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HARRIET WARD FOOTE HAWLEY 
 
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 This book is prepared chiefly for the nieces and nephews of 
 Harriet Foote Hawley, but also for those of us who remember 
 her. 
 
 Parts of it are written by a devoted friend, Miss Maria Hunt- 
 ington, and parts by a younger sister, Miss Kate Foote. 
 
 Of course, it is not possible to make clear the whole nobility 
 and strength of her character. To have nursed the wounded in 
 a city filthy and smitten with pestilence, was pi<5luresquely 
 heroic ; but to the homely every-day heroisms which made the 
 other possible, one cannot do justice. The persistent self- 
 denials, the making over of old clothes, in order to be able to 
 give generously, were small means to great ends. To pra(5tice 
 little unending economies and not belittle the soul thereby, 
 requires a character of as fine and spirited a temper as a Damas- 
 cus blade, which can cut a hair or pierce steel. "She was one 
 of the most Christian souls that ever sojourned among us." 
 
Harriet Ward Foote was the oldest of ten 
 children, born in Guilford, Connecticut, on a 
 New England farm — one of those rocky hill- 
 sides of which the natives say a man must 
 own two hundred acres at least, or he will 
 starve to death. 
 
 • Her position as oldest of the flock developed 
 early her strong will and adlive brain, and 
 made her loss to the rest of her family some- 
 thing like the death of a mother. She was 
 motherly to three young brothers who were 
 her next cares, she welcomed the birth of a 
 sister later on with great joy and immediately 
 began taking care of her, so completely and 
 thoroughly that the child was not always 
 clear in the early part of her life as to which 
 was her mother and which her sister. 
 
 At the little district school where she went 
 with her brothers there was the " bully," the 
 boy who leads in all the naughty things, who 
 is a terror to the smaller children and is re- 
 garded with mingled admiration and dislike 
 
by the other boys according to caprice of favor 
 or hatred. One day during the noon recess 
 the other big boys turned upon this fellow for 
 something he had done, banded against him 
 and when he chased them all into the school 
 house, they locked the door against him and 
 would not let him in. The fellow had a real- 
 ly fiendish temper and it was aroused now to 
 its fullest height and he battered on the door, 
 shrieking language which curdled their blood 
 and which made even the boys recoil and 
 gather in a group at the back of the room. 
 Harriet was one of the older girls, nearly 
 fourteen. She said, " this has gone on long 
 enough," and catching hold of one of the little 
 girls, her sister, about four years old, she un- 
 fastened the door and the raging creature out- 
 side found himself confronted by a girl and a 
 baby. Her calmness, the contrast to what he 
 had expected when he heard the key in the 
 door, quieted him in a moment, and when she 
 said : '^ you may come in," he came. A few 
 minutes later when the teacher arrived there 
 were the marks of a fearful pounding upon 
 
the door, and a feeling as if the air vibrated 
 still from spent thunder, but there was appar- 
 ent calm, and I doubt if he ever knew what a 
 quarrel there had been. 
 
 In the spring of 1854 she met Joseph R. 
 Hawley in Hartford at the house of Mr. John 
 Hooker. The acquaintance terminated in an 
 engagement, and in the winter of 1855, Decem- 
 ber 25th, they were married at her home in 
 Guilford. He had begun the profession of 
 the law but became one of the editors of the 
 Hartford Evening Press soon after he was 
 married. They lived quietly and simply in 
 Hartford until the breaking out of the war. 
 She warmly approved of his enlisting, as he 
 did, among the first in Hartford. He was or- 
 dered to New Haven to the encampment there, 
 and she did all the work of closing up their 
 housekeeping, renting their modest house and 
 preparing to go home to Guilford. She wrote 
 to him in New Haven : 
 
 ' ' I can never be sorry you have taken the step you 
 have. Terrible as it is I am glad I can do something. 
 If I could only go too I should be happy." 
 
 7 
 
Writing of a brother just enlisted, she said : 
 
 * ' He is the best and the dearest, but I beHeve in no 
 half sacrifice. Give God the best and all : we women 
 have to do the giving though we cannot do the fight- 
 ing." 
 
 Captain Hawley's first enlistment was for 
 three months, which was thought to be long 
 enough for the settlement of the trouble be- 
 tween the Northern and Southern States. But 
 both sides were made of strong stuff, and it 
 took longer to decide that there should be no 
 break in the links that held together the Fed- 
 eral Union, and also to wipe out the moral 
 stain of African slavery in a great republic. 
 
 She wrote of the re-enlistment for three 
 years, which greater foresight now demanded : 
 
 ' ' I am glad that you intend to fight out the war. 
 It is what I supposed you would do. A good captain, 
 such as I know you must be by this time, must be able 
 to do more good there than here." 
 
 Many extracts from her letters to her hus- 
 band while he was south, follow. 
 
 ' ' You have come back to me safely once, so I think 
 you may again. The7i I was sure you would not and 
 
I could suffer but little more in your ac?tual death than 
 I did then. It was not that I felt any less sure of 
 God's loving care for you than I do now, but that I 
 could not tell what might seem best to Him. Neither 
 can I now, but my stronger health gives me more hope 
 for happiness in this life, and in any event I have your 
 mother and father to take care of and love, beside my 
 own. I can't tell you, darling, how those few words 
 on the edge of your last long loving letter affected me. 
 But you did not really think you needed to remind me 
 to care for your parents and that they are ' ' growing 
 old" did 3^ou? If you were killed I .should make a 
 home for them somewhere — wherever they might 
 choose, and live with them all the rest of their lives, 
 for I know they love me and I could make them 
 happy. ' ' 
 
 ' ' You were right in saying in one of your letters 
 that I was 'with you constantly.' It is true and in 
 no ordinary sense of the words. It seems sometimes 
 as if I were with you even as the spirits of the dead 
 are, I believe, constantly about us." 
 
 At this time Fremont, whom the North 
 had trusted enthtisiasticall}^, had shown him- 
 self both incapable and unwise and had been 
 superseded by Halleck in command in Mis- 
 souri. He had forbidden all fugitive slaves 
 
coming into his camps. Cameron had made 
 a discouraging and disheartening speech in 
 New York — and she writes : 
 
 ' ' I pray for patience. God will set the black man 
 right sometime, and I know this nation will never be 
 any better or greater than it is now, if it does not do 
 its part in the work." 
 
