by Murray Pura
Lord, can’t you do something? Why put this fire in my heart and then give it no place to burn? Can’t you move somebody’s soul to grant me passage to the battlefield? How can I help the wounded man on the road to Jericho if no one will even permit me to put a foot on the road to begin with?
Lyndel arrived late at Armory Square. The outside of the hospital was thick with carriages and soldiers and a crowd of civilians. An armed man blocked her way.
Still steaming from the disappointment of her last meeting, Lyndel was curt. “Excuse me, young man. I have to get to work.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The new shift has already come and gone. How do I know you’re a real nurse?”
He was the wrong private in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lyndel locked eyes of fury on him. “What? Do you think I’ve just come from a costume shop? This is my hospital. Stand aside or I’ll treat you like I would a wayward cow on our farm.”
The crowd swirling around them laughed. The private, who had thought himself pretty lucky to be assigned duty in Washington rather than meet up with Lee’s army in Maryland, was now wondering if he hadn’t got the short end of the stick. He made things worse by blurting, “No one gets past me. Especially not an itty-bitty farm girl.”
Lyndel felt she was a shot about to be launched from a cannon, the wick burning rapidly down to the powder. Amish or not, she wanted to nab him by the ear and twist it as hard as she could and bring him crying and red-faced to his knees. He saw in her eyes she was about to do something and raised his musket up higher on his chest. That’s when Lyndel started to entertain the idea of kicking him as hard as she could in the shin with her boot.
“One war at a time is enough, Private, don’t you think?” An officer tipped his blue Stetson to Lyndel. “My apologies. I’ve seen you nursing here on numerous occasions. Private Hanks is perhaps a little too zealous today. The president is inside, you see.”
Lyndel’s temperature dropped immediately. “Mr. Lincoln?”
The officer nodded. “It’s an impromptu visit. That’s why you were not made aware. However, I’m sure your staff would like to have you inside helping them out rather than outside and contemplating making Private Hanks another casualty of our domestic conflict. Please carry on.”
“Thank you, Captain.” She patted Private Hanks on the arm. “No hard feelings, soldier. God bless you.”
As the red-haired beauty swept past him the private’s face flushed at her touch. His eyes met his captain’s. The captain smiled.
“I wouldn’t wash that perfume off my uniform any time soon if I were you, Private Hanks. It’ll bring you good luck.”
Lyndel rushed to her ward. It was empty but for Morganne David, who was shaving a patient with a straight razor and humming the Southern tune “Dixie.” Lyndel scanned the room and asked, “Where’s the president?
Morganne didn’t look up at her friend but kept humming and shaving off the wounded soldier’s beard.
“Davey!” Lyndel almost shouted.
Morganne’s pale blue eyes flickered up. “The president’s in another building.” Her eyes flickered back down again.
“Is Miss Sharon mad I wasn’t here?”
“I doubt it. The mob hasn’t been in this ward yet. They walked off somewhere else after the president unfolded himself from his carriage.”
Lyndel took a deep breath and calmed down. “All right. Good. No one noticed my absence and they probably won’t be back.”
Morganne applied more shaving cream to the soldier’s beard. “What were you doing, Henry? Trying to win the war by growing a bigger beard than Jeb Stuart?”
“What do you know about Jeb Stuart?” mumbled the soldier.
Morganne swiped shaving cream into his mouth. “I saw his picture in the paper. I can read, you know. I’m not some farm girl fresh out of the barn.” She looked up at Lyndel with a sharp-edged smile. “Sorry, Lyn.”
Lyndel started making a bed that had been left rumpled. “Oh, I don’t care. I like the barn.”
“Your attention, please, ladies. The president of the United States.”
A short and round officer with gold braid all over his shoulders had stepped inside the ward and was holding the door open. Soldiers and civilians spilled into the room followed by the long lanky figure of the president. He was dressed in a black suit and held his black top hat in his hand. He nodded to Lyndel and to Morganne—who had decided to stop whistling “Dixie” for the moment—and began shaking the hands of the patients in the beds. Lyndel didn’t know what else to do so she finished the bed and then stood beside it as the crowd made its way down the row. When he reached her the president stopped and smiled.
“I reckon you don’t get too many empty beds,” he said.
“No, Mr. President. I’m afraid it won’t stay empty for long.”
He nodded. “Well, I am sure you are doing your best for our boys.” He took her hand. “My thanks from a grateful Republic.”
As he moved away a thought flared up in her head and made its way to her lips. “Mr. President. Mr. Lincoln. I could do more.”
She saw Miss Sharon’s face turn into a thunderstorm.
The president stopped and turned back to her. “What do you mean? Do you not have enough supplies at Armory Square?”
“We’re fine here, Mr. President. But we lose so many of our boys getting them here. More needs to be done for them right on the battlefield.”
“We have our surgeons and our ambulance crews.”
