Louisa on the Front Lines

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Louisa on the Front Lines Page 19

by Samantha Seiple

“Our Christmas dinner was a funny scramble”: “Letter from Louisa May Alcott to Hannah Stevenson, 26 December 1862.”

  “patients partook of a bounteous repast”: “Christmas at the Hospitals,” Evening Star, December 27, 1862.

  “The turkeys and chickens were cut up”: “The Hospital Christmas Dinners,” Evening Star, December 26, 1862, accessed November 17, 2017, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1862-12-26/ed-1/seq-3/.

  “While at the Armory Hospital”: “Christmas in the Capital,” New York Herald, December 26, 1862, accessed November 18, 1862, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1862-12-26/ed-1/seq-8/.

  “The Christmas celebration was a great”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 120.

  “Your son is at the Union Hotel Hospital”: The original letter is in the collection of the Historical & Genealogical Society of Somerset County, Inc., in Somerset, Pennsylvania, Accession ID number HS1966.1. The letter is also published in Matteson, “Finding Private Suhre,” 105–106, 124.

  “He is… mortally wounded & dying royally”: January 1863, LMA, The Journals, 113.

  “As if to assure himself that I was there”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 59.

  “Shall it be addressed to wife… Neither, ma’am”: Ibid.

  “We’re not rich”: Ibid.

  “I wanted the right thing done”: Ibid., 60.

  “Do you ever regret… Never ma’am”: Ibid.

  “I’m not afraid”: Ibid., 60–61.

  “Shall I write to your mother… No, ma’am”: Ibid., 61.

  “John’s was the best”: LMA, The Journals, 114.

  “I had been summoned to many death beds… I knew you’d come!”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 62. In John Matteson’s excellent article in the New England Quarterly, “Finding Private Suhre: On the Trail of Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Prince of Patients,’” he suggests that Louisa wasn’t at John’s beside when he died, based on his reading of Hannah Ropes’s diary entry. I respectfully disagree with his interpretation.

  “I saw the grey veil falling”: Ibid.

  “[The] ward physician is in his cups”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 119.

  “The man’s soul seemed to sit”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 62.

  “There was in the man such a calm”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 117–118.

  “Thank you madam, I think I must be marching on”: Ibid., 117.

  “He never spoke again”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 64.

  “I could not but be glad that”: Ibid.

  “as though she would cross palms… wondrous manly beauty”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 118.

  “a tender sort of pride”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 64.

  “kissed this good son… glad to have known so genuine”: Ibid., 65.

  Chapter 8: A Bitter Pill

  “My dear girl, we shall have you sick”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 66.

  “a frail young blossom”: Ibid.

  “Taking these things into consideration”: Ibid., 67.

  “The tax upon us women who work”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 121.

  “My last patient, who was so crazy”: Ibid., 122.

  “I have had the devoted attention”: Ibid.

  “No one had time to come up two flights”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 68.

  “Every morning I took a brisk run”: Ibid., 71.

  “long, clean, warm, and airy wards… cold, dirty, inconvenient”: Ibid.

  “memento of the respect and esteem”: Daily National Republican, December 30, 1862, accessed July 25, 2018, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053570/1862-12-30/ed-1/seq-3/.

  “Here [at the Armory Square Hospital], order, method, common sense”: Ibid., 71–72.

  “the furniture, though extremely rich”: “Downstairs at the White House: Blue Room,” Lehrman Institute, accessed December 7, 2017, http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/the-white-house/downstairs-at-the-white-house/downstairs-white-house-blue-room.

  “sunken, deathly look”: Noah Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington: Selections from the Writings of Noah Brooks, Civil War Correspondent, ed. P. J. Staudenraus (South Brunswick, NJ: Thomas Yoseloff, 1967), 29.

  “Mrs. Lincoln told me”: Browning, Diary, 608.

  “He lives… He comes to me every night”: Terry Alford, “The Spiritualist Who Warned Lincoln Was Also Booth’s Drinking Buddy,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 2015, accessed December 14, 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-spiritualist-who-warned-lincoln-was-also-booths-drinking-buddy-180954317.

  “it had been dragged”: Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York: Century, 1895), 67.

