Into the Long Dark Night

by Michael Phillips

  Mr. Lincoln was furious. It almost seemed as though his own general had been trying to help Lee survive so that he could regain his strength and try still another invasion of the North! Later in August, General Meade came to the Capital for a meeting with Lincoln. I happened to be in Philadelphia at the time with Mrs. Harding and Mr. Vargo and several young nurses of the Sanitary Commission. But Mr. Hay told me about their meeting later.

  Mr. Lincoln had said to the general who’d won the battle of Gettysburg, “Do you know, General, what your attitude toward Lee for a week after the battle reminded me of?” Meade said he didn’t. “I’ll be hanged,” the President told him, “if I could think of anything other than an old woman trying to shoo her geese across a creek!”

  I made enough friends that I had people to talk to and to keep from being too lonely. I even began to feel at home in Washington. The landlady at the boardinghouse, Annabelle Richards, really did make me feel as if I were coming home every time I returned after I’d been away for a few days. After a while I didn’t think of myself as being a “boarder” but rather that her house was where I lived. I did go back to visit Mrs. Surratt from time to time, though she continued to try my resolve. There just didn’t seem to be any way to get “inside” her and establish any kind of a friendship. I continued to pray for her.

  I wrote to the convent and was so happy to get word back that Sister Janette was recovering nicely and was nearly returned to full strength. They invited me to come back soon, and all the sisters signed the letter and added personal words of their own. Every letter from California made me cry, and so did the one from the convent. I did think often about the time I’d spent there. I still couldn’t help but wonder if God might someday want me to follow that same life myself. Part of me hoped so.

  In the meantime, I knew such a life wasn’t for me yet. Right now I had enough to occupy my time just keeping pace with the tiring agenda that had been set before me. I did take a week off from the Commission work in early September to go back north to visit the Convent of John Seventeen and the Sisters of Unity. They treated me like one of them, making me even more homesick for the sense of belonging I had known when I was with them.

  But I returned to Washington, and then visited the headquarters of the Sanitary Commission in Boston later in September. I traveled there by train with Mrs. Harding and Eliza Ireland, a nurse who supervised much of the training of the volunteers and who had become quite a good friend.

  In Boston, I first saw Dorothea Dix. I’d heard plenty about her and was frightened at the prospect of her seeing me and maybe even telling Mrs. Harding to get rid of me. She had volunteered her services to the Union just five days after Fort Sumter fell and was put in charge of all female nurses used by the Union. She was tireless but autocratic and unbending—so much so that eventually she began to be called “Dragon Dix.”

  She was especially hard on young women wanting to help the war effort because it seemed like a romantic, adventurous thing to do—which was the mentality of many of the young men who joined up, too. I don’t suppose that was so much of a problem after the war had been going awhile, but from everything I’d heard of her, she even turned down nuns sometimes. “No woman under thirty years need apply to serve in government hospitals,” she had always maintained. “They are required to be very plain-looking women. Their dresses must be brown or black, with no bows, no curls, no jewelry, and no hoop skirts.”

  She didn’t actually work for the Sanitary Commission but for the army itself. She was in Boston for the same planning and training sessions as I was attending. So even if she’d wanted to, I don’t suppose she could have had me thrown out. After we were introduced, she looked me over from head to foot without a smile, without so much as a word. When Mrs. Harding mentioned that I was a writer who’d written a book and several articles on behalf of the war effort, the dragon lady’s only remark was a noncommittal “Hmmph.” It wasn’t hard to tell that she thought I was too young to be doing what I was doing and if she had her way I wouldn’t do it anymore.

  Far more pleasant was my meeting with Mary Ann Bickerdyke, a Quaker widow who was a Sanitary Commission agent. She had traveled with the Union army for over three years, through sixteen battles. After Gettysburg, she said, she wanted to take some time in the North to round up more support, to encourage the volunteers, and to assist Mr. Vargo in raising desperately needed funds. As soon as she was able, she said she intended to be back with the soldiers on the front lines where she could do the most good. She had visited with President Lincoln too, and laughed when telling me that he’d heard of her nickname and had called her “Mother Bickerdyke,” just like the boys in the hospitals all did.

  The most widely circulated story about Mrs. Bickerdyke related her response when a surgeon she was helping asked her on whose authority she was acting. She answered, “On the authority of the Lord God Almighty. Have you anything that outranks that?” She was the only woman General Sherman allowed in his camps. When he was asked why he allowed her, he replied, “I make the exception in her case for one simple reason: She outranks me.”

  The trip to Boston was the only time I ever saw Dorothea Dix. Our paths never crossed again, much to my relief. But I did see a great deal more of Mother Bickerdyke. Several times we spoke in Washington together on behalf of the Commission. And because we both were working for the Sanitary Commission, we remained in loose touch with each other through Mrs. Harding and Mr. Vargo, even after she returned to the front lines.

  We spent two weeks in Boston before returning to Washington via New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, where we held meetings featuring Mrs. Bickerdyke. While in Boston I wrote Almeda a long letter that took me several nights by candlelight after the others had gone to sleep. Being in her home city of Boston had turned my thoughts toward her in a deeper way than ever before. My heart filled with such volumes of love for all she had been in my life, and I had to try to tell her.

