Nurse and Spy in the Union Army

I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

U. S. GRANT.

Then the following document was made out by General Grant, and submitted for acceptance:

General – In conformity with the agreement of this afternoon, I will submit the following proposition for the surrender of the city of Vicksburg, public stores, etc. On your accepting the terms proposed, I will march in one division, as a guard, and take possession at eight o’clock to-morrow morning. As soon as paroles can be made out and signed by the officers and men, you will be allowed to march out of our lines, the officers taking with them their regimental clothing, and staff, field and cavalry officers, one horse each. The rank and file will be allowed all their clothing, but no other property. If these conditions are accepted, any amount of rations you may deem necessary can be taken from the stores you now have, and also the necessary cooking utensils for preparing them; thirty wagons also, counting two two-horse or mule teams as one. You will be allowed to transport such articles as cannot be carried along. The same conditions will be allowed to all sick and wounded officers and privates as fast as they become able to travel. The paroles for these latter must be signed, however, whilst officers are present authorized to sign the roll of prisoners.

After some further correspondence on both sides this proposition was accepted, and on the fourth of July the Federals took possession of the city of Vicksburg.

A paragraph from General Grant’s official despatch will best explain the result of his campaign, together with the surrender of Vicksburg: “The defeat of the enemy in five battles outside of Vicksburg, the occupation of Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi, and the capture of Vicksburg and its garrison and munitions of war, a loss to the enemy of thirty-seven thousand prisoners, among whom were fifteen general officers, at least ten thousand killed and wounded, and among the killed Generals Tracy, Tilghman and Green, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stragglers, who can never be collected and organized. Arms and munitions of war for an army of sixty thousand have fallen into our hands, besides a large amount of other public property, consisting of railroads, locomotives, cars, steamboats, cotton, etc., and much was destroyed to prevent our capturing it.”

On the thirteenth of July the President sent an autograph letter to General Grant, of which the following is a copy:

Executive Mansion, Washington, July 13th, 1863.

To Major General Grant:

My Dear General – I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg I thought you should do what you finally did – march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gipson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Banks; and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong.

Yours, very truly, A. LINCOLN.

It is stated on good authority that at the time the news of Grant’s success reached the President, there were several gentlemen present some of whom had just been informing Mr. Lincoln that there were great complaints against General Grant with regard to his intemperate habits. After reading the telegram announcing the fall of Vicksburg, the President turned to his anxious friends of the temperance question and said:

“So I understand Grant drinks whiskey to excess?”

“Yes,” was the reply.

“What whiskey does he drink?”

“What whiskey?” doubtfully queried his hearers.

“Yes. Is it Bourbon or Monongahela?”

“Why do you ask, Mr. President?”

“Because if it makes him win victories like that at Vicksburg, I will send a demijohn of the same kind to every general in the army.”

It is also stated on the same authority that General Grant is strictly temperate.

His men are almost as much attached to him as are the Army of the Potomac to General McClellan. He is a true soldier, and shares all the hardships with his men, sleeping on the ground in the open air, and eating hard bread and salt pork with as good a grace as any private soldier.

He seldom wears a sword, except when absolutely necessary, and frequently wears a semi-military coat and low crowned hat.

The mistakes which people used to make, when coming to headquarters to see the general, often reminded me of a genuine anecdote which is told of General Richardson, or “Fighting Dick,” as we familiarly called him. It occurred when the troops were encamped near Washington, and was as follows:

The general was sauntering along toward a fort, which was in course of erection not far from headquarters, dressed in his usual uniform for fatigue, namely: citizen’s pants, undress coat, and an old straw hat which had once been white, but was now two or three shades nearer the general’s own complexion.

Along came one of those dashing city staff officers, in white gloves, and trimmed off with gold lace to the very extreme of military regulations. He was in search of General Richardson, but did not know him personally. Reining up his horse some little distance from the general, he shouted: “hallo, old fellow! can you tell me where General Richardson’s headquarters are?”