“But our surgeons have their hands full performing amputations. And our ambulance crews have their hands full getting the men off the field and setting them down by the field stations. No one has time to give the wounded men water or clean their wounds or put on clean bandages and poultices. Especially if the fighting is going on somewhere nearby.” She plucked the letters from the Indiana captains from the pocket under her apron and extended them to the president. “I was at Fairfax Station, sir. Working alongside Clara Barton. I know we were able to save many of the men simply because we were able to treat them a short while after they were wounded. These officers will attest to that in their statements.”
A colonel stepped up to her. “Thank you, Miss. The president has a busy schedule. I’m sure he could read your letters another time.”
But Lincoln was pulling a pair of glasses from a suit pocket. “That’s all right, Bart. I want to hear what these captains have to say.”
The room was silent as Lincoln, glasses perched on his nose, read first one letter and then the other. Lyndel realized she was holding her breath and finally exhaled. Lincoln peered up at her from over his glasses.
“It appears you have quite a following in the 19th Indiana.”
Lyndel hesitated. Then decided to take the plunge. “Mr. President, it is I who would like to follow them and nurse the boys on the field where they have fallen. You know the beds will be full in a few days. You know there is going to be another battle with General Lee. I want to save as many as I can.” She stood as straight as she could and tilted her chin as she plowed on. “Please, sir, will you write me a pass that will allow me to travel to the front lines and assist the surgeons and ambulance crews as their nurse? You’re a Western man, Mr. Lincoln. Why, Illinois is one state farther west than Indiana. Let me travel with the 19th Indiana. Let me ride with the ambulances. As much as I would like to, I can’t save the whole Army of the Potomac. But I can at least save our Western men, our soldiers from Indiana and Wisconsin.” Her and the president’s eyes locked. “You only have one Iron Brigade, Mr. President. They stood up to Stonewall Jackson for you. Please, stand up for them. Let me be their nurse.”
No one moved. Lincoln paused, his eyes still on Lyndel. Then he bent his head and whispered something to an aide. The soldier nodded, drew a fountain pen from the leather satchel under his arm, and handed it to Lincoln.
The president smiled at Lyndel. “He assures me it is full of ink. Just as you are full of spirit.” The aide held the satchel f
lat while Lincoln turned over one of the captain’s letters, spread it on the satchel, and began to write across the white paper in his small script. “You were there when we fired Fairfax Station to keep it from the Confederacy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you spot the enemy’s cavalry?”
“They were riding down the hill just as we pulled out of the station with the last of the wounded, Mr. President.”
He glanced at her over his glasses, pausing in his writing. “Weren’t you afraid?”
“Yes, Mr. President, I was quite afraid.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“But not afraid enough to dissuade me from doing my duty.”
Lincoln’s eyes remained on her but he said nothing.
She plunged on. “If Clara Barton and I hadn’t been able to get the last of the wounded on board, we would have remained behind with them.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Yes, Mr. President. We were those men’s nurses. We would not abandon them.”
His eyes dropped back to the page. “What is your name?”
“I am Lyndel Keim, Mr. President.”
“With a y?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you mean to go it alone?”
“There is one other nurse—if you could arrange for her passage—I trust her with my life.”
“And what name does she go by?”
“Morganne David. Two N’s, sir,” Lyndel said with a grin. “And an e.”
The president finished writing and handed the paper to her along with the other letter. He returned the pen to his aide and folded his glasses, placing them back inside his suit pocket.
“Take good care of our Western boys, Miss Keim,” he said, unsmiling. “The battle that you anticipated will come and very soon. The bottom is out of the tub. We will need our Iron Brigade, every man of them, if we are to stanch the flow. May I wish you Godspeed?”
“Thank you, Mr. President. My prayers are with you and with the whole nation.”
“Then those are prayers I reckon will count for something where it matters the most.”
He went back to shaking hands with the wounded. When he came up to Morganne and her razor and shaving cream he said something Lyndel couldn’t catch, which made Morganne and all the others laugh. As he continued on to the far side of the room she looked at what he had written on the back of the captain’s letter.
This note permits the bearer passage to the battle lines for the nursing of the wounded of the 19th Indiana and all the regiments of their brigade. The nurses named in this letter are Miss Lyndel Keim and her companion Miss Morganne David. They are to work alongside the army surgeons and ambulance crews and render them every assistance. Please help these ladies on their way with all due courtesy and respect.
Yours truly,
A. Lincoln
September 15, 1862
Lincoln nodded as he passed Lyndel on the way out of the ward. She and Morganne looked at each other once they were alone.
“My good word, Lyndel! And I thought I had nerve,” Morganne finally blurted. “Miss Sharon is going to cut your head off and roast it whole.”
“Never mind about my head. I thank God for the meeting with President Lincoln. Now you have to finish shaving Henry and we have to ask Miss Sharon to get some of the new nurses to take over our work here. We need to catch up to the army.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Everything had happened so fast. Lyndel rubbed her fingers against her forehead. “I guess I don’t know.”
“I would be happy to be of assistance. Provided your pass is legitimate, of course.”
Hiram Wright stood in the doorway. He looked at Lyndel and shook his head and laughed. “My, oh, my. Miss Lyndel Keim of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania—you do beat all. Accosting the president of the United States. Lady, you do beat all. For General Lee’s sake, I hope he takes you into account when he draws up his battle plans.”
