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Reminiscences of an army nurse during the Civil War

Chapter 47: FOOTNOTES:
By Adelaide W. Smith
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About This Book

The author recounts five years of volunteer nursing during the Civil War, describing work in city hospitals, depot and field hospitals, and military camps. The narrative traces daily routines of patient care, hospital administration, medical transport, and relief efforts organized through Sanitary Commission and state agencies, with scenes from fairs, prison wards, and moments under fire. Interlaced personal recollections include meetings with reformers and national figures, reflections on losses and comforts, domestic life in camp, and the emotional labor of tending wounded soldiers, concluding with the return home and reflections on the meaning of that service.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LAST PARADE OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS

“I am quite confident that Love was the only rope thrown out to us by Heaven when we fell overboard into life.”—​Sidney Lanier.[2]

General Grant had ordered a grand attack all along the lines from Appomattox to Hatches Run. This was the fateful move that crushed the Confederate Army, and opened the way to Petersburg and Richmond on April 3d.

The paroled and surrendered Confederate prisoners were at once marched forward from Petersburg on the road beside the hospital. It was a strange, sad sight, this long line of Confederate prisoners, 3,000 strong, officers and men without arms,—​some by habit reaching for the forfeited sword, belt, or gun,—​worn, tired, begrimed figures of despair. They were clothed in every degree of shabbiness, from the dulled tinsel of the uniformed officers, to the worn, faded, ragged grey that they had so confidently donned at the beginning of the war. They were on their way to City Point under guard, many to be forwarded to some Northern camp, where at least their starving bodies would be fed and made comfortable.

There was no sound of exultation over the conquered enemy among the Northern men and women standing quietly near to see them pass. Some even saluted the defeated Confederate officers. None showed the slightest disrespect to those unfortunates who had not only lost, in a futile war against their own nation, the “Flower of their Chivalry,” but their broad acres were devastated and had become battle fields of frightful carnage and struggle, and their homes were also wrecked, leaving many without shelter, and thus depriving hundreds of any present means of support. As they marched slowly by, in painful silent dejection, did they realize the folly of an ill-advised rebellion, to which they had sacrificed lives, homes and sustenance to an illogical, unethical romantic ideal?

Crowds of barefoot, ragged negroes, nearly nude, who had been shut up for years in Petersburg, now crowded by hundreds along the road. One excited old woman, her head covered with a faded bandana, exclaimed: “Lor, dere goes ole Mars, I knows him shore. Can’t tech me now. I’se a free nigger.” Another shouted to us, “I knows you alls Yankee ladies, de Lord bress you.”

It seemed like a funeral procession, without fife and drum, as it wound slowly past the hospital to City Point United States Headquarters, there to take their parole.

About this time, at City Point, I saw General Custer, who lost his life soon after in the Indian raids. He was a small, spare, nervous man, wearing a scarlet-lined cape thrown over his shoulder, and his long light hair floated back, making a striking picture of a cavalryman as his spirited horse dashed from one headquarters to another.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Sidney Lanier, later musician, poet, writer, on the secession of Georgia at once enlisted in the Confederate infantry and served through the war except while a prisoner at Point Lookout. He afterwards rejoiced in the overthrow of slavery; and knew that it was belief in the soundness and greatness of the American Union, among the millions of the North and the great North West that really conquered the South. He said “As soon as Lee invaded the North and arrayed the sentiment against us our swift destruction followed.”—​Edward Mims.