 ' ' God made of one blood all the nations upon earth. 
 That was at the beginning and in the old world. I 
 believe that at the end and in this new world all 
 nations will yet be mingled in one blood — make one 
 nation of nobler men and women than this earth has 
 yet seen." 
 
 "I'm growing a little discouraged about the war in 
 spite of Charleston's being burnt up — if it is. It 
 does seem as if the government never would take the 
 right stand and I'm afraid all these bills which are 
 being brought into Congress, good as they are, won't 
 amount to anything. However, God reigns. Why 
 all this fuss is made about providing a place for the 
 Negroes to go to — colonization and nobody knows 
 what not — I can't see. There has been room enough 
 for them in the country I believe and for some more 
 judging from the constant efforts of the South to im- 
 port more, and though Freedom is said to make a man 
 better I never heard of its making him an}^ larger. 
 They have been able to earn their own and their mas- 
 
 10 
 
ter'vS living as chattels, they can hardly do less as men. 
 If all the wiseacres in the country had known, forty 
 years ago, how many thousand ignorant Irish and 
 Germans were coming to this country they would 
 have been just as clamorous for * bills ' and * laws ' to 
 protedl themselves and to provide a place for these 
 people to settle in. Fortunately, they did not know 
 it, and the Irish and Germans have been left to them- 
 selves and have taken care of themselves and done a 
 great deal of hard work for us. The slaves are not, 
 as a body, more ignorant or wicked than these others, 
 and why our government, now that it has the power, 
 can't do its simple duty and let the Negroes take care 
 of themselves after they are freed, I can't see." 
 
 In the winter of 1861 her husband, stationed 
 at Port Royal, had written that it might be 
 possible for her to join him : other officers 
 were to have their wives go out to them. She 
 answered : 
 
 "If the generals do not want women 'round, as I 
 should think might be very likely, I can give it up 
 entirely; I ivoii' t come merely to please myself; it 
 won't be half as hard to give it up as to let 3^ou go at 
 first — nor half as hard as to feel that I had coaxed you 
 against your better judgment, and that I am a care to 
 you there instead of a comfort." 
 11 
 
The regiment went into active service and 
 she did not go. In early 1862, she wrote : 
 
 "You must not think I'm grumbling when the 
 longing, homesick feeling will break out sometimes. 
 I know you feel it at times ; and I do not know how 
 you would bear it if you had not better work than I 
 have. I do not mean to undervalue women's work. 
 You know I like to sew and I am glad to do anything, 
 if it is only making a collar, to make the girls and 
 mother happier, but I can't help feeling when I'm 
 doing these things that I throw a great deal more 
 strength and energy into the work than things are 
 worth. I must work, and work steadil}^ and hard, I 
 can't live without it, but I should like to feel that I 
 was doing some real good to somebody. If I were 
 sure of my health I would ' compass Heaven and 
 Earth ' to get some situation as nurse somewhere for 
 the poor fellows who are spending their lives for us. 
 It makes me sick to think that I can do nothing ; to 
 think how we are going quietly on here at home when 
 our best and bravest are suffering and dying, — and 
 the good cause goes on so slowly. I am not sure that 
 I can bear it much longer — but I suppose I shall not 
 do anything more desperate than knit a few" pairs of 
 stockings for the volunteers." 
 
 12 
 
She wrote of a ledlure given by Rev. H. W. 
 Beecher in Hartford in January, 1862, — it was 
 a stormy night and a small audience. 
 
 ** I never heard him speak so well, so solemnly and 
 earnestly. Of course the subjecft was the times — ' Our 
 Past and Future,' and his condensation of the whole 
 subjedl of slavery, its history, its introducftion by suf- 
 ferance into the Constitution, its influence, its silent 
 and deadl}' revolution by co7istrit5lion of all our laWvS — 
 till at the last Presidential election the culminating 
 point was reached and an external and visible revolu- 
 tion either by the North or by the South became in- 
 evitable — was fine. I wish every soldier in our army 
 could hear it." 
 
 March 12, 1862. "By the next week you will be 
 at work on Fort Pulaski I suppose. Your last letter 
 was intensely interesting, but it amused me to see you 
 scold father and ' all your northern correspondents, ' 
 for being low-spirited and declare that you had never 
 been happier in your life than since November 7th ; 
 when your letter before that had been so terribly blue 
 — the most so of anything I had read in a great while. 
 The fact is, you're pretty much like the rest of the 
 world. Every body loses hope a little sometimes, 
 only one-half the world [like you] as soon as it is 
 over declares it is no such thing, and they always 
 knew everything would turn out right. The other 
 
 13 
 
half won't own that they feel any better when it is all 
 over and ' know things are gomg to be very bad.' " 
 March 19, 1862. " Our vicflories are coming along 
 pretty fast now : Island No. 10, and Newbem yester- 
 day. We are getting to think the papers very stupid 
 when there is no vidlory." 
 
 This winter she was in especially miserable 
 health but she says : 
 
 ' ' Do not be anxious about me, I take care of myself 
 for your sake. You may have a healthy wife when 
 you come home !" 
 
 ''I'm so sick of the newspaper's 'scold' that I'm 
 threatening getting up an Anti-Grumbling Society." 
 
 April 15, 1862. "I'm making up my mind pretty 
 decidedly that you won't be killed in this war, but 
 will come home to a bigger fight here. There will be 
 a thousand times more need of you here a year hence 
 than there has been anywhere yet. I believe the 
 Lord means to keep you in the world and get a good 
 deal of solid work out of you." "Thank God that 
 you are an honest man. I'd starve in rags or keep an 
 ' Irish boarding house ' sooner than that you should 
 buy place or power by giving up one iota of principle. 
 What folly it seems to care for anything but the right. 
 This life seems such a short time to do even our duty 
 in." 
 