  “I never, in my life, felt more certain”: Frederick W. Seward, Seward at Washington as Senator and Secretary of State: A Memoir of His Life, with Selections from His Letters, 1861–1872 (New York: Derby and Miller, 1891), 151.

  “I have been sick, or you should have”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 121.

  “keep merry”: December 1862, LMA, The Journals, 115.

  “stuffed fowls… perambulating flower bed”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 78.

  “I was learning… what the men suffer and sigh”: Ibid., 77.

  “My sister nurses fed me”: Ibid., 76.

  “Miss Dix does not allow”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 123.

  “one long fight with weariness”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 83.

  “I ought to have risen up and thanked him”: Ibid., 100.

  “I feel no better”: January 1863, LMA, The Journals, 115.

  “The idea of giving up so soon”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 84.

  “like a welcome ghost”: Ibid.

  “Was amazed to see Father”: LMA, The Journals, 116.

  “Letters come from Louisa”: Alcott, January 1863, The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 352.

  “out of the dangers”: Bronson Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, ed. Richard L. Herrnstadt (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1969), 333.

  “kind soul… No one likes her”: LMA, The Journals, 116, 123.

  “Horrid war”: Bronson Alcott, The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 353.

  “I sit near the President”: Ibid.

  “Mrs. Ropes was a remarkable character”: Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 125.

  “Everyone about the place looked up”: Ibid., 126–127.

  “I have been unhappy at not having Mrs. Ropes”: Ibid., 126.

  “I love you very much but feel”: Ibid., 127–128.

  “Mother was near me last night”: Ibid., 128.

  Chapter 9: Duty’s Faithful Daughter

  “Father is there & she is recovering”: Abby May (Alcott) Nierecker, 1840–1879, A.MS, diary [v.p.] September 1 1852–July 25 1863, p. 82, Louisa May Alcott additional papers, 1845–1944, MS Am 1817 (56), Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

  “She is very cross”: Ibid., 83.

  “I was greatly shocked”: Ibid.

  “Louisa was faint”: Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 333.

  “had a sort of fit… a dreadful time of it”: LMA, The Journals, 116.

  “Louisa was communicative”: Ibid.

  “Poor Louy… She left us a brave”: Abigail May Alcott to Samuel Joseph May, 1863, MS Am 1130.0(28), Amos Bronson Alcott papers, 1799–1888, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

  “All of us are very anxious”: Nierecker, diary, 84.

  “Dr. Bartlett has seen her”: Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 333.

  “I hate Drs. and all their nonsense”: Matteson, Eden’s Outcasts, 287.

  “The efficacy of good nursing”: Ibid.

  “Neither she nor father like to have me”: Nierecker, diary, 84.

  “Louisa is here at home again”: Bronson Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 333.

  “Lie still, my dear”: January 1863, LMA, The Journals, 116.

  “She dreads the fever fits”: Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 334.

  “The Dr. pronounced her”: Ibid.

  “Mo
ther giving out”: Nierecker, diary, 84.

  “insurmountable calamity… fierce campaign”: Sophia Peabody Hawthorne to Annie Fields, “Hawthorne, Sophia, 1809–1871 autograph letter signed to Annie Adams Fields, [Concord, 20] February 1863,” manuscript, February 20, 1863, Digital Commonwealth, accessed January 12, 2018, http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/wh247j09p.

  “She asked me to sit near her”: Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 334.

  “If you will only take that man away”: Sophia Peabody Hawthorne to Annie Fields, February 20, 1863, Digital Commonwealth. http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/wh247j09p.

  “How could you leave me”: Ibid.

  “Was told I had had a very bad”: LMA, The Journals, 117.

  “Never having been sick”: Ibid.

  “Had all my hair, 1 1/2 yard long”: Ibid.

  “We trust the main perils are past”: Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 335.

  “Active exercise was my delight”: Alcott, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 30.

  “Such long, long nights”: LMA, The Journals, 117.

  “Tried to sew; read & write”: Ibid.

  “had not detected the secrets”: Sophia Peabody Hawthorne to Annie Fields. February 20, 1863.

  “decidedly better”: Ibid.

  “Louy down stairs & dressed”: Nierecker, diary, 84.

  “rack a bones”: Louisa May Alcott to Anna Alcott Pratt, March 30, 1863, LMA, Letters, 83.

  “Falling back in my old ways”: LMA, The Journals, 117.