In less than two hours the three were on their way north to Sharpsburg and Hagerstown. Hiram had procured a covered wagon from his newspaper and Lyndel and Morganne had filled it with medical supplies, including sacks of Canada wild ginger and comfrey root Lyndel’s mother had dried and mailed to her over the summer. Miss Sharon had not so much as mentioned the manner in which Lyndel had appealed to Lincoln but had given her yards of cotton for bandages and dozens of bottles of laudanum, morphine, and brandy to assuage the pain of the wounded.
“Now, girls,” she’d told them, “nurses need to be much closer to the front in this war. The officers and politicians will be watching. Save the young men. Assist the surgeons and ambulance corps. Show them what the women of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are made of.” In an act that astonished the two young women Miss Sharon had roughly taken their hands and kissed them each on the cheek. “God bless you,” she’d said and abruptly turned away.
At first their wagon moved quickly, Sally and Kate seeming to enjoy the open road and fresh clover Hiram let them stop to graze on every couple of hours. Then they caught up to the wagon train that followed the Army of the Potomac—food, ammunition, powder, saddles and tack, medical supplies—and their pace slowed considerably.
Lyndel pointed. “Why are the ambulances so far in the back? They should be right behind the troops.”
Hiram pulled back on the traces. “Muskets and cartridges and extra bayonets are at the front.”
“It’s nonsense.”
Hiram grunted. “That’s the way the army thinks. Plan on changing their minds too?”
Morganne was sitting between Hiram and Lyndel. Lyndel leaned forward to get a better look at the young reporter. “Did I change somebody else’s mind lately?”
“Only the mind of the president of the United States.”
“Oh, that. I just had to help him realize what he already knew.” She sat back. “It troubled me to see him look so careworn. I did not wish to add to his burdens.”
Hiram smiled. “I’m sure you made his day. Blue eyes and red hair and a smile like sunshine.”
“Hiram, not everyone sees me the way you do.”
“You mean the world has gone blind?” The wagon began to move more quickly as traffic surged forward. Hiram’s grin had come and gone and now he looked like stone. “He has plenty to be careworn about. We can’t afford to keep losing battles and expect to preserve the Union.”
Morganne turned to him. “Didn’t we win at South Mountain?”
“Sure, Nathaniel’s brigade gave Lee a caning. There’s no doubt in my mind the Rebels were headed for Pennsylvania and Lancaster County and had to change their plans after Sunday’s fight. Now they’re waiting for McClellan at Sharpsburg instead.”
Lyndel leaned forward again. “Lancaster’s my home. There’s nothing for General Lee there.”
“Yes, there is, Miss Keim. It’s a fast route to Harrisburg. And Harrisburg is a major military center and rail link. Lee would love to get his hands on it and paralyze our movements.”
Lyndel sat back and shook her head. “They would bring warfare right to the door of the most peaceful people in America.”
“It hasn’t happened yet. But if McClellan runs like Pope ran, who knows what might happen next? Lee could put a choke hold on the Union.” He glanced at his two passengers. “Talk among the correspondents who cover the war for the big papers in Boston and New York has Britain and France granting recognition to the South by Christmas or New Year’s.”
Morganne turned pale blue eyes on him. “What exactly does that mean?”
“They would call the Confederate States of America a legitimate nation. Send her ambassadors. Supplies. Maybe even help her win her independence from the United States.”
“No.” Morganne’s eyes turned a much darker hue.
Hiram shrugged. “It’s looking that way. A few more victories for the South might be all it would take.”
“What about slavery?”
“Well, Miss David
, Britain and France wouldn’t mind a weaker United States, so they are looking the other way on Southern slaveholding right now. But the truth is, much of the support for Richmond comes from the aristocracy of Europe—they sympathize with the Southern gentry and the plantation owners.”
“What about regular people like you or me?”
“The working man? The regular citizens of France and Britain? That’s another story. Some of them feel like white slaves themselves so they have something in their hearts for the Africans. And the British and French know what it is to be laborers. The North doesn’t have a slave economy, it has a lot of laborers, so European folk feel a strong connection there too—yes, Miss David, they have a real sympathy for the Union cause.”
Morganne’s pale blue eyes remained on him. “If that is so, why is there a danger of the British or French supporting the South’s bid for independence?”
Hiram clicked his tongue at the horses. “If you put the vote to the common man in France and England and Ireland they’d say hurrah for the Union. But it’s the aristocracy who run the governments in London and Paris. And they are leaning South.”
Morganne continued to stare at Hiram. “That’s a mouthful, Mr. Wright. But everyone says one big victory by the North will settle it.”
Hiram made a face as if he had swallowed something bitter. “Sorry, Miss David. A Union win over Lee will hold the lion at bay for a while. But there would have to be quite a few more solid victories before you could say the South was backing down. I will tell you that whatever happens this week will make a difference. We lose and the politicians in Europe will meet with representatives from Jeff Davis’s Confederate government. We win and we buy ourselves some time.”