 14 
 
April 17, 1862. [Mr. Hawley, now Col. of the 7th 
 Conn. Vols, had been on Tybee Island, besieging 
 Fort Pulaski.] "Reliable news at last. The bom- 
 bardment was commenced on the lotli ; you made two 
 breaches in the wall, shot down the rebel rag, etc., 
 and the Seventh Connecticut took possession of the 
 fort that night. Only one man killed and two 
 wounded on our side. Thank God that this long 
 anxiety is over. It is like waking from a weary 
 dream. Thank God for all such times of comparative 
 rest and relief. Hurrah ! I wanted to cheer on the 
 spot. How I wish I could share all your feelings 
 and thoughts those strange two days and nights ! 
 Especially in taking possession of the fort ! ' ' 
 
 April 20, 1862. " You say in one of your last [and 
 you spoke of the same thing when you were home] 
 that you ' feel it safest to accustom yourself to an 
 ever present idea that we may not meet again. ' Is that 
 the wisest way ? Is not that keeping yourself in an 
 unnecessarily depressing atmosphere ? Is it not really 
 a great deal better for us both to be persistently hopeful 
 about everything ? It vSeems so to me, that this feel- 
 ing that we may never meet again in life will come of 
 itself quite as often as is best and that we ought to 
 encourage ourselves and each other to look forward to 
 a happier life in this world than we have ever known 
 yet. I think we should be, either of us, strong 
 enough to bear whatever our Father ma}^ lay upon 
 
 15 
 
us ; meantime I cannot but think that such a hope 
 is a better atmosphere for our souls than such a de- 
 spair. ' ' 
 
 May 14, 1862. "The victories are coming fast; 
 though it is hard to lose the Gosport Navy Yard and 
 the Merrimac too. Merely the loss of money in this 
 war is something terrible ; but strong arms can soon 
 make up that ; we have not lost books and rare works 
 of art which cannot be replaced. For the lives — God 
 keeps count of those given for justice — for the Right. ' ' 
 
 June ist, 1862. "Banks' defeat and retreat seem 
 to me to have been exaggerated. The 5th Connec- 
 ticut has suffered terribly. Well, my hope doesn't 
 fail, and if it did, my courage and faith would not. 
 But isn't it strange to look back and think of our 
 quiet life together two years ago. I used to won- 
 der how people could live so near a volcano as they 
 do about Vesuvius, but it is just what we did, j^et we 
 are only rightly punished by this eruption." 
 
 June 15, 1862. [Her familj^ of brothers and sisters, 
 six in number were all sick and she was helping 
 nurse them.] "It is wonderful comfort to find my- 
 vSelf of use. It is about the greatest comfort the world 
 affords, for Love is not of this world, and O thank 
 God for that — that won't end with this life but grow 
 stronger and purer forever." 
 
 June 19, 1862. [News had been received that Mr. 
 Hawley was ordered in front of Charleston.] ' ' I don't 
 
 16 
 
know of anything which would do your soul more 
 good than to have a chance at Fort Sumter. In all 
 the operations of the war I think that is the one I 
 should choose to have a part in, so I am glad for you, 
 and I envy you. If it were not so sweet to be your 
 wife I should wish I had been your brother. — I'd a 
 great deal rather be you than me. But O you cannot 
 imagine the devouring anxiety with which I watch 
 and wait, I dare not think — I cannot speak of it, my 
 only resource is work. I pray for you as I never did 
 for myself. I pray for you with tears ; not for my 
 part of you, but for God's part." 
 
 July 3rd, 1862. " News has just come that Mc- 
 Clellan has been defeated after five days hard fighting. 
 Things look black enough. I am glad the President 
 has called for three hundred thousand more men ; I 
 wish I could be one of them. The more battles we 
 lose the better for the slaves. I do not believe we 
 shall ever conquer till we proclaim emancipation ; and 
 yet I suppose there are people in the world who think 
 President I^incoln knows more than Mrs. Hawley ! 
 But I suppose it is not impertinent of me to say that I 
 agree with Sumner." 
 
 "I can't help believing that McClellan has been 
 defeated — it takes a good deal of faith in God to bear 
 it. And it seems as if the men had been butchered 
 here almost as badly as 5^our poor boys were on 
 James' Island." 
 ir 
 
July 13, 1862. [She had been to see some of the 
 Seventh Connecticut boys who had been brought to 
 the New Haven hospital bj^ the surgeon of the regi- 
 ment.] "It is glorious to see men suffering so and 
 yet so perfectly patient and cheerful. The one who 
 had lost his eye seemed to mind it no more than if it 
 had been an old glove, only that it would prevent his 
 going back, as it was the right eye. Howell seemed 
 to be suffering a good deal, though able to talk. The 
 inflammation in his wound has not subsided suf- 
 ficiently to allow the extraction of the ball. But 
 Ward looked the worst : his face very much swollen 
 and very painful ; he looked very sick indeed, yet he 
 talked more about you and Dr. Bacon than about 
 himself. It was ver}^ touching to hear them speak so 
 earnestly and affectionately of you." 
 
 July 19, 1862. "Thank God for the good this 
 war brings out in the hearts of men. I think the 
 noblest sight I ever saw was those poor boj^s of yours 
 in the Hospital. They had got over all the boyish or 
 false enthusiasm they might have had at first — they 
 were men— come home to lie on hard pallets and suffer 
 terrible pain and then get up and go their waj^s 
 maimed for life — yet they were not onlj^ calm and 
 patient, but cheerful and talked much more about 
 their colonel than about themselves and their suf- 
 ferings, and only regretted that they could not go 
 back again." 
 
 18 
 
July 20, 1862. "It is rumored that Halleck is to 
 be made Commander-in-Chief. I cannot help think- 
 ing and wondering what result. This is the darkest 
 day we've seen yet since the war began, but it seems 
 to me that it must grow darker. Specie — at least 
 silver money, costs twenty cents on the dollar, gold 
 very nearly as much, and soon it seems to me there 
 must be great financial distress. Thank God the 
 crops are coming in well, so not many will starve, 
 though many may suffer. And in the wonderful 
 tropical growth of human souls in the fierce heat of 
 war, the good still grows faster than the evil, and 
 men will give to the poor and suffering as they never 
 have before ; — so thank God for this too." 
 
 * * I know now what ' taking no thought of the mor- 
 row ' means I think ; nothing in my future life seems 
 of much importance now. As long as God lets me 
 live on the earth I shall find enough to do, and as 
 long as I pray to Him he will help me do it, and 
 that's all there is of life — and so ' why mourn we — 
 why make we much ado. ' ' ' 
 
 She joined her husband in the South in 
 November, 1862. 
 
 19 
 
During her army life I was with her and 
 profited by her coolness, her promptness, her 
 presence of mind which never failed her. 
 