The general pointed out the tent to him, and the young officer went dashing along, without ever saying “thank you.” The general then turned on his heel and went back to his tent, where he found the officer making a fuss because there was no orderly to hold his horse. Turning to General R., as he came up, he said: “Won’t you hold my horse while I find General R.?” “Oh yes, certainly,” said he.

After hitching the horse to a post near by for that purpose, the general walked into the tent, and, confronting young pomposity, he said in his peculiar twang, “Well, sir, what will you have?”

When the Federal troops marched into Vicksburg, what a heart-sickening sight it presented; the half-famished inhabitants had crawled from their dens and caves in the earth, to find their houses demolished by shell, and all their pleasant places laid waste.

But the appearance of the soldiers as they came from the entrenchments covered with mud and bespattered with the blood of their comrades who had been killed or wounded, would have touched a heart of stone.

The poor horses, and mules, too, were a sad sight, for they had fared even worse than the soldiers – for there was no place of safety for them – not even entrenchments, and they had scarcely anything at all to eat for weeks, except mulberry leaves.

One man, in speaking of the state of affairs in the city, during the siege, said: “The terror of the women and children, their constant screams and wailings over the dead bodies of their friends, mingled as they were with the shrieks of bursting shell, and the pitiful groans of the dying, was enough to appall the stoutest heart.” And others said it was a strange fact that the women could not venture out of their caves a moment without either being killed or wounded, while the men and officers walked or rode about with but little loss of life comparatively.

A lady says: “Sitting in my cave, one evening, I heard the most heart-rending shrieks and groans, and upon making inquiry, I was told that a mother had taken her child into a cave about a hundred yards from us, and having laid it on its little bed, as the poor woman thought, in safety, she took her seat near the entrance of the cave. A mortar-shell came rushing through the air, and fell upon the cave, and bursting in the ground entered the cave; a fragment of the shell mashed the head of the little sleeper, crushing out the young life, and leaving the distracted mother to pierce the heavens with her cries of agony.”

How blightingly the hand of war lay upon that once flourishing city! The closed and desolate houses, the gardens with open gates, and the poor, starving mules, standing amid the flowers, picking off every green leaf, to allay their hunger, presented a sad picture.

I will give the following quotation as a specimen of cave life in Vicksburg: “I was sitting near the entrance of my cave about five o’clock in the afternoon, when the bombardment commenced more furiously than usual, the shells falling thickly around us, causing vast columns of earth to fly upward, mingled with smoke. As usual, I was uncertain whether to remain within, or to run out. As the rocking and trembling of the earth was distinctly felt, and the explosions alarmingly near, I stood within the mouth of the cave ready to make my escape, should one chance to fall above our domicile.

“In my anxiety I was startled by the shouts of the servants, and a most fearful jar and rocking of the earth, followed by a deafening explosion, such as I had never heard before. The cave filled instantly with smoke and dust. I stood there, with a tingling, prickling sensation in my head, hands and feet, and with confused brain. Yet alive! was the first glad thought that came to me – child, servants, all here, and saved!

“I stepped out and found a group of persons before my cave, looking anxiously for me, and lying all around were freshly-torn rose bushes, arborvitæ trees, large clods of earth, splinters, and pieces of plank.

“A mortar-shell had struck the corner of the cave; fortunately, so near the brow of the hill, that it had gone obliquely into the earth, exploding as it went, breaking large masses from the side of the hill – tearing away the fence, the shrubbery and flowers – sweeping all like an avalanche down near the entrance of my poor refuge.

“On another occasion I sat reading in safety, I imagined, when the unmistakable whirring of Parrott shells told us that the battery we so much dreaded had opened from the entrenchments. I ran to the entrance to call the servants in. Immediately after they entered a shell struck the earth a few feet from the entrance, burying itself without exploding.

“A man came in, much frightened, and asked permission to remain until the danger was over. He had been there but a short time when a Parrott shell came whirling in at the entrance and fell in the center of the cave before us, and lay there, the fuse still smoking.

“Our eyes were fastened upon that terrible missile of death as by the fascination of a serpent, while we expected every moment that the terrific explosion would take place. I pressed my child closer to my heart and drew nearer the wall. Our fate seemed certain – our doom was sealed.

