Estuary for Young Readers #22

“Hey, Ray, come sit for a minute. I got a letter from Ashley.”

“Since when did you take up writing to Ashley?”

“Well, since that last time we saw her at Squire’s house, I guess.”

I opened the envelope and removed the folded sheets.

“Boy, that’s a lot of pages,” Ray said, sinking back in his chair.

Dear JJ,

Hello from the Sheridan Field Hospital in Winchester, Virginia, my contracted assignment, for at least the next six months, if this war continues that long. That underline is to impress upon you the fact that I have received an actual contract from the Union Army to serve here, no longer just a volunteer. This hospital is truly a city—500 tents—Imagine! And, I’m told I can expect a monthly stipend, although I’ve been here nearly two months and have not seen sign of any pay as yet, but I’m comfortable enough in my sleeping tent, although I could use a blanket, but I mustn’t complain as the wounded get just one sheet each.

I doubt I’ll ever see pay if the doctors have a say in the matter. Even though we nurses are helping to set broken limbs, stitch up open wounds, treating gangrene, and changing dressings on amputated limbs, some doctors refuse to give us quarter. They won’t use the term nurse and claim we’re nothing more than cooks that give bedside comfort. When a doctor wants me to do something, he snaps—Girl!

But I don’t let their petty treatment bother me. As a matter of fact, JJ, I rather enjoy stiffening my spine, pulling myself up to my full 69 inches tall, and setting any man straight who dares to imply that my service is anything less than valuable to the war effort. Of course, we nurses have a strong advocate in Washington. I was contracted to this hospital through the office of Dorothea Dix. Do you know of her?

I have finally found a good use for a vial of rose oil Auntie gave me, which she suggested I use should I need to lift my spirits by adding a drop or two to my bath water. Funny, how distant the concept of a bath is here, in these Army tents. But, I find that if I rub just a bit of rose oil at the base of each nostril, it helps to mask the smells of death and disease that permeate the very air we breathe. Sometimes a soldier I’m attending to will close his eyes and ask, “Miss, tell me, do I smell roses?” We place branches of rosemary under the beds, which we step on while at bedside, filling the air with the scent of rosemary, if only for a moment.

I must tell you about a certain monk. He wears a long brown robe with a hood that hangs down his back and a rope tied around his middle. He has been given the sad task of carving headboards for the newly dead. He has told me harrowing stories about marching with the troops into the Shenandoah Valley with General Sheridan in the battle of Cedar Creek. He said God had sent him on this mission to administer to those struck down in battle. The poor tortured soul tells the same story over and over, of injured soldiers lying on muddy ground, during one freezing night, without blankets, while the worms took advantage of the men being on the ground and made their way into every open wound, he said the worms grew by heaps. His eyes glass over when he remembers all the soldiers he said that had died in his arms. I wish he hadn’t left me with that image of the worms.

I feel terribly sorry for this burden he carries in heart and soul, but I have to confess I find a reason to walk another way when I see him coming toward me. He is so gloomy. The soldiers who find themselves in this hospital, what they need from me is tender care for their wounds, maybe a cup of broth, and a smile to go along with my brief time with them. Even though I live alongside the angel of death here, I chose to wear a smile and a keep a bit of cheer in my voice.

You wrote about your prisoner, Leyland, a Confederate soldier, and how he has proved valuable to you on the ferry. Here in this field hospital we care for Confederate and Union Soldiers. I don’t look for the color of a uniform before I treat an open wound. Odd, don’t you think? All this suffering and dying, yet, you have made a friend of a Confederate soldier you took at gunpoint for your prisoner. Maybe Mr. Lincoln should ask you to meet with Generals Lee and Grant and come up with a plan that would stop all of this cruelty, death, loss of limbs, blindness, and insanity. Shall I volunteer you, JJ?

Quite by accident I have found one bright note in this sad and dreary place, aside from the rose oil I dab under my nostrils, and it concerns you, JJ.

One night, I sat at a soldier’s bedside in an amputation tent, his right leg had been amputated below the knee days before, and he was feeling helpless and scared. Outside our tent screech owls cried out as they hunted among the colonies of mice, shrews, and rats prevalent in this tent city. Nerves were on edge, especially for my bed-bound soldier who talked about not being able to walk anymore, or run the bases—a big loss, he explained, as baseball was his game. I’d guess he’s young, but his experiences on the battlefield, and this place, have aged him. I sensed his youth, though, when he reached out, touched my hand, and said, “Read me a story, Miss, please?” An older soldier in the next bed who had lost his left arm added, “Yes, Ma’am. Y’all please read something.”

I had yet to retrieve my Bible from a doctor administering to a dying man. I reached deep into my apron pocket, and pulled forth some folded sheets, as it turned out, an old letter from you, JJ. I consider it fate that it was still in my pocket. I read directly from your letter, the one in which you wrote about how you saved the day, quite the hero you were, rescued two men hanging on for dear life in a basket below a hot air balloon. Those men—cartographers, I assume—making maps on the spot from their high vantage point. But, you wrote, that hot air balloon, perilously caught high in the tree-tops, had to be freed, and that’s where you came in, saw in hand. You not only saved the day, you saved the lives of two men, and an information-gathering mission. All in a day’s work for my brave friend, JJ!

Oh, I may have added a few flourishes to your story here and there, but, here in these tents surrounded by these injured soldiers, we need stories to distract, and nothing is more respected than a story from a fellow soldier. I’ll have to revisit your other letters and see what I can find, or you can write something designed for me to read. Will you consider it?

Please give my best regards to dear Raymond and tell him I’d welcome a letter from him as well.

Your friend, Ashley
Sheridan Field Hospital

Ray got up from his chair, walked toward the door, then turned and looked back at me. “I thought Ashley was my girl,” Ray said.

I had the same thought, but since Ray has always been more successful with girls, I kept my thoughts to myself.

Leslie Tryon is an award-winning author-illustrator of children’s books (Simon & Schuster, publisher). Five generations of Tryon’s family served as ferrymen on the Connecticut River between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme, Connecticut, and many of those men were named JJ.