A VOLUNTEER NURSE in the CIVIL WAR: the Letters of Harriet Douglas Whetten

A VOLUNTEER NURSE IN THE CIVIL WAR: The Letters of Harriet Douglas Whetten EDITED BY PAUL H. HASS Ą LTHOUGH the threat of secession and But, as the civil and military authorities -^*- civil war had hung over the United in Washington soon perceived, there was a States for a generation, the federal govern good deal more to the art of war than merely ment and the loyal citizens of twenty-three swearing a volunteer into the federal service, states were ill prepared for the long, costly arming him, and pointing him south. Prob struggle which followed the bombardment of lems of finance and diplomacy, of patronage Fort Sumter in April, 1861. The regular and state politics, of training and discipline, army numbered barely 16,000 officers and and of transport and supply vastly compli men, and it was soon weakened by the resig cated the process of making war. And not the nation of many Southerners who chose in least of the problems facing Lincoln's gov stead to fight for the Confederacy. Yet the ernment was that of the health and well-being people of the North, including their President, of the Union armies in the field. At a time entered America's bloodiest war with a cer when the germ theory of disease and the tain measure of optimistic enthusiasm, and application of the doctrines of Louis Pasteur Lincoln's call for 75,000 state militia to serve and Joseph Lister lay years in the future, the for three months was based upon the uni epidemics of typhus, malaria, and dysentery versal assumption that the war would be a which periodically beset the troops were mat short one. It was not until the lesson of First ters of national concern. Entire armies could be immobilized by what soldiers wryly called Bull Run sank in that the federal government the Tennessee Quickstep; shattered arms or began in earnest to raise the citizens' army legs meant gangrene or the surgeon's charnel which was, at great length and at great cost, house; abdominal wounds meant almost cer to crush the rebellion. On that army, which tain death. For every two men who died of eventually numbered almost 800,000 volun wounds, five died of disease—and often quite teers and draftees, depended the fate of the needlessly: it was just that the army's Medi Union. cal Bureau was at first unable, either materi ally or psychologically, to cope with a crisis EDITOR'S NOTE: I should like to express my thanks of such magnitude. to Mr. Eliot Fitch of Milwaukee, who donated the Whetten Papers to the Manuscripts Library of the But the Civil War, more than any other in State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and to Miss our history, was a people's war, and the Jan Forrest, who transcribed and materially assisted in editing them. people were fortunately able to relieve a great 131 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1964-1965 deal of pain and pointless suffering. As the nance from—the national commission. De volunteer regiments in their quaint and exotic spite the distrust and outright malice which uniforms rallied to the national colors, so, it kindled among some members of the Medi too, did hundreds of relief and soldiers' aid cal Bureau, the Sanitary Commission effec societies with their quaint and exotic notions tively distributed drugs, food, and clothing, of war relief and military hygiene. At the supervised or administered field and base outset, to be sure, there was confusion, dupli hospitals, maintained feeding stations and cation of efforts, and a grave lack of co soldiers' lodges, provided for dependent fam ordination; the good ladies of the North, in ilies, badgered army doctors for higher stand their enthusiasm, became temporarily ob ards of hygiene, raised large amounts of sessed with the scraping, collecting, and proc money by means of Sanitary Fairs, and or essing of lint for bandages—to the neglect ganized land- and water-borne transport serv of nearly every other aspect of relief. A ices for Union wounded. In all of this, the nucleus of firm, experienced leadership was Commission depended upon the generosity required to direct and co-ordinate Northern and good will of the people of the North— relief activities, to funnel the bandages, medi for cash donations, for articles of food and cines, and foodstuffs to the armies, to provide clothing, and for volunteer personnel such as sick and wounded soldiers with volunteer nurses and hospital attendants. nurses and orderlies, and to assure at least minimal standards of sanitation and super vision in the filthy, overcrowded hospitals TTARRIET DOUGLAS WHETTEN, whose which soon dotted the battlefront from For •*--*• letters