" He Has Only Gone A Little Before You ", Mary Livermore's Perfectly Awful Day- That Was Every Day

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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This image seems most famous because a famous ( for good reason ) nurse took the time to pose for a photograph. That's Amy Bradley in the checked dress. We look at images but not at what may be inside those doors.

For all the discussions centering on battles, generals, politics of the era and individual personalities one aspect we discuss rarely the various relief organizations. Maybe a little- but you get the impression they're thought of as kinda do-gooders of dubious import, walking behind the war with dustpan and brush. The nearer truth is the death toll would have been decimal points more staggering, stories left to us so barbaric 150 years later it'd be tough to fathom. That's out of a war already so barbaric it's tough to fathom.

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The Sanitary Commission's COA, what would be a logo in 2020. I can't find what symbology is used and why although you don't see it very much anyway. What you see is their work.

Mrs. Mary Livermore. Hers is one of the famous names and stories, ' Civil War Nurse '. Her title would have been ' Sanitary Commission Agent '- so, nurse, social worker, cook, cleaner, office worker, friend.

The Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission and hundreds of smaller groups worked together and apart. Their scope was tremendous, their work comprehensive when it came to alleviating human suffering. It just pays to pay attention to them- as the war ground on so did they. Sometimes it was with a giant dustpan, cleaning up messes war created in the lives of Americans.

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Washington, Nashville, Fredericksburg, Petersburg- where there was war there was one or more of these and the humanitarians responsible for them.

Came across a weary woman's journal entry sent back to HQ. No glorious charges, no ringing speeches, nothing to commit to memory. But we should. It's genuinely worth the read. Where we were and maybe more important- who we were, what was thought awfully important 150 plus years ago.

Ran out of time to clean up the copy/paste from the journal- Hathitrust offers their books in plain text format, gets a little spotty sometimes.

A DAY AT THE ROOMS OF THE SANITARY COMMISSION.

"It is early morning—not nine o'clock— for the children are flocking in happy droves to school, making the sweet summer air resonant with their joyous treble and musical laugh, as with clustering, golden heads and interlacing white arms, they re count their varied experiences since the parting of the night before, and rapturous good-by kiss, we launch our own little folks, bonneted and sacqued, and ballasted with books like the rest, into the stream of childhood, that is setting in, strong and full, towards the school room, and then catch the street car, that leaves us at the rooms of the “Chicago Sanitary Commis sion.”

But early as is our arrival, a dray is already ahead of us, unloading its big boxes, and little boxes, barrels and firkins, baskets and bundles, at the door of the Commission. The sidewalk is barricaded with the multiform packages, which John, the porter, with his inseparable truck, is endeavoring to stow away in the “Receiving Room.” Here hammers, hatchets, wedges and chisels are in requisition, compelling the crammed boxes to disgorge their heterogeneous contents, which are rapidly assorted, stamped, re-packed, re-boxed and re-shipped, their stay in the room rarely exceeding a few hours.

We enter the office. Ladies are in waiting who desire information. The Aid Society in another State, of which they are officers, has raised, at a Fourth of July Festival, some six hundred dollars, and the wish to know how it shall be disposed of, so as to afford the greatest amount of relief to the sick and wounded of our Army. They are also instructed to investigate the means and method of the Commission, so as to carry conviction to a few obstinate skeptics, who persist in doubting if the Sanitary Commission, after all, be the best means of communication with the hospitals. Patiently and courteously, the history, method, , means, aims and success of the Commission are lucidly explained for the hundredth time in a month, and all needed advice and instruction imparted— and the enlightened women leave.

An express messenger enters. He brings a package of money, obtains his fee, gets receipted for the package, and, without a word, departs. Next comes a budget of letters—the morning's mail. One announces the shipment of boxes of hospital stores which will arrive to-day—another scolds roundly, because a letter sent a week ago has not been answered—which has been answered, as the copying-book indisputably attests, but has been miscarried—a third has a bug-a-boo, mythical story to relate of surgeons and nurses in a distant hospital, with a large development of alimentiveness, who care little for their patients, being mainly occupied in “seeking what they can devour” of the hospital delicacies—a fourth pleads earnestly and eloquently that the writer may be sent as a nurse to the sad, cheerless, far away hospitals—a fifth is the agonized letter of a mother and widow, blistered with tears, begging piteously that the Commission will search out and send to her tidings of her only son,



“Scarce more than a boy with unshaven face, Who marched away with a star on his breast,” and has not been heard from since the battle of Grand Gulf—a sixth seeks information concerning the organization of an Aid Society in a remote town, which has just awakened to its duty—a seventh is a letter from nine-year-old little girls who have earned five dollars and wish it spent for the “poor, sick soldiers”—God bless the dear children!—an eighth begs that one of the ladies of the Commission will visit the Society in her town, and re-kindle the flagging zeal of the tired workers, who forget that our brave men stop not in their marches, and postpone not their battles and their victories, because of the heat or of weariness—a ninth announces the death of one of our heroic nurses, who was sent by the Commission a few months ago to Tennessee, a blue-eyed, broad-browed, seri ous-faced, comely girl, with heart loyal as steel, and soul on fire with patriotic yearning to do something for her country, and who has now given her life—and so on through a package of twenty, thirty and sometimes forty letters. Now commences the task of replying to these multitudinous epistles—a work which is interrupted every five minutes by some new comer.