  I realized too that it was time I tried to say to her, as one adult woman to another, how deeply appreciative I was of everything she had built into me spiritually—with her patience and her love and her understanding and the many long talks we had had together. She had been a mother to me after Ma’s death. Much of my own relationship with God I owed to her loving nurturing of me as I grew from girlhood into adulthood. Not until you’re older do you realize how deeply people have affected you as you’ve grown. I needed to tell her again, even though I had told her some of my feelings before. I wanted to tell her, too, how much it had meant to me that she’d shared so openly about her past and about Mr. Parrish and how she’d come to know about God’s love for her. Being in Boston reminded me of that all over again and carved out new depths in my love for her.

  When I was in Boston I also wrote to Mr. King to tell him what I was doing. I sent the letter to Governor Stanford’s office in Sacramento. Mr. King had been involved in many activities in and around Boston before he had come to California, and I thought he’d like to know that his work with me in 1860 had led me back to his old home.

  Chapter 34

  Thoughts of Faraway Places

  The temperature began to cool steadily, and it became obvious that fall was approaching.

  Still I was busily involved, meeting more and more people, traveling to new places, seeing cities I’d never dreamed of being able to visit. And somehow the time continued to pass. I wasn’t consciously thinking of staying on the East Coast, but the days slipped by, then weeks . . . then months. Whenever anyone would ask me where I was from, I’d immediately answer, “California.” I never stopped to think about actually living somewhere else. And yet I was growing older, and my writing was paying enough that I could support myself and wouldn’t have to go back to California if I didn’t want to.

  It always took me off guard, but more and more I would encounter people who recognized my name. “Oh, I read your article about such-and-such,” they might say. Some knew me from political articles, others from gold rush storie
s. I even met one lady who remembered my story about Katie coming from Virginia and the little apple seedling. And the book was making its way to the East Coast from Chicago too, and the few people who knew about it and had read it were always so nice about what they said.

  We usually don’t see big bends and forks in the road of our lives until we’re past them. No matter how much we plan, things still have a way of sneaking up on us and sliding past without our noticing. I doubt General Lee or General Meade realized how decisive the battle of Gettysburg would be on June 29 as they were approaching the town from opposite directions. Gettysburg itself wasn’t part of anyone’s strategy—it just happened to be there in the way, and then people looked back later, as they were doing this fall, and said that stopping Lee had been a major turning point.

  Well, now it was fall, and it had been over four months since I had said goodbye to my family in Miracle Springs. And when in every one of their letters they’d ask me when I was coming back, I’d read the words lightly, not thinking about them too much. Without knowing it, I suppose I was gradually working my way around one of those bends in the road that I didn’t even know was there. If very much more time went by, I’d have to start realizing that I was living and working in the East, not just “visiting” for a short time. Because I felt a great purpose in what I was doing, I knew it was important. And to be truthful, I wasn’t thinking of returning just yet. There was still so much more to be done, and I felt I needed to be part of it.

  This was especially true once reports began to come to us that General Lee’s army was, as Mr. Lincoln had feared, rebuilding itself to full strength. And once the fighting flared up seriously again, it would cause terrible casualties and increase the need for medical care.

  All the while, I was writing and was being paid for my stories. Several years earlier, Mr. Kemble had been sending my stories about California and the gold rush and west coast politics to the East so folks here would know more about the West. Now I was writing about the East and about the civil war, and the articles were being sent back to California so folks there would know what was happening through the eyes of one of their own—me!

  Then came a day, in early October, when suddenly all this dawned on me in a flash.

  “What am I doing here?” I thought to myself. “How long am I going to stay . . . how long will the war last . . . what will I do when it’s over . . . where is my home now?”

  As significant as the questions were with regard to my future, even more significant was the fact that I knew I didn’t have the answers. I didn’t know.

  Would I return to the convent? If I did, would it be the same, or had the experience struck so deeply in me simply because of how and when it had come? If I did go back to Miracle Springs, what then? What would I do—live forever with Pa and Almeda, writing and working at the Mine and Freight?

  Or did my future hold something I still couldn’t see, around bends in the road of my life that I hadn’t even come to yet?

  Then I realized that writing was something you could do anywhere. It paid enough for me to rent a room and pay for board anywhere, and the government was taking care of my expenses now, so I could save my article-money. For all these reasons, it suddenly dawned on me that if I wanted to, I could go anywhere to live and keep writing.

  Just think . . . anywhere! Now that there were telegraph lines all across the country, and now that Mr. Stanford and his men were working so hard to get a railroad line built all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic, I could stay in touch with my family and Mr. Kemble and even President Lincoln from just about anywhere on the whole continent.

  The thought was staggering!

  Women didn’t usually have the opportunity to mark their own path any way they chose. But it seemed that I could! How could I be so fortunate? Why had God so blessed me as to give me a freedom that so few people knew? Ma certainly had never known anything like it. She had had to work hard just to keep us five kids alive! And now here I was, her eldest, experiencing a freedom she could not even have imagined.

