Wedded to War

by Jocelyn Green

  “Indeed,” said Alice. “We brought boxes of supplies for the Washington hospitals, only—we didn’t see any. Did we miss them?”

  “So you noticed.” He winced. “Not having enough hospitals is an omission on par with not having enough doctors and nurses. For now, the Medical Department is fashioning existing buildings into hospitals—former hotels, buildings at Georgetown College, even government buildings. I’m afraid they aren’t suited for the functionality a hospital requires, but it’s all we’ve got. I trust you will be flexible and can improvise as necessary. That includes, at least for the time being, keeping those supplies with you wherever you stay until I can get some more storage space here. I’m staying at Willard’s Hotel, on the corner there, but it’s quite full. I recommend the Ebbitt House, just across the street.”

  “Of course,” said Alice. “Where will Charlotte be nursing?”

  “I leave that to Miss Dix,” he said. “Dr. Blackwell had an arrangement with her that we must respect. Dr. Blackwell supplies the nurses to Miss Dix, and Miss Dix supplies the nurses to the army. You’ll need to see her next. Corner of New York Avenue and Fourteenth Street. You might even catch a glimpse of the Seventh New York—the Kid Glove Regiment, they’re called here—while you’re out that way. Lincoln is reviewing the troops today.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Olmsted.” Charlotte ran her hands over the wrinkles in her skirt in vain. “The hacks we hired at the station are waiting for us outside, so we’ll be on our way.”

  “Please don’t pay those thieves any more than you have to. I’ll send my carriage with you instead.”

  By the time the sisters arrived at Miss Dix’s house, their hair clung in damp wisps to their necks, and a film of dust and sweat coated their faces. Their dresses stuck to their skin. Even if they had changed their clothes before coming, the five-mile journey across town would have wilted them back to the same state of perspiration they were in now. They waved their fans in front of them, but succeeded only in stirring up hot sluggish air.

  Maurice waited in the carriage with the horses in a patch of shade while the sisters marched up the steps and rang the bell. A maid in a crisp white hat and apron answered the door to Miss Dix’s house and made no effort to disguise her disapproval of the wrinkled women standing on the doorstep.

  “We are here to see Miss Dix,” said Charlotte, “about the nursing positions.”

  “She isn’t expecting you.” The words were laced with scorn. “And if she isn’t expecting you, she won’t be seeing you.” She began to close the door.

  “Has she received her fill of qualified candidates, then?” Charlotte shot back, fully aware that their appearance didn’t work in their favor. “There is no more need for women who meet her regulations and have actual training from an actual hospital? My, what good fortune she has!”

  The door paused before clicking in the latch.

  “My sister has a letter from Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.” Alice’s tone was softer than her older sister’s, but still firm. “We have only just arrived in town, and apologize if we needed to make an appointment, but since we are here, won’t you let us in to see her? It need not take long.”

  A muffled voice sounded from the other room, and the door opened wide to them. The maid’s face reddened only the slightest bit as she ushered Alice and Charlotte into the parlor where Dorothea Dix sat ramrod straight on a velvet-covered armchair.

  “Do sit down,” said Miss Dix, after they had introduced themselves. Her black hair was parted in the middle and gathered tightly into a small bun at the nape of her neck. A stiffly starched black dress covered her thin body from the hollow of her throat to her wrists and ankles, the skirt spreading over her knees and spilling onto the floor in an inky puddle.

  Charlotte and Alice perched on the edge of a settee, backs straight, ankles crossed, matching the posture of the almost gaunt figure in front of them. So this was the woman who had marched on Washington the very day of the Baltimore riots, when the war was not yet a week old. This was the woman who bent Lincoln’s ear and told him in no uncertain terms that he needed help, and that she was the one to give it to him. The woman had pluck.

  “You have references?” It was a flat voice, but not shrill.

  “Yes, here is my letter from Dr. Blackwell.” Charlotte extended the precious paper to her.

  Miss Dix scanned the paper, then handed it back. “There must be some mistake.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Charlotte’s heart jumped into her throat.

