Louisa on the Front Lines
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“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.