 We were at Beaufort, S. C. It was an army 
 post with soldiers everywhere ; and rations, 
 and all the necessaries of life were to be had, 
 — if you could get them. We were quartered 
 in one of the deserted houses of the town, with 
 little furniture. There were three chairs, 
 which we carried from the parlor to the dining 
 room at meal times and if we had a guest one 
 of us sat on a washstand turned on its side. 
 In the parlor was a settee and a small stand by 
 way of furniture ; the muslin curtains and a 
 bracket and vase Ve had brought ourselves. In 
 one of the back rooms was a mahogany side- 
 board, the panels smashed in by marauding 
 negroes in the hours between the time when 
 the white people fled from Beaufort and the 
 Yankee soldiers marched in. One morning I 
 had accidentally scalded myself frightfully 
 
 80 
 
with a pot of boiling chocolate, and had 
 been laid on the settee in the parlor in the 
 first agonies which come from such an injury. 
 There was no fire and what was worse, no 
 wood, and a South Carolina winter has cold 
 days. Harriet glanced at the empty fire place 
 and went out. A few moments later, she came 
 in, her arms filled with pickets from the fence 
 and pieces of the mahogany sideboard. She 
 had left me groaning in anguish, but when 
 she came back thus laden, I forgot my pain 
 and laughed. She looked at me in amazed 
 incomprehension. She thought only of the 
 necessity of a fire, until I gasped out, '' the 
 Colonel's wife — burning up the front fence,'' 
 and then she laughed with me. That was a 
 good fire. 
 
 We acquired a little more furniture by the 
 good will of the quartermaster, to whom all 
 the furniture found in the dismantled houses 
 had been turned over, and who disbursed the 
 articles to officers, as impartially as he could. 
 Sometimes we were lucky enough to find a 
 chair with tarnished gilding and soiled cover 
 
 21 
 
in a negro house, plundered no doubt, though 
 impossible to prove it ; if the negro was will- 
 ing to sell it, there was joy in our hearts such 
 as well furnished people at home could not 
 know. We had acquired in this way, several 
 chairs and a table large enough to seat eight. 
 A friend in a cavalry company shot a wild 
 turkey which he presented to us, and General 
 Terry, the former colonel of the 7th Regiment, 
 came up from Hilton Head to attend a court- 
 martial at Beaufort. The daring thought en- 
 tered Harriet's mind of giving a dinner party. 
 We counted our plates, we counted our knives 
 and forks and the chairs and looked at the 
 turkey, a beautiful bird with bronzed plumage 
 and ten pounds in weight. '^ We will do it," 
 said Harriet — we did. That is, she did. She 
 wrestled with an incompetent cook, a planta- 
 tion hand, who knew how to boil rice and 
 nothing more. The turkey was so large that 
 she also asked the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Peck, 
 missionaries living near us, and situated much 
 as we were. The knives, however, we could 
 not multiply ; if we had nine people there 
 
 22 
 
could be no butter knife, neither any for Har- 
 riet herself. '^ Never mind me," said she, '' I'll 
 get along somehow." 
 
 All went on smoothly. Dr. Peck, white 
 haired and saintly looking asked a stately 
 blessing, over such a civilized looking table 
 that we forgot we were in South Carolina in 
 war times. General Terry carved the turkey, 
 and there was a little pause after we were all 
 helped, pardonable under the circumstances ; 
 I think we were all enjoying the sense of a 
 warm delicious meal served with the adjuncts 
 of civilization for the first time after a long 
 period of soldier and camp life. In this pause 
 Harriet suddenly put out a large buck handled 
 jack knife to cut a piece of butter for herself. 
 It was a sharp contrast to the elegance which 
 had prevailed. Harriet was not disconcerted. 
 
 '^ Should I give up a dinner party for a 
 mere knife — a thousand times no — not while 
 Joe had a jack knife like that." 
 
 The housekeeping was an amusing part of 
 living in the Department of the South always. 
 We had army rations, salt beef, pork, beans, 
 
 33 
 
hard bread, molasses and vinegar, bread from 
 the post bakery, and fresh beef when a supply 
 steamer came down from the north bringing 
 beeves. For six weeks after we first got there 
 no steamer came from the north, so that we 
 had neither news nor beef, and we wondered 
 if the Confederate pirates had captured and 
 sunk our supplies. Besides the things men- 
 tioned above, we could usually get sweet pota- 
 toes and rice from the negroes, who were 
 always glad to exchange for pork and salt 
 beef. It made the daily routine of house- 
 keeping a sort of adventurous business, liable 
 to episodes. I give incidents as the under 
 current which had to go on at a military post 
 where the bugle call and the roll of the drum 
 were the most familiar sounds and the air was 
 full of the excitement that the adlive presence 
 of war always brings. 
 
 " It was dat sharp dis mawnin' I wore my 
 shawl," said the woman we had for a cook 
 after the man had proved himself an amiable 
 failure. Harriet said nothing, but before the 
 woman went away at night, she examined the 
 
 24 
 
shawl. Hidden away in its folds was a little 
 parcel of tea, and a package of sugar scraped 
 from our supplies. 
 
 " I don't quite know what to do," said Har- 
 riet, meditatively. '^ They hardly call it steal- 
 ing — yet it was hidden, showing she felt that 
 there was something wrong about it. Steal- 
 ing is a natural result of a slave's life. I will 
 take this, but I will give her some tea and 
 sugar when she goes away as a present, and 
 tell her that she is earning money now and is 
 able to buy things for herself." 
 
 The little episode of giving the present was 
 interesting to an on-looker who understood 
 the secret. Harriet's manner was impressive, 
 the black woman's silky, but she compre- 
 hended the lesson and I think took the moral 
 to heart. She never sinned in that way again 
 while with us. 
 
 The class of negroes we encountered at 
 Beaufort was largely the plantation hands, 
 who were nearer animals than the northern 
 mind could imagine, even when it expedled 
 but little. The children wore one article of 
 
 85 
 
clothing made of bagging; with the girls it 
 was a long skirted dress, with the boys a 
 jacket and trousers in one piece. That was 
 all. No underclothes, shoes or cap. A little 
 black boy, about five years old, wandered in 
 one day, we never exadlly knew from where, 
 and adopted us. It was like having a small 
 dog with a few anthropomorphic tendencies. 
 He never spoke save when we addresssed him, 
 and then he answered in an ultra negro dia- 
 left, which was as incomprehensible as if he 
 had been pure Congo. He smiled, he was 
 glad of food, and he kept out of the way of 
 the cook, while he was always in sight some- 
 where. At night he crept into the room and 
 curled down, blinked at the fire and slept like 
 a little dog. Harriet felt something touch 
 her feet one evening as we sat near the table 
 in the middle of the parlor talking with some 
 officers who had called. She looked and there 
 the little fellow was, crouched down and nod- 
 ding with sleep. The pathos of the thing was 
 too much — we were not used to a state of half 
 humanity, which slept anywhere and ate what 
 
 36 
 
was thrown to it, and Harriet induced the 
 Colonel to make inquiries among the black 
 servants that were at the camp of the 7th 
 Connecticut, and some relative was at last 
 found who took him in charge. 
 
