Beyond All Price

by Carolyn Poling Schriber

  “So you enlisted?”

  “I thought I could find a middle ground by joining the Anderson Cavalry Troop. Our regiment has special responsibilities that do not include fighting. As a matter of fact, I haven’t received much military training of any kind. Certainly no drilling or marching, or artillery firing. But I wear a uniform, and I carry a gun. That makes me an anomaly in a pacifist household. If I get a leave, I go home in civilian dress, and we don’t talk about the war. When I’m on duty, I stay away. It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s one we’ve managed to live with.”

  “I can see it must be difficult for you, but it sounds like a good solution. You could have allowed the disagreement to cause a permanent break in your family. Instead, you’ve all refused to let anger overshadow your family ties. I admire that.”

  During the next few days, Nellie and George became friends. He was often busy with the general’s business, and she frequently had nursing cases that required her attention. But when both were free, they enjoyed sharing a meal or going for a long walk in the nearby park. They were simply friends. Nellie found she could tell George anything without fear he would judge her. Whatever she found the courage to reveal to him he accepted with understanding and compassion. It was an idyllic time for both of them. Despite a war that seemed as if it might never end, Nellie and George shared an outlook that welcomed the future, unafraid of whatever might be coming their way. They were enjoying their lives, their jobs, and each other.

  One morning, Nellie was waiting for George’s arrival with more than her usual excitement. “I have wonderful news,” she told him. “John McArthur, the architect who designed this hospital, will be here next week to see how our buildings are working. He’s under government contract to build a number of other new medical facilities, and he wants to re-examine Chestnut Hill to see what improvements could be made.”

  “Nellie, I. . . .” George looked apprehensive, but couldn’t seem to finish his sentence.

  “Don’t you see? It’s the perfect opportunity for you to meet him and discuss his plans.”

  “It would be that, if I were going to be here.” His voice was flat.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I mean I won’t be here. Our investigative unit is scheduled to re-assemble in Annapolis on Friday, and then we return to Nashville to submit our reports.”

  “But I thought . . . I assumed you would be here for as long as you needed to be. Couldn’t you tell them you’re not finished?”

  “Nellie. You know the Army doesn’t work that way. I have written orders and train passage. And General Rosecrans doesn’t like his soldiers to go about making their own plans. I’m sorry you didn’t realize we were almost finished with our mission.”

  “No, no, it’s my mistake. I should have paid closer attention to your schedule.” Despite herself, she felt her eyes flooding. “It’s been a pleasure to work with you.”

  “You sound like you’re saying good-bye.”

  “That’s what this is, isn’t it? You leave tomorrow and head back to Tennessee. We’re finished. That’s fine. Now I can get back to my own work.”

  “What on earth do you mean? No! Please don’t say we’re finished. I have to go to Nashville. That’s where my duty lies at the moment. But you know I have ties to Philadelphia. And I value your friendship, far above our professional relationship. I’ll be back, I promise. As often as I can.” George’s voice was rising, and he fought to control it. The devastation on Nellie’s face was overwhelming his own deepest emotions. “We’ll talk more about all of this tonight. We’ll have dinner and hash it out.”

  By dinnertime, both Nellie and George had given themselves some strong lectures, and they each came prepared to deliver a much-rehearsed concession speech. After a couple of strained moments when both started to speak at once, George dipped his head in graceful defeat, and gestured for Nellie to go first.

  “I’m sorry. My reaction was selfish and short-sighted. Of course you will return to Nashville. You need to go as quickly as possible. The general needs your information on how to establish medical facilities. I want you to go.” She swallowed hard. Those words had come out with difficulty.

  George started to answer, but she held up her hand to show she was not through. “When you said you would be going to Nashville, I think my first reaction was jealousy. You will get to be a part of this new endeavor in the west, and I will miss it.”

  “You don’t have to. . . .”

  “No, let me finish. It finally occurred to me I might be able to be of some help from here. If the general has questions we have not covered, you can write to me, and I’ll respond immediately. If there is equipment you need or supplies you can’t get through military channels, you can let me know, and I can contact the Ladies’ Aide Society here to see if they can help. If you need additional staff, I can send recommendations your way. If you happen to come home on leave, we can have a visit. It will all work out for the best.”

  “In this best of all possible worlds?” George rolled his eyes at her and grinned. “Are you through playing the role of Voltaire’s Pangloss?”

  Nellie sputtered a bit. She couldn’t decide whether to be impressed with his literary knowledge or insulted that he thought her an overly-optimistic old fool. “I only meant that. . . .”

  “Nellie, hush. All your suggestions are wonderful. I’m delighted and grateful you want to help. But I have come up with a plan of my own. Will you hear me out?”