“Just at this dreadful moment, George, a negro boy, rushed forward, seized the shell, and threw it into the street, then ran swiftly in the opposite direction.

“Fortunately the fuse became extinguished and the shell fell harmless to the ground, and is still looked upon as a monument of terror.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

WESTERN GIBRALTAR – THE “LEAD MINERS” – THE PALMETTO EXCHANGED FOR THE STARS AND STRIPES – ENTHUSIASM OF TROOPS – SUFFERINGS FORGOTTEN – I AM ATTACKED BY FEVER – UNFIT FOR DUTY – “VICKSBURG IS OURS” – SPIRIT YEARNINGS – “ROCK ME TO SLEEP MOTHER” – IMPOSITION OF STEAMBOAT OFFICERS – GRANT’S CARE FOR HIS MEN – BURSTING OF A SHELL IN CAMP – CONSEQUENCES – SPEECHLESS AGONY – I AM RELEASED FROM DUTY – MY TRIP TO CAIRO – MISS MARY SAFFORD – ARRIVAL AT WASHINGTON.

It was a proud day for the Union army when General U. S. Grant marched his victorious troops into the rebel Sebastopol – or “the western Gibraltar,” as the rebels were pleased to term it.

The troops marched in triumphantly, the Forty-fifth Illinois, the “lead miners,” leading the van, and as they halted in front of the fine white marble Court House, and flung out the National banner to the breeze, and planted the battle-worn flags bearing the dear old stars and stripes – where the “palmetto” had so recently floated – then went up tremendous shouts of triumphant and enthusiastic cheers, which were caught up and re-echoed by the advancing troops until all was one wild scene of joy; and the devastated city and its miserable inhabitants were forgotten in the triumph of the hour.

This excitement proved too much for me, as I had been suffering from fever for several days previous, and had risen from my cot and mounted my horse for the purpose of witnessing the crowning act of the campaign. Now it was over, and I was exhausted and weak as a child.

I was urged to go to a hospital, but refused; yet at length I was obliged to report myself unfit for duty, but still persisted in sitting up most of the time. Oh what dreary days and nights I passed in that dilapidated city! A slow fever had fastened itself upon me, and in spite of all my fortitude and determination to shake it off, I was each day becoming more surely its victim.

I could not bear the shouts of the men, or their songs of triumph which rung out upon every breeze – one of which I can never forget, as I heard it sung until my poor brain was distracted, and in my hours of delirium I kept repeating “Vicksburg is ours,” “Vicksburg is ours,” in a manner more amusing than musical.

I will here quote a few verses which I think are the same:

Hark! borne upon the Southern breeze,As whispers breathed above the trees,Or as the swell from off the seas,In summer showers,Fall softly on the ears of menStrains sweetly indistinct, and then —Hist! listen! catch the sound again —“Vicksburg is ours!” O’er sea-waves beating on the shore,’Bove the thunder-storm and tempest o’er,O’er cataracts in headlong roar,High, high it towers.O’er all the breastworks and the moats,The Starry Flag in triumph floats,And heroes thunder from’ their throats“Vicksburg is ours!” Spread all your banners in the sky,The sword of victory gleams on high,Our conquering eagles upward fly,And kiss the stars;For Liberty the Gods awake,And hurl the shattered foes a wreck,The Northern arms make strong to breakThe Southern bars. All honor to the brave and trueWho fought the bloody battles through,And from the ramparts victory drewWhere Vicksburg cowers;And o’er the trenches, o’er the slain,Through iron hail and leaden rain,Still plunging onward, might and main,Made Vicksburg ours.

I think I realized, in those hours of feverish restlessness and pain, the heart-yearnings for the touch of a mother’s cool hand upon my brow, which I had so often heard the poor sick and wounded soldiers speak of. Oh how I longed for one gentle caress from her loving hand! and when I would sometimes fall into a quiet slumber, and forget my surroundings, I would often wake up and imagine my mother sat beside me, and would only realize my sad mistake when looking in the direction I supposed her to be, there would be seen some great bearded soldier, wrapped up in an overcoat, smoking his pipe.

