Somewhere about July 14, ’62, Charley and G. must have gone home from Harrison’s Landing, probably in a returning hospital ship. The record is lacking–Sarah Woolsey’s letter of July 22 being the first mention of it. She had been serving all this time at the New Haven Hospital.
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey to Georgeanna Woolsey.
New Haven.
At The Barrack Hospital, July 22.
When the family leave you a little gap of time, write me one line to make me feel that you are really so near again. I cannot help hoping that if you go back, there may be a vacancy near you which I can fill. The work here is very satisfactory in its way, but is likely to come to an end before long if the decision about “Hospitals within military limits” is carried out. . . .
This is Sunday, and I have been here since half past nine–it being about 5 P.M. now . . . It has not been very Sunday-like, as I’ve mended clothes, and given out sheets, and made a pudding, but somehow it seems proper. Mary would laugh if she knew one thing that I’ve been doing–distributing copies of “A Rainy Day in Camp” to sick soldiers, who liked it vastly. I had it printed in one of our papers for the purpose. To-morrow I am going to change employments–take Miss Young’s place in the kitchen, and let her have a day’s rest, while Mrs. Hunt supplies mine here. Meantime as a beginning I must go and heat some beef tea for a poor fellow who hates to eat, and has to be coaxed into his solids by an after promise of pudding and jelly. . . .
P. S –Have come back from service and administered the beef tea, though it was an awful job. The man gave continual howls, first because the tea was warm, then because I tried to help him hold a tumbler, then because I fanned him too hard, and I thought each time I had hurt him and grew so nervous that I could have cried. Beside, there is a boy in that tent–an awful boy with no arms, who swears so frightfully (all the time he isn’t screeching for currant pie, or fried meat, or some other indigestible), that he turns you blue as you listen.