  “I believe I was very clear in my stipulations for my nurses. And if Dr. Blackwell is amused by sending an unqualified candidate, I’m afraid the joke is on her, because I will send you right back where you came from.”

  “Miss Dix, be reasonable, and tell me what the problem is,” said Charlotte.

  “The problem, my dear, is that my rules have been ignored by one of my own sex. I am used to not being taken seriously by men, but I must admit I expected more from another woman.”

  Charlotte shook her head, unable to comprehend the problem.

  “Miss Dix, I have been trained for four weeks at the New York Hospital under the direction of the Women’s Central Association of Relief, which spawned the United States Sanitary Commission.” Miss Dix’s mouth twitched in an indulgent smile, but Charlotte continued. “My character is without reproach, I am willing to work under orders, I happily dispose of hoops, jewelry, ribbons, and bows. I confess I do not understand what the problem is.”

  “I see.” Miss Dix squinted at Charlotte and Alice. “How old are you young ladies?”

  “Old enough,” said Charlotte.

  Miss Dix sniffed. “Your insolent tongue proves your youth. How dare you speak to an elder in this manner.”

  “I had rather hoped that my credentials and determination would be more important to you than the number of birthdays I have celebrated.”

  “And how many is that, pray tell?”

  “If you please, ma’am,” Alice said, “I am twenty-six years old, and married. Charlotte is a very old twenty-eight.”

  Miss Dix smirked. “Miss Waverly, you are single. Another direct contradiction to my wishes of married women only. You are not old enough, anyway.”

  “Pardon me, but if we’re going to discuss age, let me point out that Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was just twenty-eight years old when she became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States,” said Charlotte. “And she is unmarried.”

  “Her practice aids women and children, not men. There is a difference.”

  “What about Florence Nightingale? Would you turn her away based on her age, if she had come to you requesting to be a nurse?”

  “Miss Nightingale is forty-one years old by now. She was thirty-four when the Crimean War broke out.”

  “But she was twenty-four when she first explored opportunities for women to nurse.”

  “Miss Waverly, bravo. You have done your research. I commend you. But age isn’t your only barrier. You may be proud to hear that you are far too attractive for nursing, as well.”

  Charlotte, shocked, let out a laugh. “You’ll forgive me for saying so, Miss Dix, but ‘ugly’ was never on the list of desired characteristics the W.C.A.R. put out in the papers.”

  “But it was on mine. We simply can’t stir up the suppressed desires of the men under our care, now can we? Our endeavor would never be taken seriously if the patients and nurses mixed inappropriately. ‘Modest, homely, married or widowed, between thirty and forty-five years of age.’ I was very specific, for very specific reasons.”

  Charlotte balked, and Alice reddened.

  Miss Dix smiled.

  “Miss Dix, I have been well trained. I can do this work, and to be frank, you need nurses who know what they’re doing. You can’t deny that.”

  “What I need, Miss Waverly, is for my orders to be obeyed. If I let you in, if I sanction you as a nurse and you do not live up to the standards I have set forth for all female nurses, you will dilute
the credibility of my project, and I will be a laughingstock for all of Washington. But I will have no one to blame but myself. So you see, I cannot give you an assignment.”

  Charlotte stood then, and Alice jumped up a moment later.

  “You’re thinking of your own reputation, Miss Dix.” Charlotte’s spine was straight, her chin lifted. “I had thought a reformer such as yourself would think more of those in need, the soldiers, the wounded and ill. It’s what you’re known for. Standing up for what’s right. What you did for the mentally ill in the insane asylums—you couldn’t have done that for your own gain. You did it for the people who could not help themselves.”

  Miss Dix nodded, clearly suspicious of this line of logic, but nonetheless hypnotized bywords of admiration for her thankless work.

  Charlotte continued, her breath coming faster now, her words tumbling over themselves as she plowed ahead. “If you send me away, let it be on your own conscience that you’ll be doing so to protect yourself. Not the men you swore to serve, the very men who are protecting our country.”

  Silence.