  Taking his words as rejection, Nellie slumped back in her chair and dipped her chin. “Of course,” she said.

  “All right. I’ve gained a great deal of knowledge since I’ve been here, thanks entirely to your efforts. I’ll be organizing my notes during the long train ride between here and Nashville, and I’ll have a plan ready to submit to General Rosecrans as soon as I can gain an audience with him. I’ll be prepared to implement my recommendations—with the possible exception of one. That one will depend on the general himself, and on your help.”

  He paused and regarded her speculatively. When she responded only with a cocked eyebrow, he hurried on. “I’m going to advise the general that what he needs most is a strong woman to take on the position of matron in his main hospital. I intend to suggest your name.”

  Nellie shut her eyes and swallowed again. “You want me to come to Nashville?” she said, not sure she had understood him correctly.

  “Correction. I want General Rosecrans to invite you to come to Nashville. I want him to look at your qualifications and recognize you as by far the best person for the job. I want you there, of course, but I don’t want anyone to think I have an ulterior motive in all of this. I want to see my plans succeed because they are in the hands of a capable and experienced administrator.”

  He paused and grinned at her. “If it happens that the capable and experienced administrator is also an attractive and delightful young woman, all the better for me.”

  By now, Nellie’s eyes were wide with excitement. “Oh, George. What a wonderful opportunity that would be. Do you really think the general will find me qualified enough?”

  “I’ll see to it personally.”

  The next three weeks were some of the longest Nellie had ever experienced. George’s investigations had taken up more of her time than she had realized. Without him there, she had little to do, except for minor duties in the wards. She found herself wandering about the hospital grounds, grumbling to herself about her own lack of enthusiasm. Most of her Highlander patients were gone—on their way home or back to active duty. Newcomers to her wards were there to finish a convalescence and didn’t need much personal attention from her. The younger nurses twittered over every new man who came in, but Nellie saw each one only as three more meals and an additional set of linens to be added to her daily requisition sheet. With each passing day, she became more convinced she would never hear anything more about a move to Nashville. She quit anticipating the day’s mail delivery, sure it would bring only more disap
pointment.

  “Nurse Chase?” Her supervising doctor interrupted her thoughts. “Doctor Hopkins would like to see you in his office. Right away, please.”

  He’s probably going to chastise me for having a bad attitude, she guessed. Maybe he’s going to fire me and I can go home. If I had a home, that is.

  With unwelcome memories of a similar interview with Colonel Leasure swirling in her head, she had to stop for a moment outside the commander’s closed door. Then, straightening her back and assuming her best expression of respectful interest, she knocked and entered.

  “Sit down, please.” Doctor Hopkins regarded her with a wrinkled brow. “Miss Chase, are you unhappy here?”

  “Well, maybe feeling a bit under-utilized at the moment, but, no. Why do you ask?”

  He picked up a sheet of paper and scrutinized it. “I have received a letter from General Rosecrans asking that you be released from your position here to take a job in Nashville. You know about this, I assume?”

  Nellie caught her breath. “I knew there was a possibility I would be offered a position, but I did not know you would receive the request before I did.”

  “It’s the doing of that young Private Earnest, I suppose. The one who was smitten with you.”

  “Private Earnest and I became friends while he was here, and he asked if I would be interested in moving to Nashville. He offered to recommend me for a job under General Rosecrans, but that’s all there was to our discussion. I have heard nothing from Private Earnest since he left here.”

  “Well, he’s obviously been acting on your behalf. Are you really interested in this new job, or is this an excuse for the two of you to be together?”

  “Sir! I beg your pardon, but I think you are making a great many assumptions on the basis of small evidence. There’s no such thing as ‘the two of us’ and further, even if I go to Nashville, Private Earnest won’t be there. He told me before he left that his regiment would be moving almost immediately into southern and eastern Tennessee.”

  “So you are really interested in a position in a Nashville hospital—one that is apparently being cobbled together from existing buildings—rather than working here in a institution that represents all the latest and best medical advantages? Somehow I find that hard to believe.”

  Nellie floundered for a way to make herself understood. She didn’t know much about this man, but it was obvious he was going to regard her departure as a personal insult. Anger bubbled up from somewhere deep inside, but she pushed it back. Lashing out at him was not going to help. That was one lesson she had learned from her year with the Roundheads. She opted for honesty.

  “Chestnut Hill is, indeed, a marvel of efficiency and convenience,” she began. “I could not ask for better working conditions. But for me, it’s too comfortable, too safe. I signed on with my first regiment, the Twelfth Pennsylvania, because I needed to do something good with my life. I didn’t exactly crave danger, but I came in with a desire to give my life, if necessary, for the sake of my country. I still pursue that goal.