A venerable, white-haired man enters. He has been here before, and we immediately recognize him. “Have you heard from my son, in Van Buren's Hospital, at Milliken's Bend ?” “Not yet, sir; you know it is only nine days since I wrote to inquire for him. I will telegraph if you are not able to wait for a letter.” “No matter,” and the old man's lip quivers, his figure trembles visibly, his eyes fill with tears, he chokes, and can say no more. We understand it all—our heart warms towards him, for our father, a thousand miles away, is like him, white-haired and feeble—we raise, and offer our hand. The old man's hand closes convulsively upon it; he leans his head against the iron pillar near our desk, and his tears drip—drip— steadily on the hand he holds.

“He has only gone a little before you,” we venture to say; “it is but a short distance from you to him now.” “Yes,” adds the heart-broken father, “and he gave his life for a good cause—a cause worthy of it, if he had been a thousand times dearer to me than he was.” “And your boy's mother—how does she bear this grief ?” He shakes his head, and again the tears drip—drip—drip—on the hand he has still retained. “She’ll see him before I do; this will kill her.” What shall assuage the sorrow of these aged parents, bereft of the son of their old age by the cruel war which Slavery has invoked? Sympathy, tears, comfort is prof.fered the aching heart, and after a little,the sorrowing father turns again to his desolate home.

A childish figure drags itself into the room, shuffles heavily along, sinks into a chair, and offers a letter. What ails the little fellow, whose face is so bright and beautiful, and yet so tinged with sadness? We open the letter and read. He is a message-boy from Admiral Porter's gun-boat, who is sent home with the Admiral's written request that the child be º taken care of. Not yet thirteen years old, and yet he has been in battles, and has run the gauntlet of the Vicksburg battles, which, for ten miles, belched forth red-hot and steel-pointed shot and shell, which yet failed to sink the dauntless and invulnerable iron-clads. Fever, too much medicine, neglect and exposure, have done their worst for the little fellow, who has come North, homeless and friendless, with the left side paralyzed. He is taken to the exquisite care and tenderness of the “Soldiers' Home,” for the present.

Who next 2 " A bevy of nurses enter, bearing carpet-bags, *i. and bundles. We have telegraphed them that the hospitals at Memphis need them, and straight way they have girded themselves to the work. One is a widow, whose husband fell at Shiloh–another is the wife of a Lieutenant, at Vicksburg—a third lost her brother at Chancellorville, and almost hopes through the work of the hospital, to find the portal of the “happyland,” whither he has vanished. They receive their instructions, commissions and transportation, and hasten onward. God guide you, brave, noble, little women

Ah! that white, anxious mother's face, whiter and more anxious than ever, is again framed in the door-way. Is there, this time, no escape from it? One, two, three, four days, she has haunted these rooms, waiting the answer to a telegram dispatched to Gettysburg, where her darling only boy was wounded, ten days ago. The answer to the telegram is in our pocket—but how shall we repeat its stern speech to the white-faced and sorrow-stricken mother ? We leave our desk, and involuntarily bustle about, as if in search of something, for we cannot tell her. There is no need—the morning papers have revealed her desolation to her, and she has only come to secure the help of the Commission in obtaining possession of the remains of her dead. There are no tears, no words of grief, only a still agony, a repressed anguish, it is painful to witness. All that can be done is freely accorded her, and bowed and staggering under her heavy affliction, she goes forth on her sacred lourney. to recover her dead.

Alas! how many thousand mothers are, at this hour, refusing to go home without their dearest son.

Soldiers from the city hospitals next visit us, to beg a shirt, a pair of slippers, a comb, or a pin-cushion—and to talk of their sufferings and privations, and their anxiety to get well and rejoin their regiments. They are praised heartily, petted in the most approved motherly fashion, and sent back lighter hearted than they came.

And so the day wears away. More loaded drays drive up to the door, and disburse barrels of crackers, ale, pickles, sour krout and potatoes; and boxes of shirts, drawers, tea, condensed milk and beef, &c., which are speedily set en route for the hospitals. Men and women come and go, to visit, to make inquiries, to ask favors, to offer services, to utter complaints, to bring news from Vicksburg, Memphis, Murfreesboro' or Nashville hospitals, to make donations of money, to retail their sorrows, and sometimes to idle away an hour in the midst of the writing, packing, wheeling, nailing and hurrying of this busy place.

The sun declines westward—its fervid heat is abating—the hands of the clock point to five or six and sometimes seven— and wearied in body, and saturated, men tally, with the passing streams of others’ sorrows, we again hail the street car, which takes us back once more to our pleasant home, with its cheerful companionship, and the prattle and merriment and thought less gaiety of children. Five days of the seven, when not visiting some of the numerous auxiliaries of the Commission, scattered all over the Northwest, we spend in these rooms, amid scenes like those we have described, which must serve as our excuse for continued neglect of friends and correspondents.-"

Mrs. Mary Livermore.
 
The entire war took place against this backdrop we almost never see. It's so odd. I'm not saying that to draw attention to women's work in the war- around a gazillion men were ' agents ' for the Sanitary Commission too. It's just that I wish someone could have a shot at figuring out how much worse the casualty rates would have been were it not for these massive out pourings of sheer humanitarian efforts.

For every shattering battle, skirmish, out of the way camp, long march, prison and hospital there were countless awful, personal stories. Remember reading of one- post battle, over 100 wounded men had been left on a river bank. Just left. Army retreated, medical staff couldn't stay, frantic to find someone, they finally discovered the Sanitary Commission's tug Elizabeth en route somewhere else. That was 100 men who would have died without them.
 
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