by Lynn Austin
Julia and the other nurses spent a cold night sleeping on empty pews in one of Falmouth’s churches. Tomorrow it would become a hospital. She had spent several hours that evening helping James arrange everything the way he wanted it.
The distant boom of a cannon awakened her the next morning. As the sun burned away the mist that hovered over the river, she could see the partially completed pontoon bridges. She also saw puffs of smoke from the Confederate side and heard the crack of rifles as Rebel sharpshooters opened fire on the laborers and engineers. Wounded bridge workers began arriving at the field hospital a short time later. Julia’s job had begun.
She assisted James with wound dressings until early afternoon, when the army decided that too many of their workmen were being injured. They halted construction and brought in one hundred artillery pieces, aiming them at Fredericksburg. Bombarding the city would annihilate Rebel resistance so that the bridges could be completed safely.
The horrific cannon fire lasted for two hours. Even with cotton stuffed in her ears, Julia thought she would go deaf from the noise. She sat on one of the church pews and prayed for the town’s citizens— especially the innocent women and children who might be trapped in the holocaust. Long after the violence ended, Julia’s knees continued to shake.
When the smoke cleared, the town stood in ruins. Julia didn’t see how anyone could have survived such an onslaught. But as soon as the engineers resumed work on the bridges, the Rebel sharpshooters quickly put the hospital back in business.
“All we did was give the Confederates some nice piles of rubble to hide behind,” she heard James say as he bent to examine one of the newest shooting victims.
“We wasted our cannonballs for nothing,” the soldier breathed.
“We wasted an entire town for nothing,” James said.
More wounded men poured into the hospital after the army finally sent squadrons of soldiers across the river in pontoon boats to clear the Rebels out. The skirmishing and the incoming casualties lasted all afternoon. By nightfall the bridges were complete, and most of the men who had been wounded that day were on their way to the evacuation ships. The doctors needed to make room in the hospitals for more casualties tomorrow.
Her work finished for the day, Julia put on her coat and went outside to stand in the smoke-filled air, gazing at the destruction across the river. Flames from the still-burning town lit the night sky, interspersed with bright flashes of Confederate artillery hidden in the hills above it. It was a nightmarish scene, yet she couldn’t look away.
A few minutes later the church door opened and James came outside to stand alongside her. They listened to the rumble of distant cannon and watched the flames lick the night sky for several minutes without speaking.
“Why do you suppose something this horrifying is so fascinating?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, shivering. “I’ve been wondering how I would feel if that were my city—if Confederate guns turned Philadelphia into rubble and flames.”
The lights of distant campfires flickered in the night. The evening breeze carried shouts and laughter and the whinnies of horses from far away.
“Do you think anyone who experiences this can ever be the same?” James asked. His voice was very soft. “Will you be the same, Julia? Will you be able to return to your dinner parties and charity balls and forget this ever happened?”
She tried to imagine herself in a ball gown, whirling in Nathaniel Greene’s arms—and couldn’t. “Right now I can’t imagine that this war will ever end. Or that anyone will be alive when it does,” she said.
They fell silent again. Somewhere in the distance a military band played “Hail Columbia.” James reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out his silver flask. Flames reflected off its shiny surface as he unscrewed the cap and tilted it to his lips to drink.
“Don’t,” Julia whispered.
“Pardon me?”
She’d seen him sick on enough mornings to know that if he got drunk tonight he would wake up feeling miserable tomorrow. Aside from acting rude and ill-tempered, he wouldn’t be able to concentrate and his hands would shake—he’d be of little use as a physician.
She had gained so much respect for him after watching him with his patients and working alongside him in the field hospital all day, and she didn’t want him to degrade himself by getting drunk. She longed to stop him from destroying the better part of himself.
“I don’t think getting drunk is the answer,” she said.
“Oh, really?” he said acidly. “The answer to what?” When she didn’t reply he held up the flask. “I suppose you know why I carry this around?”
She wanted to say, Yes, it’s because of what happened in New Haven. But she remembered his reaction at the farmhouse in Sharpsburg, the deep pain she’d seen in his eyes. She wouldn’t mention the murder again.
“You’re a gifted doctor,” she said. “It’s a mystery to everyone back at Fairfield Hospital why you cause yourself such misery by getting drunk so often.”
“Have you ever tried it, Mrs. Hoffman? Would you like a little taste?” He held the flask out to her.
“No, thank you.”
“Go ahead, take a drink. I insist. Maybe you’ll be the first to unlock the mystery of why I drink.” He shoved it in front of her face. “Take a sip.”
The metal felt cold as he shoved it roughly against her lips. He tipped it up. She opened her mouth to prevent him from pouring the liquor down her chin—and because she was afraid of angering him. She swallowed, expecting the bitter taste, the burning fire of strong drink. Instead, she tasted nothing at all.
“It’s water,” she said in surprise.
“Ah! Very good. Now you’ve solved the mystery of why James McGrath drinks.”
She looked up at him.