 Colonel Hawley came in one day from camp 
 and said that Colonel Chatfield of the 6th 
 Connedlicut was ordered north, and had of- 
 fered his house on Bay street to his brother 
 officer, if he would like it. Harriet thought 
 she would. It was in better repair — it was 
 nearer the camp of the 7th Regiment. The 
 Colonel could not leave his duties, but he sent 
 his orderly and the Colonel's man Harris with 
 a cart, and the moving began. It was not like 
 
 a '' moving:,^' at home. We had, with our 
 
 trunks, exaftly two small wagon loads of fur- 
 niture and we were settled in the new house by 
 noon. The Colonel brought a friend down 
 to supper and we had waffles, baked over an 
 open fire, the waffle-iron having been found 
 stowed under the outside back stairs. Harriet 
 seized it saying, " this is the first best gift to 
 man," and held on to that waffle-iron through 
 
all the chances and changes that befell us 
 afterwards. 
 
 The house was much pleasanter than the 
 other, being on the street that overlooked the 
 broad arm of water which sets up from the 
 sea and is not quite a river nor yet a bay. It 
 curved just above us and was bordered with 
 high pines, and the sunsets across the sweep 
 of the water and through the pines were 
 always beautiful. The house was built with 
 a piazza across both stories of the front, a hall 
 through the middle and rooms on either side. 
 That on the right we used as a dining room, 
 and the room behind it we took for a kitchen. 
 All the outbuildings, the kitchens and the 
 slave quarters had disappeared and regiments 
 were encamped within ten yards of our back 
 door. The sentries of a New York Regiment 
 were even nearer and their dress parade was 
 always a pleasant sight from the side win- 
 dows. 
 
 In her letters home she speaks of a horse- 
 back ride. 
 
 28 
 
*' We went some distance back into the island, by 
 the long line of stockade and other fortifications with 
 a wild woodpath which took us by a little deserted 
 church and beautiful graveyard containing the stone 
 tomb of the Baynard family. You may remember Joe 
 telling us in one of his letters a year ago, how the 
 beautiful white Italian marble doors had been broken 
 
 by the vandals of some regiment and how the 
 
 7th C. V. fearing they might be charged with it, 
 raised the money and sent on to New York, bought 
 new ones and had them put up. We stopped there a 
 few minutes just on the edge of the woods, it was so 
 wild and beautiful; and were reminded of the war by 
 the pickets stationed by the church. Then we went 
 on again through a strange tropical looking wood; 
 partly live oaks and gum trees, but mostly of pal- 
 mettos, the largest I have seen, strange and foreign 
 looking, and the other trees all wreathed with vines 
 and hung with long trailing moss. We rode through 
 this for a long distance, and then it suddenly opened 
 and through a great grove of tall palmettos and taller 
 pines, we came out upon a smooth, sandy, white beach 
 and the blue waves flashed and gUttered and dashed 
 their spray at our horses' feet." 
 
 " I go every day to the hospital; there is one quite 
 near the house. There are not many here who are 
 very sick and I do not spend a great deal of time 
 there, indeed I cannot, but I make it a point to take 
 
 39 
 
some little thing to eat and spend an hour or so 
 chatting with the men every day. ' ' 
 
 "New Year's Day at Beaufort, S. C. 
 
 Jan. I, 1863. If you at the north had half as 
 happy a New Year's day as we in the Southern 
 Department you enjoyed a great deal. I dare say 
 that many of you remembered that it was Emanci- 
 pation Day — but we saw and felt it with every breath 
 we drew. Some days ago Gen. Saxton issued the 
 invitation. It would have taken a heavy storm in- 
 deed to have kept us from accepting this invitation. 
 
 But no morning ever rose more magnificently beau, 
 tiful, cloudlessly clear and cool and bracing, yet not 
 so cool but that a delicate woman might remain out 
 of doors the whole day. It seemed early when we 
 started for the camp of the black regiment, but many 
 were the bright and happy looking black faces we 
 passed and many the New Year's greetings we re- 
 ceived from the owners thereof. 
 
 The wharf was already crowded with negroes, gay 
 in their bright clean turbans and their best things 
 generally, and it took some time for the motle}^ and 
 most interesting and amusing multitude to get safely 
 stowed away in Gen. Saxton' s little steamer, the 
 Flora, which he had kindly offered for the occasion. 
 
 The camp being four miles distant from Beaufort 
 and the road a heavy one through the deep sand, 
 
 30 
 
of course the sail down the beautiful river was to 
 be coveted — unless by the happy few who possessed 
 horses. 
 
 But the crowd was orderly and quiet and the sail 
 delightful, especially as the band of the 8th Maine 
 gave us music. 
 
 Arrived at the landing, the regiment was drawn up 
 to receive us and we were most kindly greeted by 
 Col. Higginson and the other officers — the grand Hve 
 oaks standing out clear against the southern sky, in 
 the foreground the black soldiers in their bright red 
 trousers and nearer the water groups of negroes of 
 all ages, all styles of costume, their queer made 
 ' dugouts ' and flatboats crowded with them and the 
 steamer's boat also filled. 
 
 The platform for the speakers was eredled a little 
 way back from the shore in a grove of live oaks said 
 to be the most beautiful one on the Island and thither 
 we proceeded. 
 
 The principal guests and the ladies being seated, 
 prayer was offered by the Chaplain of the regiment 
 and then the President's Proclamation was read by 
 Dr. Brisbane, one of the commissioners for the sale 
 of lands, a man who, as Col. Higginson said, hav- 
 ing in his early manhood given freedom to his own 
 slaves, it seemed fitting should now in his maturer 
 years be permitted to read the tidings of freedom to 
 others. 
 
 31 
 
A beautiful stand of colors was then presented to 
 the regiment by Mr. French in a very neat and earn- 
 est speech on behalf of friends in New York, and as 
 Col. Higginson received the unfurled banner in his 
 hand and turned to reply, a single quavering voice, 
 evidently that of an aged negro, burst out into the 
 song ' America: ' 
 
 " My Country, 'tis of thee 
 Sweet Land of Liberty. ' ' 
 
 Instantlj^ other voices among them joined in, — the 
 audience on the platform, much moved, would have 
 joined also, but waving his hand and saying ' leave 
 them to themselves,' Col. Higginson silenced us and 
 the song went on swelling louder and fuller till the 
 whole regiment had joined and all the great crowd 
 also. Tears filled many eyes around me — for myself 
 I could hardly check the sobs, as I thought, for the 
 first time now they have a country; it is to them now 
 a Land of Liberty. 
 