  “Here at Chestnut Hill, I feel like things are being done for me, not by me. I don’t want to be comfortable. I want to spend my time doing things to make others comfortable. Surely you can understand that.

  “I’ve lived in a tent, survived a hurricane aboard ship, managed a household of abandoned slaves. I’ve watched men die, treated hopeless cases of deadly disease, helped with amputations after one battle, and dressed wounds in the dark on another battlefield. I have skills that deserve to be used, not avoided. I want my life to have meaning. When I’m not working, I feel useless. So, yes, I want to go to Nashville and help cobble together a hospital for people whose lives are in imminent danger. And I’m not expecting to get anything out of the experience other than the knowledge than I have given of myself to people who really need me.”

  The train ride from Philadelphia to Nashville took four days, and included stops and train transfers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Alliance, Crestline, Bellefontaine, Indianapolis, and Louisville. Nellie was nervous about the stop in Pittsburgh, but she saw nothing except the depot and the railroad hotel. She suspected not many of the people she once knew there were still around, although the smoke and soot hadn’t changed much.

  She ventured a small complaint, asking a conductor why they were heading west when their destination was south. Her fellow passengers were quick to point out that if she wanted to risk her life by taking a train through Confederate territory she might do so. As for them, they preferred a roundabout journey during which they did not have to worry about somebody blowing up a trestle under their train. Nellie took their point.

  From what she saw on the last leg of their journey, much of Tennessee was still a wilderness. The mountains came up without warning, and the valleys between them were deep and unbroken by traces of civilization. The railroad track disappeared quickly behind them, and the way ahead was usually invisible until they were actually on it. But, oh, how green this state was!

  Nellie hoped George would be waiting on the platform to welcome her, but he wasn’t there. Instead, a pimply-face recruit of barely eighteen years waited, holding up a badly-lettered sign that was supposed to say “Miss Chase.” Nellie let him know he had found his target, and he rushed her through the process of gathering her valise and small trunk.

  He had a rickety wagon waiting, and without comment he pushed her up onto the board that served for a seat, clucked to the old mule, and set off down a muddy street heading into the heart of the city. Nellie caught only a glimpse of the magnificent Capitol Building sitting high on a hill overlooking the river. Then they were passing though what seemed to be residential streets. “Is the hospital located in one of these homes?” she asked her young escort.

  “No, M’am. We ain’t headed to no hospital. This here’s the Cunningham House. The gen’rel said to bring you straight to him.”

  “General Rosecrans?”

  “Yes’m.”

  They stopped in front of an elegant Renaissance-Revival style mansion. Several soldiers were milling around outside the wrought-iron fence. “I’ll wait here with your things ‘til he’s through with you,” the young man said, not offering to help her down. She clambered down by herself, feeling terribly awkward, and approached the entranceway. A soldier with a rifle slung across his chest stepped in front of the door and demanded to know who she was.

  “I’m Nurse Nellie Chase, here at the order of General Rosecrans,” she said, trying to sound official and businesslike.

  “You are, huh? I’ll check.”

  When he finally returned, he led her though a central vestibule to a book-lined study. General Rosecrans was an intimidating figure. Heavy brows shaded his dark eyes, and he stared at her down an incredibly long Roman nose. His neatly trimmed beard could not hide the fact that his face bore several nasty scars, one of which twisted the corner of his mouth into a perpetual smirk. He chewed on a large unlit cigar and looked her up and down until Nellie felt she was shrinking into the ground.

  “So you’re Nellie Chase,” he finally commented. “Been readin’ ‘bout you.” He gestured toward a folded newspaper on his desk.

  “Reading about me?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Don’t you know ‘bout the letter from a one-armed man that’s been circulating all over the northern papers?” He waved a much-folded sheet of newsprint at her and then squinted at it, hunting his place. “Seems the gentleman, whoever, he is, thinks you are, to quote him, ‘a noble girl . . . an angel of mercy . . . a woman with the soul to dare danger; the heart to sympathize with the battle-stricken; sense, skill, and experience to make her a treasure beyond all price.’ Guess we’re lucky to get you here.”

  Nellie was still at a loss for words, although the mention of a one-armed man told her immediately the writer must be Johnny McDermitt. Perhaps this was his way of working though his feelings for her, but it made her uncomfortable to know he was publishing them in this fashion. Unable to think of a suitable comment, s
he simply waited to see what else the general might have to offer.

  “So! Private Earnest tells me you are the only one capable of organizing the kind of centralized hospital system I am planning. Daniel Leasure and John McDonald both praise your work for them. My good friend, Salmon P. Chase, says you may be a distant cousin, and if so, you’ll have the strong Chase character to recommend you. And now an anonymous one-armed man calls you a ‘treasure beyond all price.’ That’s a lot to live up to, young lady. Are you prepared for it?”