Nurse Ella L. Wolcott Letter

Item MED-8964

Description

Original Civil War Nurse's letter. 8 pages, written in period ink. Wolcott writes about Dorthea Dix, training male nurses and life at Point Lookout and Chesapeake Hospitals.


Chesapeake Hospital
Fortress Monroe, Virginia

December 16th 1863

My dear darling Alice,

Dear as ever, good as ever. I think I would give more for one good talk with you. Alas, well Alice, is no comparison. Your kind letter reached me a week ago, nearly a month you see and I quake to think the dear gift offered may have shipped away. Let me have them dear. I know nothing that could make my Christmas so rich and to think that you remembered me through all this silence and offered them to me! Lovely are you, Alice! If I had received your letter a few weeks sooner, I should have been tempted by one of my madden impulses. For I have had some strange experiences in this last year.

That abominable matron at Point Lookout did send me away. With a lying record to Washington which nobody believed. With a lying record to Washington, which nobody believed. With the highest testimonials from every other quarter, Miss Dix said I was “too good, too useful, and too justly appreciated to leave the service.” So, she sent me here early in May last. I have had sole charge (as lady nurse) of the fever ward. The most important ward in the hospital. A large barracks, built ward in a beautiful situation, a little way from the main building, where my room is and which was a female college before the war. My ward is shaped like this. [Drawing of cross shape]. And has now one hundred beds. Though there were 137, although the number, from the middle of June till the middle of September, I had 130 sick men to cure for, usually about 100 too ill to go so the table that had to be fed in the ward. Many of them very sick, delirious and dying with the horrible typhoid fevers. The malaria of the climate and exposures of camp life. I had the cure and prescribing spot, the cooking of all their diets. I had the entire confidence of the surgeon in attendance who told me he never had seen a lady work so that he would assume the entire responsibility of everything I did. I could ask no better place. By day and by night there was no limits to my work but my own physical strength and you may be sure I used plenty to its utmost limits. I worked incessantly from five in the morning till my eyelids could no longer keep open. Many times, all night long. And was happier and richer than ever in my life before. The hospital was shamefully mismanaged by the surgeon in charge. He was called to account on charges made by the Medical Director supported by testimony of war surgeons and others. Through social, masonic and catholic influence, he evaded this investigation. Believing Miss Dix had instigated it, he in September dismissed all her nurses without making even the pretense of a fault against them. My surgeon gave me the best testimonial that could be written. My men wept and swore and also died when I had gone. I knew an effort was making to remove the surgeon in charge and so I went to the house of President John Tyler, now occupied by teachers of contrabands to learn all I could about their condition and await the progress of events at the hospital. He was removed and I am reinstated in my own ward again. But, I had to wait nearly three months expecting every day, my nervousness. Oh, it was weary! When I knew our sick soldiers were so needing my care and for only wishing a place to work and give. If I had received your letter then, I believe I should have run away to you and asked Ben to find me a place where honest officials need, not fear, a woman’s eye. But I am here and will not desert my post.

When I left, 130 men, but about 30 men now and they are not much sick. I rise with the revile and go to the ward in the dark at 6 a.m., not so much because I am really needed as to show the male nurses that I will be at my rightful post, whether there is anything to do or not. I work very busily through the day until eleven p.m., getting my own sewing and that of the hospital, both so long neglected in order for the coming time of sick work. For when work does come, it is in avalanches.

I am very happily situated having for the first time in hospital service that luxury, a room to myself. Our matron is Mrs. Dulley from Pittsburgh. A noble woman, with whom it is a delight to work. Warm hearted, devoted, caring only for the welfare of those in her charge. I want you to remember her. For among the changes of war, we may possibly both of us, appear together at Memphis or in your reach. If another surgeon in charge so cripples us, as Dr. Stocker did, we will want to find other work. Will Ben help us in that cause? Indeed, dear Alice, we are both interested with the thorough spirit of work, as you would be surprised to find me. And we are fitted by experiences for large work and can find support in money and supplies from the North. And Mrs. Dulley is well worth knowing. So, if you know of large opportunities and demands for such work, as womanly hands and heads can give, either among soldiers or contrabands, please let us know and help us. For I assure you, our work will be such as welcomed not ashamed.

Dear Alice, I want so much to see you all. I have hurrahed for Ben spiritually till my spiritual throat was horse. And shown his true picture against the pictorial newspapers to the men who wish they were in the cavalry. But, except in the papers, I have not heard a word for ages. I have been too busy to write. You would know it if you had seen me, nodding over my diet lists till the blots stained where I slept. Nobody sent me western papers or wrote me news. I don’t even know how to direct this letter. For is Ben a General!? And John and Elisabeth are in Memphis. Give my love to them. I want to see them and is little Marion as pretty as ever? Your Robert, I have never seen. Nor from Charlie for nearly five years. What changes there must be in the children. But not in your kind heart dear Alice.

Where is Dr. Rutherford? Make him write to me. Make Ben write a few words. Put your autograph under the photograph. What can Charlie do? The handsome little fellow! What funny things does Robert do? Is he as handsome? I will send you my picture whenever I can get a decent one taken. Dear Alice, keep on writing to me. Don’t give me up. For though I am getting old and gray and wrinkled, it seems as if my life work was but just beginning. And if I were with you, you may be sure that all I would do for cheer and sympathy would be ready. I should think it strange indeed if you could give your husband to this war as eagerly or even cheerfully as I give the unclaimed life and labor. Which had I been a man, would have gone to the field. I sometimes think when even in humility, I must receive the word of others that I am particularly useful. That for this cause, God made my life what it has been. And it makes the past easier to bear. I believe there is a fairer time coming when your children shall bear the struggle which made their own homes worth having. And you with your grandchildren on your knee will tell tales of these days to kindle their hearts with a glorious annulation. In truth dear, blessed are they who in this day of our Lord are able to endure. I think so often of that telegram of Lincoln’s to Governor Gates, “Dick hold still and on the salvation of God”.

I wish I had time to tell you about Mrs. Dulley. For I have told her of you. She has a nephew and niece whom she brought up as her own children now in Memphis. Says she will write to them of you and hopes you may meet them. Do if you should chance to meet them remember me. For it would be pleasant to them. Mrs. S. C. Lopes. Mr. Lopes is in the cotton business. Lieutenant William B. Brunton of the 2nd Iowa Cavalry, was in Colonel Natch’s expedition about the same time as Ben’s famous raid.

Dear Alice, I will write to you. Indeed, I will cheer you if any word of news can do it. Favor myself more cheered by your remembrance than you can tell.

My love to you and all.

Ella L. Wolcott

Please tell me Ben’s full address, what Corps, Division, etc.. How many things I want to ask you Alice – when will it be.