  “Good news!… Anna has”: Louisa May Alcott to Mary Elizabeth Waterman, November 6, 1863, LMA, Letters, 94.

  “With one accord, we three opened”: Ibid.

  “Father brought the good news”: Nierecker, diary, 86.

  “I fell to cleaning house”: LMA, The Journals, 118.

  “Sanborn asked me to do”: Ibid.

  “Felt as if born again”: Ibid.

  “I never shall regret the going”: Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 84.

  “That was our contribution”: Alcott, The Letters of A. Bronson Alcott, 336.

  Chapter 10: A Gift

  “People mustn’t talk about genius”: Louisa May Alcott to James Redpath, February 1864, LMA, Letters, 79.

  “Let me tell you what extreme pleasure”: Ibid., 94.

  “I am so delighted with your”: Madeleine B. Stern, Critical Essays on Louisa May Alcott (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984), 28.

  “Much to my surprise”: April 1863, LMA, The Journals, 118.

  “I find I’ve done a good thing”: LMA, The Journals, 122.

  “The contrast between comic incidents”: Stern, Critical Essays on Louisa May Alcott, 25.

  “‘A Night’ was much liked”: LMA, The Journals, 118.

  “inverted tin kettles”: Louisa May Alcott to Mary Elizabeth Waterman, November 6, 1863, LMA, Letters, 95.

  “One gets acquainted with her”: Nierecker, diary, 83.

  “I preferred Redpath & said yes”: LMA, The Journals, 119.

  “I too am sure the ‘he who giveth’”: LMA, Letters, 86–87.

  “Upon quietly reading it to myself”: Sophia Peabody Hawthorne to Annie Fields, June 14, 1863, Digital Commonwealth, http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/wh247j79c.

  “Of course I didn’t say No”: LMA, The Journals, 119.

  “I have every blessing”: Nierecker, diary, 93.

  “I am growing very old”: Ibid., 96.

  “pleasant people… boating, singing, dancing”: LMA, The Journals, 119.

  “How generous Louisa is”: Nierecker, diary, 96.

  “I cannot work very steadily”: LMA, Letters, 89.

  “My first morning glory bloomed”: LMA, The Journals, 120.

  “I see nothing in the way”: Alcott, January 1863, The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 357.

  “The wealth of curious humor”: “New Books: Hospital Sketches,” Daily Green Mountain Freeman, November 9, 1863, accessed November 24, 2017, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84023210/1863-11-09/ed-1/seq-2/.

  “I have the satisfaction of seeing”: LMA, Letters, 88.

  “as jolly as ever”: LMA, Letters, 92, 95.

  “To say that I thank you for writing”: Stern, Critical Essays on Louisa May Alcott, 28. (The surgeon was not identified by name.)

  “I should like of all things”: LMA, Letters, 96.

  “Mr. Philbrick objected”: Ibid. Philbrick is spelled Philbrey in her letter.

  “I proudly paid out of my story money”: LMA, The Journals, 125.

  “If ever there was an astonished”: Ibid., 121.

  “He now lies on a sofa”: LMA, The Journals, 121.

  “Your wonderful little book”: LMA, Letters, 94.

  “Was 31 on the 29th”: LMA, The Journals, 121.

  “Short-sighted, Louisa!”: Alcott, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 152.

  Chapter 11: Unfulfilled Destiny

  “Hearing that I was something of a nurse”: Louisa May Alcott, July 1865, LMA, The Journals, 141.

  “I missed my freedom”: Ibid., 144.

  “We walked a little, talked a little, bathed”: Ibid., 142.

  “I tried my best to suit & serve her”: Ibid.

  “The book was hastily got out”: Ibid., 133.

  “Being tired of novels, I soon dropped it”: Ibid., 139.

  “All is happy & well, thank God!”: Ibid., 142.

  “Thoroughly beaten, I could not wonder”: Louisa May Alcott, The Sketches of Louisa May Alcott (Forest Hills, NY: Ironweed Press, 2001), 177.

  “A church to Almighty God”: Ibid., 181.

  “That boy is sick and needs care”: Alcott, Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag, 18.

  “I drink the good health”: Ibid., 17.

  “So simple, frank and grateful was he”: Ibid., 18.