  It all made me feel humble and thankful, adventurous and bold and daring—all at once!

  I could go to Alaska or Colorado and write stories about the new gold rushes there, or to Canada or Oregon . . . maybe I could even travel to Europe someday!

  But the very next afternoon my thoughts took an altogether different and equally unexpected turn.

  Chapter 35

  A Surprise Letter

  The moment my eyes fell on the envelope that Mrs. Richards handed me, I recognized my sister Emily’s handwriting.

  I had heard from every one of my other brothers and sisters, but not Emily. The only news of her I’d received had come from Almeda, and that wasn’t much.

  It was not a long letter, but pleasant and newsy, and it was so good to hear that she and Mike were doing well, that she was happy, and that she saw the rest of the family once a month or so.

  But the most important reason she’d written, she said, didn’t come till the last of the three pages of her letter.

  You’ll never believe it, Corrie, but guess what—I’m going to have a baby. I just found out from the doctor two weeks ago—sometime in the spring, he says. Oh, Mike and I are so happy, and I wanted to tell you first of all. I haven’t even told Becky or Almeda or Katie yet. Nobody else except Mike, that is. Of course he knows!

  You’ve always been the best sister a girl could have. You took care of us, you were always so patient with us, and though we didn’t know it at the time, you were practically both Ma and Pa to all four of us there for a while. I don’t suppose I ever said it enough to you, and I’m sorry I waited so long. But knowing there’s new life inside me has awakened me to lots of things I never realized before.

  So I wanted you, my older sister, to know before anyone. You are so special to me, and I’m so proud of you! Every time I see something of yours in the newspaper, my heart just gets big inside and I can’t help but smile on account of my famous sister, the friend of the President!

  Oh, Corrie, I love you so much, and I hope and pray you’ll someday know the joy I feel right now of being able to bring a new life into the world.

  God bless you, my dear sister,

  EMILY

  I was sobbing long before I was through reading.

  I laid the letter down on the bed and went outside. I had to have some fresh air, and walk.

  Why had her words of happiness stung me so deeply? Why couldn’t I rejoice and laugh with her?

  I knew why. And it made the tears streaming down my cheeks all the more difficult to ignore, because Emily’s letter had come immediately after my enthusiasm about going wherever I wanted to.

  Perhaps I could go to faraway places. Perhaps I had shaken President Lincoln’s hand and written newspaper articles, and perhaps even a few people recognized my name when they heard it.

  But what did all that matter? What difference would that make if my life wasn’t complete?

  That was the hardest question of all to face—one that I now wondered if I’d always been afraid to look at. Could a woman’s life be complete without being married? Ma had always tried to prepare me to not be married, but I could tell from her tone that it was a sorry pass for a young woman to come to, and somehow we ought to be making plans to make the best of it. I had always just accepted it as my fate that I wouldn’t be married, and I even began to like the idea.

  But maybe my experience with Cal had wounded me more deeply than I wanted to admit. The way I’d gotten my hopes up about him showed me that down deep I wanted to be married just like everyone else.

  During my time with Sister Janette at the convent, I thought I had put the question to rest once and for all. I felt as if I truly understood for the first time that the deepest meaning a woman’s life could have, and the most eternally significant, was to be devoted to Jesus in as complete a way as if married to him. I had been excited about that prospect, eager to give myself and all the rest of my life to him with tha
t abandoned totality.

  Why, then, did Emily’s words bring tears of anguish and loss to my eyes? I hope you’ll someday know the joy I feel. . . .

  But I never would know it! And why should it make me cry? Why should I feel saddened by it? Sister Janette wouldn’t. She had chosen to live a life that would never bring the things Emily was speaking of. I thought I had wanted to make that choice, too. And yet . . . Emily’s words rubbed something raw within me.

  I did want to know the joy she spoke of! I couldn’t deny it! I wanted to know what it felt like to have a man’s arms wrapped around me, to hear the words spoken in my ear, “Corrie . . . I love you!”

  Oh, God, I’m sorry, I thought. I want to love you and serve you and be content that YOU love me. I’m so sorry . . . but I do wish that someday I might know the love of a man, too.

  But I would never know it. I was too old already, and I didn’t know any young men, and I wasn’t pretty . . . worst of all, I wasn’t the marrying kind—just like Ma had said. I wasn’t fun and lively. I was a reading, thinking kind of person, not the kind of girl any young man would ever look twice at. And I wasn’t interested in doing nothing but making a home for a man and having ten children. What man would want to marry a woman who was always doing man-things, like writing and making speeches? None of any of that mattered anyway. I was twenty-six, and that was too old. Ma’d said I wasn’t the marrying sort clear back when I was ten or twelve, and I guess she was as right about that as she was about most things.

  I wiped my sleeve across my eyes as I walked, but I couldn’t stop the tears from coming.

  I hope you’ll know the joy I feel right now of being able to bring a new life into the world. . . .

  No, Emily, I thought to myself, I’m afraid I never will know what it’s like to love a man, to be loved in return, or to have a baby and to be a mother.