“Because I’m thirsty, Mrs. Hoffman.”
“But …it’s not always water. I’ve seen you with a hangover on plenty of mornings. You come to work all rumpled, as if you’ve slept in your clothes, and you sit in your office with the curtains drawn, telling us not to shout. Everyone knows it’s because you got drunk the night before.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“But I’ve seen you with a hangover.”
“No. You haven’t. You’ve seen me with a migraine headache.”
“You have a tumbler on your desk with—”
“Willow bark tea. It seems to help my migraines.”
She stared at him in disbelief, struggling to fit what he was telling her with what she’d seen.
“Have you ever had a migraine, Mrs. Hoffman?” he asked. “The pain is incapacitating. It begins behind your eyes, and it feels as though a bright light is shining in your face, even when your eyes are closed. Sometimes the light begins to sparkle, adding to the pain. As the headache builds, the slightest sound, the slightest movement, intensifies the pain tenfold, until you’re nauseated with it. You can’t help vomiting. All you want to do is curl into a ball in a dark, quiet place and plead with God to make it stop. But of course you can’t do that when there’s work to be done. Laudanum helps deaden the pain, but I’m no good to anyone drugged, am I?”
“Are you telling me you don’t drink?”
“I used to. Perhaps too much at times.”
His eyes looked tired and sad as he gazed into the distance. She wondered what he was remembering. According to Hiram Stone, James had killed a man when he was drunk.
“But I don’t drink anymore,” he said, lifting the flask. “Just water.”
“You must know about all the rumors,” Julia said. “Everyone at the hospital thinks you’re an alcoholic.”
He shrugged. “So what?”
“Why do you let them think that? Why don’t you tell them the truth?”
“Because I really don’t care what everyone thinks.” He took another long drink and wiped his mouth with his fist. “Considering the way you’ve disregarded the opinions and expectations of
your own social class, I would think that you, of all people, should understand that.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I don’t understand it at all.” Julia shook her head, as if to shake away the familiar image of him of as a drunkard and replace it with this new one. The pale, pain-pinched face and trembling hands she’d seen on so many mornings were not the result of his drunkenness but of an affliction that was totally beyond his control. She stared at him, his face lit by the flames of the burning town, and saw a completely different man.
“Well,” he said abruptly, “I’m going to bed. Tomorrow will be a very long day for all of us.”
Julia watched him disappear into the house and felt like an utter fool.
The next day Union troops crossed the river into Fredericksburg. When they discovered that the Rebels had moved to the heights outside the city, Yankee soldiers went on a rampage through the town, breaking into deserted homes and stores, smashing and destroying and looting.
Later that afternoon, when Julia crossed the river in an ambulance to help set up a field hospital in town, the sight of the ravaged city sickened her. Household goods—feather beds and rocking chairs and smashed teacups—lay trampled and discarded in the streets, while soldiers roamed freely through the ruined homes, stuff-ing valuables into their pockets and knapsacks. The commanding officers were doing nothing at all to stop the looting. She quickly turned away, disgusted with mankind, and set about her own work.
The doctors selected a large brick warehouse near one of the pontoon bridges for a temporary hospital and operating room. Julia helped James stock it with food and water and medical supplies, preparing for the battle that would begin the next day. She recrossed the river that night to sleep in the church in Falmouth once again.
At eight-thirty the next morning, Union troops began advancing toward the Rebel lines under the cover of fog. When it lifted, the assault began. Julia returned to the warehouse, where she could clearly hear the battle raging all day in the hills behind the city. As thousands of wounded men poured into the hospital, she learned from her patients what was happening.
“The Rebels hold the high ground,” one exhausted man told her, “yet our generals keep hurling men at them in wave after wave.”
“We’re out in the open,” another soldier added, “and the Rebels are protected by a stone wall. They’re just mowing us down like wheat as we come up the hill.”
It seemed like insanity to her. The terrible slaughter lasted all day, with nothing to show for it in the end except casualties. As night fell and the temperature dropped, the men who still streamed into the hospital told Julia that thousands more injured men lay pinned down on the hillside, freezing. They were forced to huddle beneath the dead bodies of their friends for protection, not daring to move—or they’d be shot at.
Julia had labored all day in the hope that General Burnside would be victorious, that this would be the last battle any of them would have to endure. As her strength began to give out, it no longer looked as if victory was possible. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. She couldn’t help wondering how James was holding up—if the stress had caused one of his migraine headaches to strike at the worst possible time. When she had a free moment, she decided to check on him.
The doctors had set up their operating rooms in the warehouse’s offices. As she neared that area, Julia heard James shouting at his fellow physicians.
“Look, the surgery is going too slowly this way. If we all split up and get the nurses to assist us, we can accomplish three times as much.”
“It’s against the rules, James. The army’s medical director specifically ordered field surgeons to work in teams of three.”
“Why don’t you go explain that to those dying men out there?” James asked. “You go tell a soldier who’s been waiting in agony all afternoon, ‘Sorry you have to die, but it’s against the rules for less than three of us to save your life.”’
