“Is it your wife?” and he replied,
“No! but she would have been.”
I always tried to avoid bringing sadness to the living on account of death; but it must have been hard for men to sleep in sound of his labored breathing; and to soften it I began singing “Shining Shore.” He took it up at once, in a whisper tone, keeping time, as if used to singing. Soon one, then another and another joined, until all over the church these prostrate men were singing that soft, sad melody. On the altar burned a row of candles before a life-sized picture of the Virgin and Child. The cocks crew the turn of the night outside, and when we had sung the hymn through, some of the men began again, and we had sung it a second time when I heard George call me. I knew that he, too, was dying, and would probably not hear the next crowing of the cock. I must go to him! how could I leave this head unsupported? Oh, death where is thy sting? I think it was with me that night; but I went to George, and when the sun arose it looked upon two corpses, the remains of two who had gone from my arms in one night, full of hope in the great Hereafter.
CHAPTER LXXV.
TAKE BOAT AND SEE A SOCIAL PARTY.
Next morning a new surgeon took charge, and ordered that hay to be removed. The men clung to their beds and sent for me; I plead a respite, in hopes of getting muslin to make ticks; but was soon detected in the act of taking a bowl of broth to one of my patients. This the surgeon forbade on the ground that it was not regular meal time. I said the man was asleep at meal time. This he would not permit, men must be fed at regular hours, or not at all, and the new authority informed me that
“More wounded soldiers had been killed by women stuffing them than by anything else.”
He had just come from Massachusetts, and this was his first day among the wounded. I set my bowl down before the altar, found a surgeon who ranked him, and stated the case, when the higher authority said:
“Give every man an ox, every day, if he will take it in beef tea.”
“But, Doctor, there is nothing in beef tea. I give broth.”
“Very good, give them whatever you please and whenever you please–we can trust you.”
The new surgeon was promptly dismissed, and when next I saw him he was on his way back to Massachusetts.
That night a nurse came for me to go to the theater which had been vacated, and once more almost filled with men who lay in total darkness, without having any provision made for them. I got them lights, nurses and food, but could not go back for another siege in that building–could not leave my present post, but the city was being evacuated. Both theater and church were emptied, and I went to the tobacco warehouse, where Mrs. Ingersol was perplexed about a man with a large bullet in his brain. When I had seen him and assured her that another ounce of lead in a skull of that kind was of no consequence, she redoubled her care, and I have no doubt he is living yet. But there was one man in whom I felt a deep interest and for whom I saw little hope. He had a chest wound, and had seemed to be doing well when there was a hemorrhage, and he lay white and still almost as death. He must not attempt to speak, and I was a godsend to him, for I knew what he needed without being told, and gave him the best care I could. He was of a Western State, and his name Dutton, and when I left him I thought he must die in being moved, as he must be soon; but I must go with a boat-load of wounded.
This boat was a mere transport, and its precious freight was laid on the decks as close as they could well be packed, the cabin floor being given up to the wounded officers. There were several surgeons on board who may have been attending to the men, but cannot remember seeing any but one engaged in any work of that kind. There were also seven lady nurses, all I think volunteers, all handsomely if not elegantly dressed. Of course they could do nothing there, and I cannot see how they could have done anything among the wounded in any place where there were no bedsteads to protect the men from their hoops. They had probably been engaged in preparing food, taking charge of, and distributing supplies and other important work, for personal attendance on the men was but a part of the work to be done.
Surgeons could do little without soiling their uniforms, but my dress had long been past soiling or spoiling; my old kid slippers without heels, could be slid, with the feet in them, quite under a man, and as I stepped sideways across them, they took care that my soft dress did not catch on their buttons. When I sat on one heel to bathe a hot face, give a drink or dress a wound, some man took hold of me with his well hand and steadied me, while another held my basin. I had half of an old knapsack to put under a wound, keep the floor dry and catch the worms when I drove them out–and no twenty early birds ever captured so many in the same length of time. I became so eager in the pursuit that I kept it up by candle-light, until late midnight, when I started to go to my stateroom.