  Charlotte clasped her hands together as she clamped her mouth shut. She had said enough. She could almost feel Alice shuddering next to her, her baby sister who had always wanted to please people, smooth things over, make peace. Sometimes you had to call up a little conflict in order to get to a peace worth having.

  At length, Miss Dix spoke. “Miss Waverly, why are you here?”

  “I’m here to serve my country.”

  “You could have stayed in New York and rolled bandages to do that, and gone to much less trouble. I will ask you again. Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to make a difference. To do something valuable—”

  “To prove to yourself and to the world that even though you’re a woman you can do more than look pretty, you can make the world a better place. Am I right?”

  Hesitantly, Charlotte nodded. Where was this leading?

  “I understand you completely, to be honest. You and I share this drive in common.” The idea of being like Miss Dix may have appealed to Charlotte before she had met her—when all she knew of her was her great strides in reform against all odds. But now, standing in front of this small woman with concern lining her forehead and framing her mouth, with no hint of joy or warmth in her small black eyes, Charlotte bristled at the idea of being like her in any way.

  Miss Dix went on. “But your reason for being here is selfish—you may want to help the ‘dear boys,’ but only as a means of proving to the world—and to yourself—what a good person you are. You’re using their weakness to display your strength. Isn’t that right?”

  Charlotte could feel her face on fire.

  “My dear, you are running from something, and you’re running so hard and fast, you’re so obviously desperate about it that you’re willing to make a fool out of yourself in my presence. But hear me: This is war. Not an escape hatch. I will not let you use me as an avenue for whatever runaway scheme has hatched in that pretty little head of yours.”

  Charlotte felt as though she had been slapped. “Miss Dix, no one is sorrier than I am that you do not approve of me in person as you did on paper when Dr. Blackwell wrote to you. But you had an agreement with her, and with the Sanitary Commission, did you not? I would hate to think of what the Medical Department would say if they found out you were turning away the trained nurse they expected you to supply.”

  “Good day, Miss Waverly, Mrs. Carlisle.”

  And they were ushered out the door without knowing for certain if Charlotte’s final words had hit their mark.

  When Alice tearfully said, “I can’t leave Jacob, I just got here!” as though there was even a possibility of being cast out, Charlotte snapped, “We’re not leaving. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “But Miss Dix said—”

  Charlotte linked her arm through Alice’s elbow. “Is there not a war on?” She waved toward the sound of marching, and of drums, and of cheering crowds. “It all sounds like a holiday parade at the moment, but can you imagine what will happen after the first major battle? The streets will be full, clogged even, but not with orderly rows of clean blue uniforms with shiny polished brass buttons. They’ll be overflowing with casualties that have no place to go. Look around, Alice; this city is not ready for what is about to be required of her. We can help. We can still help.”

  “But how?”

  “We will find sick troops, and nurse them. With or without Dragon Dix’s consent. And you will avail yourself of the Sanitary Commission’s needs.”

  Charlotte led the way back to Maurice and Mr. Olmsted’s carriage. Her stride was certain, but the unwelcome words of Miss Dix still rattled around in her mind, their sharp edges chafing against her confidence.

  Washington City

  Wednesday, July 3, 1861

  Charlotte’s nerves buzzed like flies as she stepped inside the Georgetown Seminary Hospital. Though no one had sent her here, and no one had invited her, still she had come, wearing her washable petticoats, a grey cross-grained dress, and white apron with large pockets. Alice and Maurice had dropped her off to go scout out some other hospitals, and would pick her up again at two o’clock.

  Inside the building, the air was almost as soggy as it was outside. Charlotte went to raise the few windows in sight, but found the sashes to be hopelessly stuck. Perspiration beaded on her forehead, and she could tell even without a mirror that her hair was curling beneath its pins.

  With no doctor in sight, she began her rounds of the patients, distributing newspapers and Bibles to those who were awake and wanted something to read.