The following lines in some measure express my spirit-longings for the presence of my mother in those nights of torturing fever and days of languor and despondency:

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight;Make me a child again, just for to-night!Mother, O come from the far-distant shore,Take me again to your heart as of yore;Over my slumbers your loving watch keep —Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. ****** Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!I am so weary of toils and of tears,Toil without recompense – tears all in vain —Take them, and give me my childhood again.I have grown weary of warfare and strife,Weary of bartering my health and my life,Weary of sowing for others to reap —Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

After the fall of Vicksburg a large proportion of the soldiers in that vicinity, who had fought so bravely, endured so many hardships, and lain in the entrenchments so many weary weeks during the siege, were permitted to visit their homes on furlough.

In view of this General Grant issued a special order forbidding steamboat officers to charge more than five dollars to enlisted men, and seven dollars to officers, as fare between Vicksburg and Cairo. Notwithstanding this order the captains of steamers were in the habit of charging from fifteen to thirty dollars apiece.

On one occasion one of those steamers had on board an unusually large number of soldiers, said to be over one thousand enlisted men and nearly two hundred and fifty officers, en route for home on leave of absence; and all had paid from twenty to twenty-five dollars each. But just as the boat was about to push off from the wharf an order came from General Grant requiring the money to be refunded to men and officers over and above the stipulated sum mentioned in a previous order, or the captain to have his boat confiscated and submit himself to imprisonment for disobedience of orders. Of course the captain handed over the money, and amid cheers for General Grant, sarcastic smiles, and many amusing and insinuating speeches and doubtful compliments to the captain, the men pocketed the recovered “greenbacks,” and went on their way rejoicing.

When the General was told of the imposition practiced by the boatmen on his soldiers, he replied: “I will teach them, if they need the lesson, that the men who have periled their lives to open the Mississippi for their benefit cannot be imposed upon with impunity.”

A noble trait in the character of this brave general is that he looks after the welfare of his men as one who has to give an account of his stewardship, or of those intrusted to his care.

I remained in my tent for several days, not being able to walk about, or scarcely able to sit up. I was startled one day from my usual quietude by the bursting of a shell which had lain in front of my tent, and from which no danger was apprehended; yet it burst at a moment when a number of soldiers were gathered round it – and oh, what sad havoc it made of those cheerful, happy boys of a moment previous! Two of them were killed instantly and four were wounded seriously, and the tent where I lay was cut in several places with fragments of shell, the tent poles knocked out of their places, and the tent filled with dust and smoke.

One poor colored boy had one of his hands torn off at the wrist; and of all the wounded that I have ever seen I never heard such unearthly yells and unceasing lamentations as that boy poured forth night and day; ether and chloroform were alike unavailing in hushing the cries of the poor sufferer. At length the voice began to grow weaker, and soon afterwards ceased altogether; and upon making inquiry I found he had died groaning and crying until his voice was hushed in death.

The mother and sister of one of the soldiers who was killed by the explosion of the shell arrived a short time after the accident occurred, and it was truly a most pitiful sight to see the speechless grief of those stricken ones as they sat beside the senseless clay of that beloved son and brother.

All my soldierly qualities seemed to have fled, and I was again a poor, cowardly, nervous, whining woman; and as if to make up for lost time, and to give vent to my long pent up feelings, I could do nothing but weep hour after hour, until it would seem that my head was literally a fountain of tears and my heart one great burden of sorrow. All the horrid scenes that I had witnessed during the past two years seemed now before me with vivid distinctness, and I could think of nothing else.

It was under these circumstances that I made up my mind to leave the army; and when once my mind is made up on any subject I am very apt to act at once upon that decision. So it was in this case. I sent for the surgeon and told him I was not able to remain longer – that I would certainly die if I did not leave immediately.

The good old surgeon concurred in my opinion, and made out a certificate of disability, and I was forthwith released from further duty as “Nurse and Spy” in the Federal army.

The very next day I embarked for Cairo, and on my arrival there I procured female attire, and laid aside forever (perhaps) my military uniform; but I had become so accustomed to it that I parted with it with much reluctance.