Entering the cabin, I came upon a social party, the like of which I trust no one else will ever see. On the sofas sat those seven lady nurses, each with the arm of an officer around her waist, in full view of the wounded men on the floor, some of whom must go from that low bed, to one still lower–even down under the daisies.
I stopped, uttered some exclamation, then stood in speechless surprise. Three surgeons released the ladies they were holding, came forward and inquired if there was anything wanted. I might have replied that men and women were wanted, but think I said nothing. When I reached my room I found in the berth a woman who raised up and said:
“The stewardess told me this was your room; will you let me stay with you?”
She was another Georgie–young, calm, strong, refined, was Miss Gray of Columbia Hospital, and staid with me through a long hard trial, in which she proved that her price was above rubies.
Next morning I found on one of the guards, young Johnson, the son of an old Wilkinsburg schoolmate. Hoped I had so checked the decay and final destroyers which had already taken hold of him, that he might live. Wrote to his people, and saw him at noon transferred with the other patients, the surgeons and stylish lady nurses, to a large hospital boat; when Miss Gray and I returned in the transport to Fredericksburg.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
TAKE FINAL LEAVE OF FREDERICKSBURG.
I cannot remember if our boat lay at the Fredericksburg wharf one day or two; but she might start any moment, and those who went ashore took the risk of being left, as this was the last boat. The evacuation was almost complete, and we waited the result of expeditions to gather up our wounded from field hospitals at the front. We were liable to attack at any moment, and were protected by a gunboat which lay close along side.
There was plenty to do on board, but in doing it I must see the piles of stores on the wharf brought there too late to be of service to our wounded, and now to be abandoned to the Rebels. There were certainly one hundred bales of hay, which would have more than replaced all that was withheld by United States bayonets from our own men in their extremity. I soon learned after entering Fredericksburg, that our Commissaries were issuing stores without stint to the citizens; went and saw them carry off loads of everything there was to give; and when those one hundred and eighty-two Union soldiers were literally starving in the old Theater, Union soldiers were dealing out delicacies to Rebels, while others guarded the meanest article of their property, and kept it from our men, even when it was necessary to save life.
I consulted several old Sanitary Commission men, who told me it was always so when Grant was at the front; that he was then in absolute command; that Patrick, the Provost Marshal, was his friend, and would be sustained; and that we must be quiet or we would be ordered out of Fredericksburg.
Gen. Grant may have been loyal to the Union cause, but it has always seemed to me that in fighting its battles, he was moved by the pure love of fighting, and took that side which could furnish him the most means to gratify his passion for war. His Generalship was certainly of a kind that would soon have proved fatal to our cause in the war of the Revolution, and only succeeded in the war of the Rebellion, because the resources at his command were limitless, as compared with those of the enemy. It was late in the afternoon when our boat shoved off, and as we steamed away we saw the citizens rush down and take possession of the stores left on the wharf. During the evening and night we were fired into several times from the shores, but these attacks were returned from the gun-boat, which kept our assailants at such distance that their shots were harmless. We must have no lights that night, and the fires were put out or concealed, that they might not make us a target. So I slept, as there was nothing to be done, but in the morning was out early in search of worms, and was having good success, when two richly, fashionably dressed ladies came to tell me there was to be nothing to eat, save for those who took board at the captain’s table. They had gone to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for a wounded officer, and were ignominiously driven off by the cook. What was to be done? We might be ten days getting to Washington.