“We’re just following orders.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I’m not.”
Julia watched as James began moving office furniture and lanterns around so he could set up another operating table. “Those pitiful souls who are being slaughtered out on those heights are just following orders, too,” he said as he worked. “Someone needs to call a halt to it. In the meantime, we need to take responsibility for what’s going on in this operating room. The medical director isn’t here; we are.” He moved his case of surgical instruments within reach of the table. When he looked up to tell the orderlies to bring him a patient, he saw Julia standing outside the door.
“Mrs. Hoffman, will you come here and assist me, please?”
One of the doctors held up his hands. “I can’t allow this, James. She’s not a physician.”
“She’s a trained nurse. I taught her myself. If she helps, we’ll get twice as much done, save twice as many lives.”
“Regulations require at least two surgeons to approve amputations.”
“Fine! The two of you can approve the amputations, and I’ll do all the other procedures. Okay? Can we begin?” He waited while the other two doctors huddled together, arguing over whether or not they should allow James to go ahead. Minutes passed, until he finally threw up his hands in frustration.
“I don’t have time for this. Men are dying while you two gentlemen discuss army regulations. Mrs. Hoffman …if you will, please?”
Julia moved forward into the room, too stunned by the speed of events to do otherwise. She had never watched a doctor perform surgery before. She was quite certain she would faint at the sight. But when James gripped her shoulders, his eyes searching hers, and asked, “Can you stand this, Mrs. Hoffman? Will you help me?” she could only nod.
The orderlies carried in the first patient, a boy with a gunshot wound beneath his collarbone. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. James gently rolled him over to search for an exit wound, then began loosening his clothing.
“Am I going to make it, Doc?” the soldier gasped.
James laid his hand on the boy’s head. “We’ll do our best.”
Dread shuddered through Julia when she realized that “we” included her. She now shared the responsibility for trying to save his life. She knew then that she needed to pray for all the strength and courage God would give her. For this boy’s sake, she dared not faint or run away.
James showed her how much ether to pour into the copper face cone. “Keep this away from the lamps,” he warned. “Ether is highly flammable. Hold the cone firmly over his nose and mouth, like that. … Good. That’s enough.” He turned to his wooden case of surgical instruments and selected a probe. “Keep an eye on him. If he starts to come around before I’m finished, give him more.”
Julia nodded, too nervous to speak. She looked away as James maneuvered the probe into the bullet wound. She didn’t realize how quiet it was or that she was holding her breath until she heard the delicate click of metal against metal as the probe touched the bullet. James smiled faintly.
“Hand me the forceps. … Thank you. Now grab a sponge and mop up some of this blood to give me some exposure. … Good.”
She glanced at James’ face and saw beads of sweat running down his forehead and into his eyes. Julia grabbed a clean towel and wiped his forehead for him.
“Thanks. That’s much better.” A few moments later, he withdrew the forceps, gripping a bloody chunk of metal. He dropped it into a tin can that was already half full of pellets. “I’ll need one of those sutures in a minute,” he said as he swabbed the wound with carbolic acid. “The needles …with the silk thread. … Yes.” Then it was over. It seemed as though mere moments had passed. The orderlies carried the boy away and brought in the next patient as James wiped his hands.
Julia gradually began to relax, drawing courage from his confident skill and quietly stated orders. Little by little she found she could watch James work. She forgot that she was looking at blood and shattered bone and ripped muscle as she watched his hands, stron
g and dexterous—mending, repairing, healing. She learned to anticipate what he needed and had it ready before he asked.
As the hours passed, her legs grew weary and her back ached from standing in one place. She longed to quit and lie down, but James worked tirelessly, long after the other two doctors had sat down to rest.
When the orderlies finally stopped bringing patients, James leaned against the operating table and pulled out his pocket watch. “Twenty past midnight,” he sighed. “If the generals could stand in our place for one day, maybe this would end.” He shook his head and returned the watch to his pocket, then raised his arms, stretching his back and neck. “I need some fresh air.”
A rush of cold wind shivered through Julia as he opened the office door and stepped outside, closing it behind him. Her hair was escaping from its pins, so she pulled out the remaining ones and shook her head to let it fall freely around her shoulders. She was about to leave the office and look for a place to lie down when James suddenly opened the door again. He picked up a discarded uniform jacket he found lying across a chair and handed it to her. “Mrs. Hoffman …Julia. Put this on and come outside with me for a moment.”
She couldn’t imagine why he needed her, but thinking it must be an emergency, she quickly did as she was told. Just outside the door, James stopped her.
“Look,” he said, pointing up at the sky. “The northern lights.”
Above the river, from one end of the horizon to the other, the sky was alive with shimmering waves of light. Shades of red and green and dazzling white hung above her head like a luminous curtain. She quickly forgot the cold and her aching weariness, lost in the beauty of the heavenly aurora. She had never seen anything this magnificent in her life, nor did she believe she ever would again. She leaned against the wall beside James and silently marveled at the show.
