***
July 26th: Today is Sunday but there is no semblance of religion here. Our hospital was moved. The stores have given out. There is nothing to cook with. Such days come where we have to see our wounded fed with dry bread and poor coffee. It is hard to witness some cursing for food — others praying for it. My thoughts shiver. Some 30 women have come to the Corps Hospital I suppose. Most of these were dead heads completely, and the numbers of those who remain fell considerably through sickness and indisposition to stay.
A few days ago I received a silver medal. The soldiers indicate it should be worth twenty dollars. The inscription says “Testimonial of regard for ministrations of mercy to the wounded soldiers at Gettysburg, Pa — July, 1863.”
The assistant surgeon tortured one poor private by pouring nitric acid on his stump in a deadly race against gangrene.
***
The next morning, the nurse approached the private, fighting for his life, not sure if he is sleeping or has lost all senses. Healing is a challenge. For him, it is also a burden.
He stirs. “Morning, Miss.”
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“How fortunate I used to be,” he murmurs. “How unaware of my privileges. Eons ago, it seems, I was part of a family, loving son, a combative youngest brother. While growing up, I was the one to start many fights. Bigger boys? — it didn’t matter. What was wrong with me? Mother kept asking, What’s wrong with you, boy? The answer didn’t come.”
She brings a cup of milk to his lips.
He rejects it. “I never considered the implications of joining up. What better — than to fight for the Union and pulverize Secesh? Never stopped to think something couldn’t be quickly and easily done. Never counted the reasons not to. Had to get in before the fighting ended.”
She wonders, did God ordain and conceive this man as a soldier? Or did the Devil?
“Now my taste for fighting has turned.” He shifts on the mattress filled with leaves and sticks. And is powerless to stop himself from crying out.
She waits for his pain to settle.
“Sorry, Miss. I want to be still, but Johnny Reb has done me in.” A wry smile alters his mouth. “Funny, how I sound like them. With a rebel yell, I scream my way to death.”
“Shall I write a letter for you?” she asks.
“I might not miss living — if you had never appeared in the ward. You march in here, where rabble awaits your pleasure.”
She takes out paper. “Can I write to your parents?” She cannot bring herself to ask if he has a wife.
He wonders aloud, “Do your people write to you?”
“Only yesterday a driver brought a letter from home. Sarah S— wrote that she feels my way of living is the path to ruin. In truth, I feel safer here than at home. At night the Division has extra guards on.”
“Excuse the impropriety,” he says, “but you little know the pleasure a man feels seeing a woman at camp.”
But she has seen this reaction clearly and repeatedly. Though she is a plain woman, no longer in the blush of youth, many come from the regiment to the field hospital, their sole purpose seeming to be to see a lady.
The soldier shivers as if the warm summer breeze turns to a chill. She brings the cup to his lips again. He denies it once more, and a frown spreads across his face. “Yes, write to my mother,” he whispers. “Tell her my lust to fight is gone now.” Pain maims his words and makes the rest of them unintelligible. He thrashes and reopens his wound. The steward rushes over and yells at him to stop.
With a gentle voice she provides the means to calm him. “I will write and tell your mother you are no longer starting fights.”
He grows still, she imagines, out of respect for a woman’s antipathy to violence, or to protect the delicacy of her senses.
She sits at his side and writes to his mother. Then writes a letter to Sarah S— to tell her she cannot expect everyone to be satisfied to live in as small a circle as herself in these days of monumental sacrifice.
###
This fiction is based on the letters of Cornelia Hancock, 1840-1927, who served as a field nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War.
About the Author: Georgiann Baldino is a keynote speaker and the author of five books, numerous stories and articles. Georgiann’s living-history program, “A Soldier’s Friend,” commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Civil War by giving a personal look at the fates of common soldiers and former slaves.
Connect with her online:
Website: A Soldier’s Friend
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Journal of a Civil War Nurse Page 2