chronicling her experiences dur tress Monroe at the tip of Virginia to Vicks ing the Civil War appear below, served as burg on the Mississippi. From June, 1861, a Sanitary Commission nurse in the hospital until the close of the war, such leadership was transport service during the spring and sum in large measure provided by the United mer of 1862. Very little is known about this States Sanitary Commission. brave and literate woman. She was a native The Commission was the creation of a of Staten Island, New York; she was the group of distinguished Eastern doctors, daughter by a second marriage of Captain clerics, scientists, and professional men— John Whetten (1763-1845), a doughty sailor powerful, well-to-do men whom the Lincoln in the China trade and a close friend and administration could not well ignore. The business associate of John Jacob Astor of the Reverend Henry Whitney Bellows, a promi American Fur Company. She was briefly nent Unitarian minister of New York City, mentioned in the postwar memoir of another had conceived the notion of a national vol Commission nurse, Katherine Prescott unteer relief association while attempting to Wormeley, who described her in The Other co-ordinate relief efforts in his own state. He Side of War (1889) as "tall [and] sym and his compatriots told Lincoln and his metrical" and noted that she had since be cabinet that only by creating a federal sanitary come "Mrs. Gamble of Intervale, N.H." Be commission could the United States avoid yond that there is nothing—except her fine duplicating the ghastly experiences of the wartime letters to Kate and Hexie. Crimean War of five years before, when more It is clear that Harriet Whetten was an than 16,000 British solders had died of disease unusual woman. Well bred and well educated, in the pestilential camps. Quite reluctantly, she was certainly sensitive to the scenes of and in the face of opposition from the Medical misery and desolation which she witnessed Bureau, the President in June, 1861, approved during General George B. McClellan's cam the order creating the United States Sanitary paign against Richmond in the summer of Commission. It would, Lincoln privately 1862. Yet her letters evinced neither the feared, become "a fifth wheel to the coach." girlish romanticism nor the mawkish senti Thereafter, the Sanitary Commission served mentality common to so many women's ac as agent between the armies in the field and counts of the war; she saw people and events the hundreds of relief and soldiers' aid so as they were, and she recorded them in spare, cieties which affiliated with—and drew suste unadorned prose which was always readable 132 HASS: CIVIL WAR NURSE and often quite moving. Whether she was band Dr. Cuyler3 came up, and Lieutenant aboard the Sanitary Commission ships or Carling, [who] afterwards came in the boat ashore at Edmund Ruffin's plantation home, with us to Yorktown to join his regiment in Harriet Whetten had an eye for the revealing the advance. Dr. Cuyler took us over two of nuance and an uncommon ability for setting his hospitals—and I saw there—worse than it down on paper. Her letters are deserving you ever dreamed of—and what would make of a place in the first rank of the many eye Sister Eliza howl and tear her hair—God witness accounts of the Civil War. help the poor boys. Some of them looked longingly after us as we left their rooms. Dr. Lente remained at Fortress Monroe. I was so sorry to part with him—and whom do you think I met next? Col. Arden—and a more lovely, hearty, kindly man than he has proved himself I never saw. I will tell you about that Off Yorktown when I come to it. I won't describe Fortress Steamer Knickerbocker Monroe to you because I remember your dis May 8th 1862 gust at the paper-mill letter—only I must tell My dearest Kate, you that the view is very fine—Sewali's Point, Craney Island on either side, and the sea In this strange life I am leading I have line stretching before you. The parade ground hardly time to write a line. But today the has a good many live oaks, which I thought Fortress Monroe boat has gone, and I have an were old twisted apple trees—not like our hour or two that I can count upon. We left oaks, you know. We got on board the Nelly Baltimore on Tuesday afternoon and steamed Baker for Yorktown about 11 or 12 (they are down the Chesapeake in the most beautiful not in the least particular about the hours of moonlight. We reached Fortress Monroe at leaving here) and enjoyed the beautiful sail 8 the next morning. Caught a glimpse of Mr. up York River. It was perfectly calm and Lincoln and Mr..Stanton1 going on board the sparkling.

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