I went in search of a surgeon in charge, and found one in bed, sick; waited at his door until he joined me, when together we saw the captain of the boat. There were two new cook-stoves on board, but to put one up would be to forfeit the insurance. There were plenty of commissary stores. The surgeon went with me, ordered the commissary to give me anything I wanted, and went back to bed. Our stores consisted of crackers, coffee, dried-apples, essence of beef, and salt pork in abundance, a little loaf bread, and about half a pound of citric acid. Of these only the crackers and bread could be eaten without being cooked. There were four hundred and fifty wounded men–all bad cases, all exhausted from privation. How many of them would live to reach Washington on a diet of crackers and water? I went to the cook, a large, sensible colored woman, and stated the case as well as I could. After hearing it she said:
“I see how it is; but you see all these officers and ladies are agoin to board with the captain, an’ I’ll have a sight o’ cooking to do. I can’t have none of those fine ladies comin’ a botherin’ around me, carryin’ off my things or upsettin’ ’em. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll hurry up my work and clare off my things; then you can have the kitchen, you an’ that young lady that’s with you; but them women, with their hoops an’ their flounces, must stay out o’ here!”
It was hard to see how two of them would get into that small domain, a kitchen about ten feet square, half filled by a cook-stove, shelves, and the steep, narrow, open stairs which led to the upper deck; but what a kingdom that little kitchen was to me! All the utensils leaked, but cook helped me draw rags through the holes in the three largest which I was to have, and which covered the top of the stove. There were plenty of new wooden buckets and tin dippers on board as freight, some contraband women, and an active little man, who had once been a cook’s assistant. He and the women were glad to work for food. He was to help me in the kitchen. They worked outside, and must not get in the way of the crew. They washed dried apples and put them to soak in buckets, pounded crackers in bags and put the crumbs into buckets, making each one a third full and covering them with cold water. I put a large piece of salt pork into my largest boiler, added water and beef essence enough to almost fill the boiler, seasoned it, and as soon as it reached boiling point had it ladled into the buckets with the cracker-crumbs, and sent for distribution. The second boiler was kept busy cooking dried apples, into which I put citric acid and sugar, for gangrene prevailed among the wounds. In the third boiler I made coffee; I kept it a-soak, and as soon as it boiled I put it strong into buckets, one-third full of cold water. I kept vessels in the oven and on the small spaces on top of the stove. My little man fired up like a fire-king, another man laid plenty of wood at hand; and I think that was the only cook-stove that was ever “run” to its full capacity for a week. By so running it, I could give every man a pint of warm soup and one of warm coffee every twenty-four hours. To do this, everything must “come to time.”
When one piece of pork was cooked, it was cut into small pieces and distributed, and another put into the boiler. During our cooking times I usually sat on the stairs, where I could direct and be out of the way; and to improve the time, often had a plate and cup from which I ate and drank. Cook always saved me something nice, and I made tea for myself. I was running my body as I did the cook stove, making it do quadruple duty, and did not spare the fuel in either case. Around each foot, below the instep, I had a broad, firm bandage, one above each ankle and one below each knee. If soldiers on the march had adopted this precaution, they would have escaped the swollen limbs so often distressing. I also had each knee covered by several layers of red flannel, to protect them while I knelt on damp places. Soon after going into Campbell, I discovered that muscles around the bone will do double service if held firmly in place, and so was enabled in all my hospital work, to do what seemed miraculous to the most experienced surgeons.
I rested every moment I could, never stood when I might sit, made no useless motions, spent no strength in sorrow, had no sentiment, was simply the engineer of a machine–my own body; could fall asleep soon as I lay down, and wake any moment with my senses all alert, outlived my prejudice about china cups, and drank tea from brown earthen mugs used for soup, and never washed save in cold water; often ate from a tin plate with my left hand, while my right held a stump to prevent that jerking of the nerves which is so agonizing to the patient, many a time eating from the same tin plate with my patient, and making merry over it; and think I must have outstanding engagements to dance cotillions with one hundred one-legged men.
One day while I sat eating and watching, that just enough cans of beef were put into each boiler of broth, and no time wasted by letting it stand after reaching boiling point, a surgeon asked to see me at the kitchen door. He informed me that up on the forecastle, some men had had soup twice while those in some other place had had none. He evidently wished to be lenient, but felt that I had been guilty of great neglect. I heard his grievance, and said:
“Doctor, how many of you surgeons are on this boat?”
