and all needful housekeeping furniture. A competent landlady, who, like the rest, had a few weeks before floated down over the same ground on the roof of her house in thirty feet of water, was placed in charge, with instructions to keep a good house, make what she could rent free, but charging no Johnstown person over twenty-five cents for a meal of food.

This was the first attempt at social life after that terrible separation, and its success was something that I am very proud of. The house was full of townspeople from the first day, and strangers no longer looked in vain for accommodations.

The conception of the need of this house, and the method of selecting its inmates, and the manner of inducting them into their new home, were somewhat unique and may be of interest to the reader. I had noticed among the brave and true men, who were working in the mud and rain, many refined-looking gentlemen, who were, before this great misfortune carried away most of their belongings, the wealthiest and most influential citizens. Never having had to struggle amid such hardships and deprivations, their sufferings were more acute than those of the poorer and more hardy people; and it did not require any great foresight to know that they were physically incapable of such labor if prolonged, nor to predict their early sickness and death if they were not properly housed and fed. As the salvation of the town depended in a great measure upon the efforts of these men, it was vitally necessary that their lives should be preserved. Realizing all this, it occurred to us that the most important thing to do, next to feeding the hungry, was to provide proper shelter for these delicate men and their families. The idea once conceived was soon communicated to my staff, and, after due consideration, it was put in the way of realization.

On the afternoon of July 27th hundreds of citizens called on us, and congratulations and good wishes were the order of the day. As the members of each family whom we had selected to occupy apartments in the house arrived, they were quietly taken aside and requested to remain and have dinner with us. After all the guests were departed except those who had been requested to remain, dinner was announced, and the party was seated by the members of the Red Cross. Beside the plate of each head of a family were laid the keys to an apartment, with a card inviting the family to take possession at once, and remain as long as they chose.

I can not describe the scene that followed; there were tears and broken voices; suffice to say, the members of that household were made happy and comfortable for many long months; and I venture to assert that those now living recall those days with the fondest recollections.

The contributions to the general committee had been so liberal that it was possible to erect and provide for the great burial-place of its dead – "Grand View," that overlooks the city. It was also suggested that a benevolent society, as a permanent institution, be formed by the united action of the general committee and the Red Cross. This was successfully accomplished by the generous provision of eight thousand dollars from the committee on its part and the turning over of our well-made and supplied hospital buildings, and the funds we had left placed in charge of a faithful custodian under our pay for the following six months.

This is the present "Union Benevolent Society" of Johnstown to-day.

I remained five months with these people without once visiting my own home, only returning to it when the frost had killed the green I had left in May.

In that time, it was estimated, we had housed, handled, and distributed $211,000 worth of supplies – new and old – for, by request of the weary chairman of the general committee, at the last, we took up the close of its distribution. It is our joy and pride to recall how closely we worked in connection with that honored committee from first to last, and how strong and unsullied that friendship has remained.

The value of money that passed through our hands was $39,000, as stated in the official report of the general committee, to which all required returns were made, recorded, and published by the committee.

Our usual quota of assistants was fifty persons, the higher grade of men and women assistants largely volunteers. Two railroads brought our supplies. To handle these the strongest men were required, and seven two-horse teams ran daily for three and a half months in the distribution, at customary rates of pay. These were the workingmen of the town who had suffered with the rest.

It was a joy that in all the uncertainties of that uncertain field not a single complaint ever reached us of the non-acknowledgment of a dollar entrusted to us.

The paths of charity are over roadways of ashes; and he who would tread them must be prepared to meet opposition, misconstruction, jealousy, and calumny. Let his work be that of angels – still it will not satisfy all.