Jane, Sarah Woolsey and G. were meantime nicely established at the hospital six miles from Newport, R. I., with a jolly little thin board house built for the nursing staff; their rooms 10 x 10, furnished from home with every comfort, and work fairly begun.
Jane Stuart Woolsey to Abby Howland Woolsey:
PORTSMOUTH GROVE, January, ’63.
Dear Abby: This morning in the grey (I don’t know how she managed to be up and seeing) Sarah looked in at the ventilator and announced, “Girls, there’s a big black steamer Hospital off the hospital dock.–The soldiers have come!”
She proved to be the Daniel Webster with 290 men from Fredericksburgh, many of them! There she lies at this writing, two o’clock, no tug having been got up from Newport, and the tide being so excessively low that she can’t move in. They have boarded her in boats however, and report the men very comfortable–short, delightful trip from Fortress Monroe, plenty to eat and no very bad cases on board. . . . Everything is ready for 450. Clean wards, clean beds, clean clothes and the best of welcomes. Georgy and I, who have the medical division, will not profit much. We shall get the sulky old “chronics” and “convalescents,” and Sarah and H. Whetten will have all the surgical cases; but we shall go to see them all the same, and they shall have all our stores, soft towels, jelly and oranges.
Shingling the barracks goes on bravely. I think things will be all so much finished to the satisfaction of Mr. Jefferson Davis, by spring, that he will perhaps retain us in office! . . .
7 P. M. The men are all safely landed, housed and suppered, and all the surgeons are busy dressing wounds. They must work all night. The men are bright as buttons and jolly. Tell Harriet Gilman that her shirts are blessing Fredericksburgh men to-night.
Dr. Edwards, surgeon-in-charge, in the handsomest way offers to turn out anybody we wish and put in anybody we wish, so if you know of any first-rate candidates amenable to female influence, forward us their names.