After some consideration he answered:
“Four!”
“Four surgeons!” I repeated, “beside the surgeon in charge, who is sick! We have four hundred and fifty wounded men! I draw all the rations, find a way to cook them, have them cooked and put into the buckets, ready for distribution. Do you not think that you four could organize a force to see that they are honestly distributed–or do you expect me to be in the kitchen, up in the forecastle, and at the stern on the boiler deck, at one and the same time? Doctor, could you not take turns in amusing those ladies? Could they not spare two of you for duty?”
I heard no more complaints, but left Miss Grey more in charge of the kitchen, and did enough medical inspecting to know that I had been unjust. Some of the surgeons had been on duty, and the men were not so much neglected as I had feared. As for the Ladies, I do not know how many there were of them, but they were of good social position–quite as good as the average of those whose main object in life is to look as much better than their neighbors as circumstances will admit. There was on board one of those folks for whose existence Christianity is responsible, and which sensible Hindoos reduce to their original elements, viz.: a widow who gets a living by being pious, and is respectable through sheer force of cheap finery; one who estimates herself by her surroundings, and whose every word and look and motion is an apology for her existence. She was a Dix, or paid nurse. The ladies snubbed her; we had no room for her hoops; and she spent her time in odd corners, taking care of them and her hair, and turning up her eyes, like a duck in a thunder-storm, under the impression that it looked devotional. If I had killed all the folks I have felt like killing, she would have gone from that boat to her final rest.
One night about eleven o’clock a strange surgeon, who had just come aboard with twenty wounded, came to the kitchen door, and handed in a requisition for tea and custard and chicken for his men. The man told him he could have nothing but cracker-broth or coffee. He was very indignant, and proceeded to get up a scene; but the man said, firmly:
“Can’t help it, Surgeon! That’s the orders!”
“Orders! Whose orders?”
I got down from my porch on the stairs, came forward and said:
“It is my orders, sir, and I am sorry, but this is really all we can do for you. If your men have tin cups, each one can have a cup of warm soup–it will not be very hot–or a cup of warm coffee. Those who get soup will get no coffee, and those who get coffee can have no soup. You can get tin cups from the commissary, and should have them ready, so that the food will not cool.”
While I made this statement he stood regarding me with ineffable disdain, and when I was through inquired:
“Who are you?”
“I am the cook!”
“The cook!” he repeated, contemptuously. “I will report your insolence when we reach Washington!”
“That may be your duty; but I will send up the coffee and soup, and do you get the tin cups.”
He stamped off in dudgeon, and others who heard him were highly indignant; but I was greatly pleased to find a surgeon who would get angry and raise a disturbance on behalf of his patients. I never knew his name, but if this should meet his eye I trust he will accept my thanks for his faithfulness to his charge.
On the lower deck, behind the boilers, lay twenty wounded prisoners, who at first looked sulky; but as I was stepping over and among them, one caught my dress, looked up pleadingly, and said:
“Mother, can’t you get me some soft bread? I can’t eat this hard-tack.”
He was young, scarce more than a boy; had large, dark eyes, a good head–tokens of gentle nurture–and alas! a thigh stump. He told me he was of a Mississippi regiment, and his name Willie Gibbs. I bathed his hot face, and said I would see about the bread; then went to another part of the deck, where our men were very closely packed, and stated the case to them. There was very little soft bread–it was theirs by right; what should I do? I think they all spoke at once, and all said the same words:
“Oh, mother! give the Johnnies the soft bread! we can eat hard-tack!”
I think I was impartial, but there was a temptation to give Willie Gibbs a little more than his share of attention. His face was so sad, and there was so little hope that he would ever again see those who loved him, that I think I did more for him than for any other one on board. His companions came to call me “mother,” and I hope felt their captivity softened by my care; and often rebel hands supported me while I crouched at work.