 When they had finished. Col. Higginson spoke 
 most eloquently though he said that words seemed 
 weak and useless after such an answer as had been 
 already given. He had heard many songs sung in 
 camp in the six weeks he had been with them — but 
 never this — they could not sing it before, for they 
 never had a country before. All their songs had been 
 sad, almost touching minor strains, speaking the 
 
 32 
 
suppressed sadness born of ages of oppression, and he 
 repeated a verse of which I can recall but a line or 
 two: — 
 
 " I know de moon rise and I know de star rise, 
 
 mourners, lay my body down, — 
 
 I know de moon rise and I know de star rise 
 
 1 want to get to Jordan to lay dis body down." 
 
 But, now he said they should know the moon rise 
 and the star rise only no more; for them too the sun 
 of liberty had risen. 
 
 I can give no adequate idea of his address. You, 
 who are familiar with his strong earnest mind as a 
 writer, and his graceful manner as a speaker can 
 imagine what he would say and how well he would 
 say it on such an occasion. I know one tough old 
 soldier out on the edge of the crowd, one of a Con- 
 necticut regiment, was heard to say with a suspicious 
 winking of both eyes at once, that ' It was very 
 affecting, wasn't it.' 
 
 Finally he called up a sergeant and a corporal and 
 committed the colors to them with a most solemn and 
 earnest charge to each. 
 
 They were intelligent and fine looking black men, 
 and he requested them to say a few words to their 
 friends among the audience. They each made a 
 short address showing how well they understood and 
 how deeply they felt what they were fighting for and 
 
 33 
 
especially urging others to enlist. One of them re- 
 ferred in a very neat manner which brought out 
 shouts of laughter from the crowd, to the fac5t that a 
 great proportion of the crowd consisted of women, 
 saying that if it had been the Fourth of July, or any- 
 thing of that kind, there would have been more men 
 than women present, but they were so afraid of hav- 
 ing to enlist that the men dared not come. 
 
 Then Gen. Saxton, greeted with rousing cheers, 
 made a short pradlical address and several other 
 speakers followed. 
 
 I ought perhaps to have said that both Col. Hig- 
 ginson and Mr. French were repeatedly interrupted 
 by enthusiastic applause and that the President and 
 everybody else kept getting three cheers. 
 
 The final ode written for the occasion was sung, 
 and then Col. Higginson told us he had invited a 
 great multitude there, and he couldn't promise that 
 they would all get fed, but he would say that ten 
 oxen had been roasted for them within twelve hours, 
 and a large quantity of hard bread provided with 
 which most of them were familiar and all of them 
 ought to be. So we adjourned to the barbecue 
 grounds and ate a little of the beef and bread, and 
 then the boat was ready and a great crowd passed 
 down to the wharf and on board again, and a still 
 greater one dispersed in other directions. 
 
 34 
 
But such a good natured and well behaved crowd 
 it was. Not an oath or a drunken man did I hear or 
 see during the entire day. I did not even see any- 
 rude jostling. 
 
 There were probably 2500 people there, indeed I 
 heard it estimated at 3000, though I thought that 
 too high. 
 
 But I certainly never saw any such number col- 
 lected at the North, so quiet and well conducted on 
 a day of public rejoicing. 
 
 I think I shall not need the sprig of live oak which 
 I broke from one of the trees that overhung the 
 platform to make me remember that day. It would 
 not be easy for me to forget it. I thank God that I 
 saw it as I did." 
 
 We were comfortably settled at Beaufort 
 and then the regiment was ordered to Hilton 
 Head. '' The fortunes of war," said Harriet. 
 General and Miss Terry invited us to stay 
 with them at his headquarters a day or two 
 until we could settle upon some place to live 
 in at Hilton Head, and that evening orders 
 came from General Hunter sending the regi- 
 ment to Fernandina, a little town on the inside 
 shore of Amelia Island on the coast of Florida. 
 
 35 
 
Harriet went up to Beaufort tliat night, [my 
 burned foot still incapacitated me from adlive 
 service,] packed our trunks, dismissed the one 
 servant, turned over the house with all the 
 furniture we had so painfully acquired to the 
 Quartermaster of the Post and came down 
 again in the morning boat, ready to go to 
 Florida. 
 
 ^' Rosa had been so used to ' sudden doins^ 
 since de Yankees had come,' that she was not 
 surprised to have me send her off when she 
 came leisurely around to get our breakfast. 
 But I was sorry to leave that bureau which 
 Mr. Hervey brought us one morning and set 
 down in the parlor wrong end up. With what 
 a triumphant air he made his men put the 
 marble top on the bottom and then looked at 
 us, as much as to say, ' There, you'll never 
 have a nicer piece of furniture than that even 
 at home.' When we moved on to Bay Street, 
 I had it set up right and I always wondered 
 if he noticed the difference." 
 
 We started at midnight for Fernandina and 
 got there the next day at five o'clock. 
 
 86 
 
The headquarters there was a house belong- 
 ing to ex-Senator Yulee. A large square, 
 white, wooden building, with the kitchen and 
 servants' quarters not entirely separated, like 
 the older houses we had seen in South Caro- 
 lina, but connedled with a long latticed piazza. 
 
 Colonel Hawley was in command of the 
 Post, and the regiment was encamped in tents 
 just outside the little town with two or three 
 private houses near, as headquarters for the 
 line officers and as hospitals, and also a 
 church where we used to go on Sundays, our 
 ribbons and dresses the only diversity from 
 the blue uniforms and brass buttons. We 
 were '^ the ladies of the regiment ;" for besides 
 Mrs. Hawley, there was Mrs. Wayland, the 
 wife of the chaplain, Mrs. Gardiner, the wife 
 of the then Lt.-Colonel, and Mrs. Dennis, wife 
 of Captain Dennis. 
 
