Hatty writes (Harriet Roosevelt Woolsey to her sisters): June 10. We shall send you the things you ask for by the steamer St. Mark to-morrow, and hope you may get them, though I have my doubts as to Charley’s wines making a sea journey safely with government employees on board ready to drink them up. [...]

Eliza Howland to her husband, Colonel Joseph Howland. Floating Hospital, White House, Sunday, June. We are having a delightful quiet Sunday–such a contrast to the last few days. A hundred and fifty men, to be sure, came down last night, but unless we have two or three hundred we think nothing of it nowadays. We [...]

Jane Stuart Woolsey to her sister, Georgeanna. Charley’s letter to the Post was quite a success and I advise him to continue his communications. The Vanderbilt, Government Hospital Ship, got in last night at six or seven, and will be emptied to-day, I suppose. There has been a great and general muss on the whole [...]

Georgeanna Woolsey to her mother. June 6, Wilson Small. We have on our boats nine “contraband” women from the Lee estate, real Virginia darkeys but excellent workers, who all “wish on their souls and bodies that the rebels could be put in a house together and burned up.” “Mary Susan,” the blackest of them, yielded [...]

Eliza Woolsey Howland to her husband, Colonel Joseph Howland:– I enclose some comments about Casey’s division, and we all agree here that justice was not done to the men. It is surely hard enough to lose as terribly as they did without being reproached for cowardice. Abby says in a late letter– “Anna Jeffries came [...]

Some of the hurried notes in the small blank books we carried about with us (G’s tied to her belt) are characteristic, and somewhat mixed at the distance of 36 years. “78 pillow-cases, and 4 mattresses. Whiskey for 10, brandy for 4. W. T., 49th Ga., Co. D. C.G., both legs; handkerchiefs, arrowroot, bay-rum. V. [...]

Captain Curtis of the 16th, who had been a patient on board our Headquarters boat the “Small,” since his wound at West Point, went up in one of the transports to an Alexandria hospital. He found there our friend Chaplain Hopkins, still hard at work among the sick and wounded. The following letter from the [...]

Abby Howland Woolsey to her sisters, Georgy and Eliza, with the Sanitary Commission on the Peninsula Campaign. New York, June 2d, 1862. My dear Girls: Charley’s letter of Thursday came in this morning. He explained to us his system of numbering and sorting the men’s luggage, etc., which interested us very much, and shows us [...]

Charles William Woolsey to New York Evening Post. Sanitary Commission, Floating Hospital, Pamunkey River, Off White House, Va., May 31, 1862. The work of the Sanitary Commission, as connected with the army of the Potomac, is just at this time, as you doubtless know, a most important and indispensable one. More than two thousand sick [...]

Eliza Woolsey Howland to her husband, Joe. Floating Hospital, Off White House, May 27. Still not a word from you for a fortnight now. I am beginning to be very hungry, – not anxious, only hungry, for letters. I only hear in indirect ways that our division was near the Chickahominy a day or two [...]

Abby Howland Woolsey’s Journal New York, Monday. Georgy’s letter of the 23d, written on the Spaulding from White House, came in this morning at breakfast, which is more prompt than usual. It tells of the proposed opening of hospital tents ashore, and two thousand sick ready to put into them at once. Why the Commission [...]

One of the favorite relics to send home from the front used to be shot and shell picked up on battle fields. Carry seemed to feel less grateful than we expected for those forwarded to 8 Brevoort Place, from the immediate front of the Sanitary Commission. Caroline Woolsey to Charles Woolsey Friday Morning Dear Charley: [...]

Jane Stuart Woolsey to a friend in Europe May 23, 1862. We all talk politics now. I asked a wide-awake cousin to-day, ” What do you think about England now?” “England? England?” was the answer, “I had entirely forgotten that there was such a country!” . . . Our English friends sent us Mr. Gladstone’s [...]

From Mother 8 Brevoort Place, Friday Morning. My dear Girls and Charley.—All your notes and letters are of thrilling interest to us now, and though we think it very kind of you to take a minute even for us, in the midst of all that is going on around you, we are craving enough to [...]

Abby Howland Woolsey to her sisters Georgeanna Woolsey and Eliza Howland. May. My Dear Children : . . . Doesn’t Charley want something? Mother is racking her brain to think what it can be, as he no doubt does want something, going off in the hurry he did. She is afraid, too, that he is [...]

Abby Howland Woolsey to her sister, Eliza Howland. Dear E. : The returning Spaulding takes to you 12 Boston rockers, 6 boxes of brandy (if it gets there), 1 package of mosquito bar (getting very scarce), a bundle and a basket, and chewing tobacco, for Charley to distribute! . . . Tell him the 22d [...]

Eliza Woolsey Howland to her husband, Joe. Floating Hospital, Spaulding, Off White House, May 22. We are to go on shore presently to see what we can do for the large field hospital there. Two of our doctors, Ware and Draper of New York, spent the day yesterday trying to organize it and make the [...]

From Dr. Hugh Lenox Hodge. On Board Hospital Ship “Whilldin,” Chesapeake Bay, May 21, 1862. Dear Georgy: We are again on the Bay on our way to join the army. I was very sorry that we moved up to Queen’s Creek for the wounded of Williamsburgh before Eliza and yourself examined the Commodore. For a [...]

From Abby New York, May 19, 1862. My Dear Children: I am writing in a bookstore down town. . . . We had a famous letter on Saturday from you, Georgy, and another, half Eliza’s half Charley’s. I did not discover at first at what word one broke off and the other began. Your adventures [...]

Georgeanna Wolsey to her Mother. May 19. We are lying in the Spaulding just below the burnt railroad bridge on the Pamunkey. It is startling to find so far from the sea a river whose name we hardly knew two weeks ago, where our anchor drops in three fathoms of water, and our ship turns [...]

E. writes. Spaulding (hospital ship) Half a mile above us is the White House naming the place, a modern cottage if ever “white” now drabbed over, standing where the early home of Mrs. Washington stood. We went ashore this morning, and with General Franklin and his aides strolled about the grounds —an unpretending little place, [...]

E’s Journal. May 17, Spaulding. Steaming up York River. We have just been transferred to this big The boat, while the Wilson Small goes for repairs. This boat will accommodate four or five hundred men in bunks, now being put up by the carpenter and filled with mattresses stuffed by the “Lost Children” who are [...]

Abbie Howland Woolsey to Georgy and Eliza. Friday, May 16. We have hundreds of dollars sent to us to spend “for the soldiers.” Mr. Wm. Aspinwall, for one, sent Jane a cheque for $250. Now how shall we lay it out, so as to be most useful? Dr. G. said it made him heartsick, as [...]

Charley’s hurried letters from Headquarters of the Sanitary Commission no doubt gave the account of his arrival and his work as purser on the Daniel Webster, and as clerk in the Quartermaster’s Department later. We have nothing left but an occasional mention of letters as received. Aunt E. among others says, “ Charley’s long, interesting [...]