When we approached Washington, I proposed rewarding the cook for the incalculable service she had rendered, but she replied:
“No, ma’am, I will not take anything from you ‘cept that apron! When we get to Washington, you will not want it any more, an’ I’ll keep it all my life to remember you, and leave it to my children! Lord! there isn’t another lady in the world could ‘a done what you’ve done; an’ I know you’re a lady! Them women with the fine clothes is trying to pass for ladies, but, Lord! I know no lady ‘u’d dress up that way in a place like this, an’ men know it, too–just look at you, an’ how you do make them fellers in shoulderstraps stand ’round!”
Her observation showed her Southern culture, for whatever supremacy the North may have over the South, Southern ladies are far in advance of those of the North in the art of dress. A Southern lady seldom commits an incongruity, or fails to dress according to age, weather, and the occasion. I do not think any one of any social standing would have gone among wounded men, with the idea of rendering any assistance, tricked out in finery, as hundreds, if not thousands, of respectable Northern women did.
The apron which I gave to my friend the cook, was brown gingham, had seen hard service, and cost, originally, ten cents, and half an hour’s hand-sewing; but if it aids her to remember me as pleasantly as I do her, it is part of a bond of genuine friendship.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
TRY TO GET UP A SOCIETY AND GET SICK.
After two days in bed at home, I was so much better, that when Mrs. Ingersol came with a plan for organizing a society to furnish the army with female nurses, I went to see Mrs. Lincoln about it. She was willing to cooperate, and I went to Secretary Stanton, who heard me, and replied:
“You must know that Mrs. Barlow and Mrs. Ingersol and you are not fair representatives of your sex,” and went on to explain the embarrassment of the Surgeon-General from the thousands of women pressing their services upon the Government, and the various political influences brought to bear on behalf of applicants, and of the well grounded opposition of surgeons to the presence of women in hospitals, on account of their general unfitness. Gen. Scott, as a personal friend of Miss Dix, had appointed her to the place she held, and it was so convenient and respectful to refer people to her, that the War Department would not interfere with the arrangement. In other words, she was a break-water against which feminine sympathies could dash and splash without submerging the hospital service.
After what I had seen among the women who had succeeded in getting in, I had not much to say. A society might prescribe a dress, but might be no more successful than Miss Dix in making selections of those who should wear it.
I asked the Secretary how it came that no better provision had been made for our wounded after the battle of the Wilderness, and tears sprang to his eyes as he replied:
“We did not know where they were. We had made every arrangement at the points designated by Gen. Grant, but he changed his plans and did not notify us. The whole army was cut off from its base of supplies and must be sustained. As soon as we knew the emergency, we did everything in our power; but all our preparations were lost. Everything had to be done over again. You cannot regret the suffering more than I, but it was impossible for me to prevent it.”
I never saw him so earnest, so sorrowful, so deeply moved.
That effort seemed to be the straw which broke the camel’s back, and I was so ill as to demand medical attendance. For this I sent to Campbell. Dr. Kelly came, but his forte was surgery, and my case was left with Dr. True, who had had longer practice in medicine. They both decided that I had been inoculated with gangrene while dressing wounds, and for some weeks I continued to sink. I began to think my illness fatal, and asked the doctor, who said:
“I have been thinking I ought to tell you that if you have any unsettled business you should attend to it.”
I had a feeling of being generally distributed over the bed, of being a mass of pulp without any central force, but I had had a letter that day from my daughter, who was with her father and grandmother in Swissvale, and wanted to come to me, and the thought came: “Does God mean to make my child an orphan, that others may receive their children by my death?” Then I had a strange sensation of a muster, a gathering of scattered life-force, and when it all came together it made a protest; I signed to the doctor, who put his ear to my lips, and I said:
“Doctor True, I shall live to be an hundred and twenty years old!”