 One day notice was sent to headquarters 
 from the outermost pickets, two or three miles 
 down on the island and nearest the main land, 
 that the rebels wanted to send over by flag of 
 truce, a lady who wished to go north. The 
 
 37 
 
provost-marslial, Captain Sanford, and Major 
 Rodman, went down to receive the rebel party. 
 The young lady was a Miss Buddington, of 
 New London, who had been shut into South- 
 ern lines while spending the winter with an 
 uncle and had never been able to get through 
 and return home. She was received politely 
 by our officers, who endeavored to converse 
 with her, on the way back to the town, '' in 
 spite," as she laughingly said herself after- 
 wards, '' of the faft that I was horribly dressed, 
 for I had been in the Confederation for two 
 years, and my shoes were home-made cob- 
 blings." 
 
 Major Rodman found, to his dismay, that 
 she was quite deaf, and he said to Captain San- 
 ford, ^' you must talk to her, provost-marshal, 
 I cannot." This part of the little episode is 
 always remembered by the people of the regi- 
 ment, because in one day less than three weeks 
 from that time Major Rodman was not simply 
 engaged to the young lady but they were mar- 
 ried. We had various little festivities after 
 that for the bride and groom, the supper on 
 
 38 
 
each occasion being a triumph of mind over 
 matter, although we had a sutler at the post 
 and 3^ou could buy sardines and canned salmon. 
 
 All sorts of devices were pradliced to make 
 things that were not congenial in themselves 
 into something that was like what something 
 else would be if you had it. Dr. Woods, of 
 the gunboat '' Mohawk," which lay near us, 
 sent Mrs. Hawley a pie. 
 
 " You are to believe that it is made of north- 
 ern apples," said he, " and, moreover, I made 
 it myself." It was very good. " All you have 
 to do," said Harriet, '' is to look off and chew, 
 like the man with chewing gum. If one is 
 smart enough to do that one would hardly be- 
 lieve that this was pieces of cracker, softened, 
 flavored with lemon, sweetened and baked in a 
 pie crust of the regular sort." 
 
 Another triumph was a discovery of Har- 
 riet's, that hard bread broken up fine and 
 baked with grated cheese was as marvelously 
 like maccaroni as crackers were like apples. 
 The joy was not unmixed with discomfiture, 
 however, for on the first occasion that the dish 
 
 39 
 
was brought to the table we bad a guest arrive 
 rather unexpedledly on the steamer. He was 
 invited to dinner and the Colonel indiscreetly 
 asked him if he would have some of the mac- 
 caroni a second time. The guest had seen 
 camp fare with little variety for several months 
 and joyfully said " yes." This dish had been 
 emptied at the first course — Harriet took it 
 up with a perfeft air and handed it to Harris, 
 the Colonel's man, who vanished with as much 
 alacrity as if barrels of maccaroni just from 
 Naples were in the kitchen. The conversa- 
 tion went on and he did not re-appear until it 
 was time for the dessert, and then of course 
 it was too late for any other dish. 
 
 One morning several low river steamers 
 came panting up to the wharf covered with 
 black men in red uniforms carrying guns. It 
 was the black regiment of Colonel Higginson. 
 The Colonel came ashore to get guides, look 
 at maps and then started off again. We could 
 see them, across the flat marshes where they 
 landed and attacked St. Mary's, a pestilent 
 little town, lying near us on the main land, 
 
 40 
 
wliicli had given great trouble, harboring 
 deserters, sending in spies and stealing sup- 
 plies. The red of their uniform showed them 
 forming, marching, breaking into files and 
 the smoke of the guns told that they kept up 
 to their work, and later the smoke of the 
 burning town blew in wreaths along the flat 
 meadows, and then they came back stopping 
 again at Fernandina. Several of them had 
 showai '' Sambo's ability to stop a bullet as 
 well as a white man," they were wounded, 
 and Harriet helped to get bandages and lint 
 for them. 
 
 It was a stirring scene, looking on at this 
 first ordered attack of Sambo upon his master 
 — a new chapter in history. 
 
 We were living in a house, yet we were 
 virtually in a camp, and might see a battle at 
 any moment. The line of our outer pickets 
 was in full sight from the main land and the 
 sentries were always on the lookout at night 
 for any signaling, by lights or rockets, that 
 would betray a disposition to make a raid 
 upon us by the enemy. 
 
 41 
 
We were awakened again and again at 
 night — how breathless it was to be aroused 
 from deep sleep, or if one were lying awake 
 to hear the thud, thud of a horse galloping up 
 the street, and think that must be the officer 
 of the day going the grand rounds — to hear 
 the sentry challenge, hear him dismount, and 
 know that in the silence which followed was the 
 officer's whispered reply, and then hear him 
 thunder on the door of our quarters and know 
 that there was some alarm abroad. Then 
 there would be a clattering of the orderlies 
 that slept at the back of the house as they 
 ran down the outside stairs and of the Colonel 
 on the front stairs, a slamming of the doors 
 and then usually a silence, sometimes a stir 
 as of men in the diredlion of the camp, then 
 an hour or two during which if we heard 
 nothing we usually went to sleep to be roused 
 again by hearing the Colonel and the orderlies 
 come rattling back, and to guess that it was a 
 false alarm and that we should not have to 
 hurry off to the gunboat, the Mohawk, where 
 
 42 
 
it was understood the ladies were to go in 
 case of an attack. 
 
 Late in April the regiment was ordered to 
 St. Augustine as suddenly as — as things 
 are ordered in time of war. There we went 
 into another house which had been the head- 
 quarters of the previous commandant of the 
 Post, and which like that at Fernandina had 
 the necessaries and a few luxuries of life, but 
 not the comforts. We had pier glasses in the 
 parlor and not an inch of carpet or matting 
 through the whole house. 
 
 " But then," said Harriet, ^' we have a night- 
 blooming jessamine and a banana in the back 
 yard, and a row of great Yuccas," (the Yucca 
 Gloriosa which grows to a height of 20 feet 
 and sends up its magnificent spike of ivory 
 white blossoms a yard higher at the top) ^' in 
 the front yard, and what a pleasure it will be 
 to see them blossom." She had that pleasure, 
 seeing the banana send down its first long 
 purple sheath, which opened back four stout 
 leaves, and under them, in a row around the 
 stem was the first circle of blossoms. They 
 
 43 
 
perfected themselves and fell, and meantime, 
 the main stem lengthened down another joint, 
 and lo ! a new set of sheathing leaves and 
 another row of prote6led blossoms and so on, 
 nntil the stem was three feet long. Florida 
 is semi-tropical, and the new plants and flowers 
 were a constant source of interest. 
 