  “Thank you kindly, ma’am!” said a measled soldier who accepted Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. “You’ve no idea what it’s like having nothing to do but stare at the ceiling all day. I even asked Doctor Judson if he would move me to a different spot, seeing as I have all the cracks and such memorized from this point, but he wouldn’t do it.”

  “And where is the good doctor, if I may ask?” said Charlotte.

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten o’clock in the morning.”

  “He’ll be sleeping off his hangover about now, I’ll wager.”

  “Surely not!”

  “Right as rain. Stick around and see if he don’t come in all haggard and such.’”

  “Well,” said Charlotte, straightening. “I’m more interested in you boys than I am in doctors anyway.”

  “Take a look at him, yonder, then.” The soldier pointed to a bed a few yards away. “He’ll have more need of you than the rest of us. He’s not long for this world, that one.”

  Charlotte quickly passed out the rest of her reading materials, and then, stepping lightly among the beds so as not to disturb the resting patients, came to the yellow-tinged soldier whose sheets were fever-soaked. His tattered wool uniform still encased him, though his body radiated heat. Flies buzzed about him, landed in his beard, on his gaunt face and fingers, but he made no effort to wave them away.

  Charlotte snatched up a nearby chair and stationed herself at his side, pulled out a fan from her apron pocket and began fanning.

  “Mother?” he said. “Is that you?”

  “There he goes again,” muttered a crusty soldier beside him. “Been asking for his mother for three days.”

  His eyes fluttered open and tried to focus on Charlotte. “Mother, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve wanted to see you.” His eyes closed again.

  “Yes, it’s me,” Charlotte whispered. God, if this is a sin, forgive me. “I’m right here.”

  “Oh that air feels so good, it’s like baking in an oven in here.”

  Charlotte could feel her own dress darkening with perspiration beneath her arms, her petticoats sticking to her legs. She licked the salty sweat off her upper lip. Still she fanned, switching arms when one became tired, until the sun was directly overhead outside. No ballroom dance, no theater performance, had ever given her more satisfaction than easing the passing
of this soldier, whose name she did not even know. She gazed at his face as she fanned him, and thought of his mother. Did she even know he was ill?

  Rapid footfalls broke her trance, and her head snapped up to see a short little man with a shiny dome of a head quickly coming toward her. He wore a stethoscope around his neck and frown on his face.

  “Just who are you, and what are you doing with that preposterous fan?” The eyes behind the spectacles were bloodshot.

  “Nurse Charlotte Waverly.” She kept fanning. “I’m a nurse trained at New York Hospital under the direction of Dr. Blackwell and the Women’s Central Association of Relief.”

  “You have no business being here. Nurses are commissioned by the Surgeon General, not the New York Hospital. By whose authority are you here?”

  “Dr.—Judson, is it? The crucial question here is why this young man, clearly riddled with fever, is still in his wool uniform instead of a cooler cotton dressing gown? Do you lack the supplies necessary? Because if you do, the Sanitary Commission can outfit you immediately.”

  The frown deepened on Dr. Judson’s forehead until his eyebrows nearly overshadowed his eyes. Having no response but anger just then, he turned on his heel and walked away, moments later returning with a reinforcement. Miss Dorothea Dix herself.

  “Miss Waverly.” She tilted her head. “How very curious that I should find you here when I distinctly remember not telling you to come. And, as we all know, I have the final say in these matters. These patients are not your concern. Not only must you leave at once. You must never return.”

  Charlotte’s gaze swept the room, rested on the fever patient for a moment, then returned to Miss Dix and Dr. Judson. “I have ordered my conveyance to return for me at two o’clock. The sun is hot, and I have no intention whatever of walking out into it. I will remain here and fan this poor man. He deserves no less.”

  Calmly turning her attention back to her patient, she continued to fan him.

  “Say there, ma’am,” one of the soldiers said to Miss Dix. “I mean no disrespect, but it does seem to me like this here soldier wants this Miss Waverly to stay, seeing as she’s keeping the flies off him in his dying moments and all. Sure would be a shame to take away that last comfort for him, now wouldn’t it? Seems like it wouldn’t hurt anybody for this lady to just help him die.”