He took up the lamp, threw the light on my face, and peered anxiously into it, and I looked straight into his eyes, and said:
“I will!”
He laughed and set down the lamp, saying:
“Then you must get over this!”
“You must get me over it. Bring Dr. Kelly!”
Next morning, I had them carry me into a larger room, where the morning sun shone on me, and ten days after, started for Pennsylvania, where I spent three weeks with my old Swissvale neighbors, Col. Hawkins and Wm. S. Haven.
When I returned to Washington, I found an official document, a recommendation from the Quarter-Master General, of my dismissal for absence without leave. It was addressed to Secretary Stanton, who had written on the outside:
“Respectfully referred to Mrs. Swisshelm, by Edwin M. Stanton.”
I went back to work, and learned that Mrs. Gen. Barlow had died of typhoid fever, in Washington. No man died more directly for the Government. Thousands who fell on the battle-field, exhibited less courage and devotion to that service, and did less to secure its success. I know not where her body lies, but wherever it does, no decoration-day should pass in which her memory is not crowned with immortelles.
She died at a time when my life was despaired of, and when Mrs. Ingersol wrote to a Maine paper of my illness, adding:
“I hope the Lord will not take her away, until He has made another like her.”
She told me afterwards that just then she held the world at a grudge; but it must have been relieved of my presence long ere this, if I had not found in homoepathy relief from pain, which for eight months made life a burden, and for which the best old-school physicians proposed no cure.
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
AN EFFICIENT NURSE.
To show the capabilities of some of the women who thought they had a mission for saving the country by acting as hospital nurses, I give the history of one.
While I lay ill, a friend came and told of a most excellent woman who had come from afar, and tendered her services to the Government, who had exerted much influence and spent much effort to get into a hospital as nurse, but had failed.
Hearing of my illness, her desire to be useful led her to tender her services, so that if she could not nurse wounded soldiers she could nurse one who had. The generous offer was accepted, and I was left an afternoon in her care.
I wanted a cup of tea. She went to the kitchen to make it, and one hour after came up with a cup of tea, only this and nothing more, save a saucer. To taste the tea. I must have a spoon, and to get one she must go along a hall, down a long flight of stairs, through another hall and the kitchen, to the pantry. When she had made the trip the tea was so much too strong that a spoonful would have made a cup. She went down again for hot water, and after she had got to the kitchen remembered that she had thrown it out, thinking it would not be wanted. The fire had gone out, and she came up to inquire if she should make a new one, and if so, where she should find kindling? She had spent almost two hours running to and fro, was all in perspiration and a fluster, had done me a great deal of harm and nobody any good, had wasted all the kindlings for the evening fire, enough tea to have served a large family for a meal, and fairly illustrated a large part of the hospital service rendered by women oppressed with the nursing mission.
My sense of relief was inexpressible when Mrs. George B. Lincoln returned from her visit to the White House, sent my tea-maker away and took charge of me once more.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
TWO FREDERICKSBURG PATIENTS.
Some months after leaving Fredericksburg, I was walking on Pennsylvania avenue, when the setting sun shone in my face, and a man in uniform stopped me, saying:
“Excuse me! you do not know me, but I know you!”
I turned, looked at him carefully, and said:
“I do not know you!”
“Oh, no! but the last time you saw me, you cut off my beard with your scissors and fed me with a teaspoon. When you left me you did not think you would ever see me again.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed joyfully, “you are Dutton.”
He laughed, and replied, “That’s me. I have just got a furlough and am going home.”
He was very pale and thin, but I was so glad to see him and shake hands, and wish him safely home with his friends.
During the great review after the war, I had a seat near the President’s stand. There was a jam, and a man behind me called my attention to a captain, at a short distance, who had something to say to me, and passed along the words:
“You took care of me on the boat coming from Fredericksburg.”
Looking across, I could see him quite well, but even when his hat was off could not recognize him; and this is all I have ever heard from or of the men with whose lives mine was so knit during that terrible time.