  “With his fellow students he had fought”: Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, ed. Anne Hiebert Alton (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2001), 532.

  “and manfully began the hard fight”: Ibid.

  “Play me the forbidden hymn”: Ibid.

  “I look to see if the baron is here”: Ibid.

  “Then play it”: Ibid.

  “Ah, mademoiselle… It is true we are enemies”: Ibid.

  “for giving me a lesson”: Ibid.

  “From that evening we were fast friends”: Ibid.

  “her wrongs with the simple eloquence”: Alcott, Sketches of Louisa May Alcott, 179.

  “The tables were completely turned”: Ibid.

  “all good & happiness on earth”: LMA, The Journals, 145.

  “A little romance with L[adislas] W[eisneiwsky]”: Ibid.

  “I do not say adieu but au revoir”: Alcott, Little Women, 533.

  “Very tired of doing nothing pleasant”: LMA, The Journals, 145.

  “Anna was troubled about Laddie”: Ibid.

  “My time is too valuable to be spent fussing”: Ibid., 150.

  “as happy as a freed bird”: Ibid., 151.

  “You are better?”: Alcott, Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag, 24.

  “I truly hope so… The winter was good”: Ibid.

  “couldn’t be”: LMA, The Journals, 148.

  “If in my present life if I love”: Louisa May Alcott, “Louisa May Alcott’s Letters to Five Girls,” Ladies Home Journal 13, no. 5 (April 1896).

  Chapter 12: The Chariot of Glory

  “Mr. Niles wants a girls’ story”: Louisa May Alcott, May 1868, LMA, The Journals, 165.

  “The money-maker was away”: Alcott, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 184.

  “Got to work… for bills accumulate”: Ibid., 185–186.

  “Alas! I wish, for her”: Alcott, January 1863, The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 362.

  “I never expect to see the strong”: Alcott, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 185.

  “I begin ‘Little Women’”: Ibid., 198–199.

  “He thought it dull … lively, si
mple books”: Ibid., 199.

  “Very tired, head full of pain”: Ibid.

  “It reads better than I expected”: Ibid.

  “Saw Mr. Niles”: Ibid., 200–201.

  “Girls write to ask who the little women marry”: Ibid., 201.

  “‘Jo’ should have remained”: Louisa May Alcott to Elizabeth Powell, March 10, [1869], LMA, Letters, 124–125.

  “I am so full of my work”: Alcott, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 201.

  “I never seem to have many presents,”: LMA, The Journals, 167.

  “Paid up all the debts”: Alcott, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 202.

  “quite used up. Don’t care for myself”: Ibid.

  “With that thought I can bear”: LMA, The Journals, 172.

  “left hand in a sling, one foot up”: Alcott, Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 209.

  “Many thanks for the check”: LMA, Letters, 129.

  “I am introduced as the father of Little Women”: Alcott, The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 404.

  “Gifted Sire of Louisa M. Alcott!”: LMA, The Journals, 198.

  “As a poor, proud, struggling girl”: Alcott, “Louisa May Alcott’s Letters to Five Girls.”

  Epilogue: Back on the Front Lines

  “He has his dream realized at last”: Louisa May Alcott, July 1879, LMA, The Journals, 215.

  “If [women] can emancipate the slave”: Abigail May Alcott, My Heart Is Boundless, 212.

  “a great warmth seems gone out of life”: LMA, The Journals, 206.

  “wonderfully indifferent”: Alcott, My Heart Is Boundless, 212.

  “I like to help women help themselves”: Alcott, “Louisa May Alcott’s Letters to Five Girls.”

  “Very informal meetings, where we met and talked”: Louisa May Alcott to the Woman’s Journal, October 11, 1879, LMA, Letters, 238.

  “I am ashamed to say”: Ibid.

  “So hard to move people”: LMA, The Journals, 216.

  “I have words in favor of Woman Suffrage”: Alcott, August 11, 1879, The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 508.

  “No bolt fell on our audacious heads”: LMA, The Letters, 246.

  “looked disturbed”: Ibid.

  “We elected a good school committee”: LMA, The Journals, 225.

  “The ice is broken”: LMA, The Letters, 247.

  “If I can do no more, let my name stand”: Louisa May Alcott, “Miss Alcott on Woman Suffrage,” New York Times, October 28, 1885, 2.

 

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