The whole staff of the Wilson Small seems now to have scattered and “fallen back” on Washington. The letter of July 21 is from Miss Katherine P. Wormeley. She and Mrs. William P. Griffin had been delightful friends to us. We were the four “staff” women on the Wilson Small through the whole Peninsular campaign. [...]
Joseph Howland kept up constant communication with the 16th and his commanding generals, always in the hope of going back, in spite of all discouragements. Gen. Henry W. Slocum writes to him: Harrison’s Landing, July 19, ’62. My dear Colonel: Yours of the 16th has just come to hand. I am sincerely glad that you [...]
Eliza Woolsey Howland to her sister, Georgeanna. Fishkill, July 13. Except for seeing how much good the rest and the home scenes are doing Joe, I would much rather be at Harrison’s Point. He is improving nicely. His wound is not healed yet, but the inflammation has all gone and it looks better every day, [...]
Charles William Woolsey to his brother-in-law, Joseph Howland, Wilson Small, Harrison’s Landing, Saturday, July 12th. Dear Joe: I saw, to-day, your adjutant, surgeon, and quartermaster; the former is much better, he says, and is going home in a day or two. He reports the 16th in good condition and in excellent spirits. This is unmistakably [...]
Georgeanna Woolsey’s journal. July 12. Lying off Harrison’s Point in sight of the hospital on shore to which we went the other evening. The fifty tents we brought from Washington are going up and are partly filled– men on cots, and not very ill. The place is to be used as a rest for a [...]
Abbie Howland Woolsey to her sister, Georgeanna. 8 Brevoort Place, New York, July 10th, 1862. Eliza, Joe and Jane have gone off this morning to Fishkill. . Joe’s place here was in the long lounging-chair by the front parlor window, while we received ordinary folks whom he wouldn’t see, in the dining-room. He has worn [...]
Georgeanna Muirson Woolsey to Frederick Law Olmsted. Washington. My dear Mr. Olmsted: Can the Sanitary Commission do anything to prevent a repetition of the inhuman treatment the sick received last week, on their way from Jamestown to Alexandria? 150 men were packed in one canal boat between decks, stowed so closely together that they were [...]
General Franklin’s wife to Eliza. April 12. My dear Mrs. Howland: Last night (late) I was informed as a great secret that General Franklin’s Division was to go to General McClellan after all! I was wondering when I awoke this morning if I might not go and tell you. . . . General Meigs was [...]
Sarah Woolsey to Eliza Woolsey Howland New Haven, Tuesday Night. I am just home from a very hot day at the New Haven Hospital, and so glad to find Jane’s note with the news of your arrival that I must write a line before going to bed to tell you of it. And thus our [...]
Abbie Howland Woolsey to her sister at Harrison’s Landing. 8 Brevoort Place, July 7, 1862. My dear Georgy: Eliza and Joe came safely through yesterday (Sunday) morning. Jane and I were just going to the front door on our way to church when their hotel coach drove up. They had a pleasant voyage, only Joe [...]
Abby Howland Woolsey to her sister, Eliza. 8 Brevoort Place, Saturday, July 5th, ’62. My dear Eliza: Georgy’s and Charley’s letters from Harrison’s have just arrived, the last date being a postscript Thursday, July 3, which brings us into close correspondence again you see. These letters have relieved the painful anxiety that began to possess [...]
Jane Eliza Newton Woolsey to her daughter. July 3, ’62. My dear Eliza: What times you are living through! in the very midst, too, of everything as you are !–and how dark, very dark, it all looks to us this morning as we read the last “reliable ” accounts from the army before Richmond! Think [...]
One of the hospital duties of all the nurses at the front was writing letters home for the sick and wounded men, and sometimes the sad work of telling the story of their last few hours of life. That such letters helped to comfort sorrowful hearts, the following answer to one shows. The soldier was [...]
Jane Eliza Newton Woolsey to her son, Charles. June 29 or 30. Your last letter this moment come! We know not what to think. Dear E. [Eliza], what a heroine she shows herself. This slight wound may be the means of saving Joe from greater danger, as he must now lie by. Dear boy, how [...]
Eliza Woolsey Howland’s Journal. June 28th. We went as far as West Point, followed by a train of schooners and barges running away like ourselves. There we lay through the evening and night, watching for the flames of burning stores at White House which did not burn, and for booming of guns which did not [...]
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey to Georgeanna Muirson Woolsey. Linen Room, New Haven Hospital, June 26th, ’62. My dearest G.: A lull in business gives me a chance to write a few lines to you and tell you how glad I was last night to find your letter waiting for me when I got home from my [...]
Eliza Woolsey Howland’s Journal. . . . June 26th. Running away down the Pamunkey again as fast as we can go, escaping from Stonewall Jackson! All night the wood choppers were at work cutting down the woods at the White House to give the gunboats a chance to command the land beyond, and just now [...]
Eliza Woolsey Howland’s Journal. . . . June 25th. General Van Vliet says that if I want to go to the front at any time and will send him word, he will have his wagon meet me and take me over to J’s camp. This morning Dr. Bigelow came back to our boat from the [...]
Eliza Woolsey Howland’s Journal. Wilson Small, June 23. A very anxious day. An orderly from Brigade Headquarters brought word from Captain Hopkins that Joe was ill and unable to write. I at once put up a basket of stores for him–bedsack, pillows, sheets, arrowroot, etc., etc., to go by the orderly, and Charley telegraphed Generals [...]
Eliza Howland to Joe, Howland, her husband. Wilson Small, June –. This morning I have your Sunday note with the charming little poem. Who wrote it? Be sure and tell me. It is a poem, and though entirely undeserved, I value it very much indeed. [Poem by a Lieutenant of the 16th N. Y., dedicated [...]
From Edward Mitchell. White House, June 20, 1862. My dear Father: Heavy firing in the advance this A. M. Since writing to Fred. I have had no time to write another word. Sitting up late that night, I was waked up, with Drs. Jenkins and Haight, to go ashore for 24 hours at 3 A. [...]
Jane Eliza Newton Woolsey to her son Charles. New York, June, ’62. My dear Charley: Here are lots of scraps for you. Our basket is just going off to the steamer. I hope you will enjoy the gingerbread. We are all anxiety for further accounts since the battles of the last few days. The paper [...]
Abby Howland Woolsey to her brother. 8 Brevoort Place, June 17th. My dear Charley: We had just been reading in the Times about the scare at White House when Georgy’s letter arrived. We have read it aloud over the breakfast table, and are now going to enclose it to Mary and Carry at Astoria, that [...]
Dr. Hugh Lenox Hodge to Georgeanna Woosey. Philadelphia, June, 1862. Dear Georgy: Once more our paths have separated. . . . Upon my return with the wounded from the battle of Fair Oaks, I received appointment to a large hospital (1,500 beds), now building in West Philadelphia. I will live at home, but will be [...]
Harriet Roosevelt Woolsey to her sisters on the Virginia Peninsula, Georgeanna Woolsey and Eliza Howland. New York, June. Dear Girls: I write more for the sake of sending a letter by Dr. Draper, than because there is anything to tell you about. . . . I think Abby looks miserable and needs rest. I don’t [...]