I fear that not many survived, and doubt if a dozen of them ever knew me by any other name than that of “Mother.”
CHAPTER LXXX.
AM ENLIGHTENED.
When Early appeared before Washington, we all knew there was nothing to prevent his coming in and taking possession. The forts were stripped. There were no soldiers either in or around the city. The original inhabitants were ready to welcome him with open arms. The departments were closed, that the clerks might go out in military array, to oppose; but of course few soldiers were sitting at desks at that stage of the war. The news at the Quartermaster’s office one morning was that the foreign ministers had been notified, and that the city would be shelled that afternoon. We lived on the north side of the city; and when I went home, thousands of people were on the streets, listening to the sound of guns at Fort Reno.
So far as I knew, there was a universal expectation that the city would be occupied by rebel troops that night. As this was in harmony with the general tenor of my anticipations for a quarter of a century, I readily shared in the popular opinion, and for once was with the majority.
Among the groups who stood in the streets were many contrabands, and their faces were pitiful to see. One scantily-clad woman, holding a ragged infant, and with two frightened, ragged children clinging to her skirts, stood literally quaking. Her black face had turned gray with terror, and she came to me and asked:
“Oh! Missus! does ye tink dey will get in?”
Suddenly my eyes were opened, like those of the prophet’s servant when he saw the horses and chariots of fire, and I replied:
“No! never! They will come no nearer than they now are! You can go home and rest in peace, for you are just as safe from them as if you were in heaven!”
She was greatly comforted; but a gentleman said, as she moved away:
“I wish I could share your opinion; but what is to hinder their coming in?”
“God is to hinder! He has appointed us to rescue these people. They are collected here in thousands, and the prayers of centuries are to be answered now!”
I myself went home feeling all the confidence I spoke, and wondering I could have been so stupid as to doubt. Our Government and people were very imperfect, but had developed a sublime patriotism–made an almost miraculous growth in good. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom. We had ten thousand; and I must think there are few histories of supernatural interference in the affairs of the Jews more difficult to account for, on merely natural grounds, than the preservation of Washington in that crisis.
CONCLUSION.
December 6th, 1865, the fiftieth anniversary of my birth, found me in Washington, at work in the Quarter-Master’s office, on a salary of sixty dollars a month, without any provision for support in old age; and so great a sufferer as never to have a night of rest unbroken by severe pain, but with my interest in a country rescued from the odium of Southern slavery, and a faint light breaking of the day which is yet to abolish that of the West.
In the summer of ’66, Dr. King, of Pittsburg, came to know what I would take for my interest in ten acres of the Swissvale estate, which he had purchased. My deed had presented a barrier to the sale of a portion of it, and he was in trouble:
I consulted Secretary Stanton, who said:
“Your title to that property is good against the world!”
It had become valuable and the idea of its ownership was alarming! I had made up my mind to poverty, had been discharged from the Quarter-Master’s office by special order of President Johnson, “for speaking disrespectfully of the President of the United States!”–_Washington Star_–was the first person dismissed by Mr. Johnson; was without visible means of support, could not suddenly adjust my thought to anything so foreign to all my plans as coming into possession of a valuable estate, and said:
“Oh, Secretary Stanton, how shall I ever undertake such a stewardship at my time of life?” He looked sternly at me, and replied:
“Mrs. Swisshelm, don’t be a fool! take care of yourself! It is time you would begin. The property is yours now. You are morally responsible for it, and can surely make some better use of it than giving it away to rich men around Pittsburg. Go at once and attend to your interests.”
This was our last interview. I instituted the suit he advised, and he would have plead my cause before the Supreme Court, but when it came up he was holding possession of the War Department to defeat President Johnson’s policy of making the South triumphant. However, the decree of the court was in my favor, and through it I have been able to rescue the old log block house from the tooth of decay, and to sit in it and recall those passages of life with which it is so intimately connected.
THE END.