While in Cairo I had the pleasure of seeing the celebrated Miss Mary Safford, of whom so much has been said and written.

One writer gives the following account of her, which is correct with regard to personal appearance, and I have no doubt is correct throughout:

“I cannot close this letter without a passing word in regard to one whose name is mentioned by thousands of our soldiers with gratitude and blessing.

“Miss Mary Safford is a resident of this town, whose life, since the beginning of this war, has been devoted to the amelioration of the soldier’s lot and his comfort in the hospital.

“She is a young lady, petite in figure, unpretending, but highly cultivated, by no means officious, and so wholly unconscious of her excellencies and the great work that she is achieving, that I fear this public allusion to her may pain her modest nature.

“Her sweet young face, full of benevolence, her pleasant voice and winning manner, install her in every one’s heart directly; and the more one sees of her the more they admire her great soul and noble nature.

“Not a day elapses but she is found in the hospitals, unless indeed she is absent on an errand of mercy up the Tennessee, or to the hospitals in Kentucky.

“Every sick and wounded soldier in Cairo knows and loves her, and, as she enters the ward, every pale face brightens at her approach. As she passes along she inquires of each one how he had passed the night, if he is well supplied with books and tracts, and if there is anything she can do for him. All tell her their story frankly – the old man old enough to be her father, and the boy in his teens, all confide in her.

“For one she must write a letter to his friend at home; she must sit down and read at the cot of another; must procure, if the surgeon will allow it, this or that article of food for a third; must soothe and encourage a fourth who desponds and is ready to give up his hold on life; must pray for a fifth who is afraid to die, and wrestle for him till light shines through the dark valley; and so on, varied as may be the personal or spiritual wants of the sufferers.

“Surgeons, nurses, medical directors, and army officers, are all her true friends, and so judicious and trustworthy is she, that the Chicago Sanitary Commission have given her carte blanche to draw on their stores at Cairo for anything she may need in her errands of mercy in the hospitals.

“She is performing a noble work, and that too in the most quiet and unassuming manner.”

From Cairo I went to Washington, where I spent several weeks, until I recovered from my fever and was able to endure the fatigue of traveling. Then after visiting the hospitals once more, and bidding farewell to old scenes and associations, I returned to my friends to recruit my shattered health.

CHAPTER XXIX

REVIEW OF HOSPITAL AND CAMP LIFE – QUESTIONS ANSWERED – BEHIND THE SCENES – BLESSED EMPLOYMENT – LIVING PAST SCENES OVER AGAIN – MY MOST IMPORTANT LABORS – MOTHER AND SON – STRANGE POWER OF SYMPATHY – HERO’S REPOSE – OFFICERS AND MEN – THE BRAVEST ARE KINDEST – GENERAL SEDGWICK – BATTLE SCENES – MR. ALVORD’S DESCRIPTION – VOLUNTEER SURGEONS – HEART SICKENING SIGHTS – AN AWFUL PICTURE – FEMALE NURSES – SENTIMENTAL – PATRIOTIC – MEDICAL DEPARTMENT – YOUNG SURGEONS – ANECDOTES.

Since I returned to New England there have been numerous questions asked me with regard to hospitals, camp life, etc., which have not been fully answered in the preceding narrative, and I have thought that perhaps it would not be out of place to devote a chapter to that particular object.

One great question is: “Do the soldiers get the clothing and delicacies which we send them – or is it true that the surgeons, officers and nurses appropriate them to their own use?”

In reply to this question I dare not assert that all the things which are sent to the soldiers are faithfully distributed, and reach the individuals for whom they were intended. But I have no hesitation in saying that I have reason to believe that the cases are very rare where surgeons or nurses tamper with those articles sent for the comfort of the sick and wounded.

If the ladies of the Soldiers’ Aid Societies and other benevolent organizations could have seen even the quantity which I have seen with my own eyes distributed, and the smile of gratitude with which those supplies are welcomed by the sufferers, they would think that they were amply rewarded for all their labor in preparing them.