 " Think of a cloth of gold rose," said Har- 
 riet, '' having such confidence in the climate 
 as to blossom out of doors — think of a climate 
 which allows such condudl — and think too, 
 how I have to take an old slipper every night 
 and go over the store room with it killing the 
 cockroaches, and I have to examine those 
 muslin curtains carefully, lest the wretches 
 should leave their eggs in the folds." Hav- 
 ing military command of a Post, gives the 
 commandant an authority by which it is pos- 
 sible to see to the sanitary arrangements as 
 no municipal authority ever can. Therefore 
 the sanitary conditions of the different towns 
 all along the Atlantic and the Gulf during 
 the war, were excellent. The precautions 
 suggested by the doctors, the care for prevail- 
 
 4i 
 
ing cleanliness, had its beneficial effect. The 
 only cases of yellow fever in the Department 
 were two or three at Hilton Head which ter- 
 minated fatally in the case of Gen. Mitchell, 
 but other than these there was no illness of 
 an epidemic nature. Harriet visited the hos- 
 pital regularly, because there were always a 
 few cases of illness of some sort, but they did 
 not need the care and labor, which afterward 
 fell to her share in Washington or later still 
 at Wilmington, where the released prisoners 
 were brought from Andersonville, and the 
 refugees following General Sherman's march 
 brought jail fever and typhus in its worst 
 form. 
 
 I said the war cloud hung over us always, 
 even during these hours at St. Augustine 
 which had an outside look of peacefulness. 
 Our house was directly on the bay, with only 
 the width of a road between us and the stone 
 coping of the sea wall, which kept the waters 
 from invading the land. We sat on the 
 piazza one evening watching the refledlions 
 and sparkles of the moon on the water ; the 
 
 45 
 
bugles had just rung out ''taps," in sweet 
 silvery sounds, from the fort, from the bar- 
 racks and from the guard house. We listened 
 as we always did to the long clear notes, then 
 the colonel said, '' these are the horrors of 
 war," and then added abruptly, '' I have writ- 
 ten to Hilton Head asking General Gilmore 
 to recall us. While all that pounding is 
 going on at Fort Sumter, I cannot rest here. 
 The post is in order now, the matters I was 
 sent here to settle are all arranged, probably 
 the next steamer will bring orders for us to go." 
 Harriet said nothing, she had expected it, 
 I think. Half the regiment under Lt.-Col. 
 Rodman had been ordered up to Hilton Head 
 a short time before. It was natural that the 
 colonel should wish to have all '' our boys," 
 as we had come to think of and call them, with 
 him, and natural too for him to wish to be in 
 the thick of whatever was going on. It was 
 the end of our quiet evenings. The last 
 steamer had brought the adlual news from 
 Gettysburg, although we knew before, that a 
 great battle must have taken place some- 
 
 46 
 
where. The word had filtered into the air, as 
 it were — probably it had in some way come 
 to the negroes from their communication 
 with each other, or the rebel inhabitants of 
 the town, for there were many, had learned 
 it through our lines ; so we were not sur- 
 prised when the great news really came, and 
 all soldiers' souls beat with a desire to ter- 
 minate this struggle ; to close up the ranks 
 and march on to the end. 
 
 The next evening, *' steamer from Hilton 
 Head," was signalled, and we made ready 
 for news from Fort Sumter, and from ''our 
 boys," who were at Morris Island. The 
 steamer had to lie off the bar that night, but 
 came in the next morning, in the glorious 
 sunlight with all her flags flying and we 
 thought there must be good news. We heard 
 shouting and than a burst of cheering down 
 at the wharf and rushed to the door forget- 
 ting military discipline, and spoke to the 
 sentry on guard there — ''What is it, what 
 is the news?" said we. The man turned 
 toward us, the expression of his face, never 
 
 47 
 
to be forgotten, as lie jammed his cap over his 
 eyes, and answered huskily, " Our boys led 
 in an attack on Fort Wagner ; we was re- 
 pulsed — our major is wounded, Capt. Burdick 
 is killed, Capt. Chamberlin is a prisoner, and 
 they have ordered the rest of us up there." 
 
 Harriet and I looked at each other ; after a 
 pause, in which neither of us spoke or could 
 speak so heavily had the blow fallen, she 
 said, '' Those flags must be mended before 
 they go." 
 
 " We're ordered off to-morrow morning at 
 sunrise," said the sentry. 
 
 It was Sunday but we hunted up the one 
 or two silk dresses we had ventured to bring, 
 took pieces from them, sent around to the 
 wives of other of&cers to know if they could 
 not also contribute (they did — what they 
 could), and we worked all day on the piazza 
 patching the eagle, and the stripes, and stars 
 which had flown so gloriously when Fort 
 Pulaski was taken, and were to fly more glori- 
 ously than ever when Fort Fisher fell two 
 years later. 
 
 48 
 
Colonel Hawley's own comfort was not for- 
 gotten. Harriet slipped into his scanty bag- 
 gage whatever he could be persuaded to take, 
 that would be of use to him on the burning 
 sands of Morris Island. 
 
 The next morning it was a saddened group 
 of women who watched the steamer down the 
 bay and out over the bar. 
 
 Mrs. Wayland, bright and sweet as she 
 usually was, had been crying that morning, 
 and the looks on the faces of the rest of us 
 told our story. 
 
 " I wish I had asked what they cheered so 
 for yesterday morning, and made me think it 
 was good news," said she. " I asked," said I. 
 
 "What was it?" her tone that of one who 
 would like to quarrel with something, as a 
 means of diverting emotions stirred to their 
 depths. 
 
 "It was for the bravery of our boys in the 
 attack and their pluck in the retreat." 
 
 Her question had not served its objedl, we 
 all melted into silent tears again as we re- 
 called the meeting we had had on the piazza 
 
 49 
 
the evening before, where the seven remain- 
 ing companies drawn up in line, the colonel, 
 his own voice breaking sometimes as he spoke, 
 had read the report of the fight, with personal 
 mention of the men's bravery in many in- 
 stances ; bringing home the adlualities of a 
 fight as nothing else could ever have done. 
 
 Harriet afterward had a chance to visit her 
 husband at Morris Island, and part of the 
 next winter she spent with him in camp at 
 Helena Island, opposite Hilton Head ; the 
 regiment being ordered there to rest and 
 recruit after the hot summer on the sand at 
 Morris Island. 
 
 I was with her only a part of the time and 
 so cannot give full details of her life there. 
 In one of her letters she says : 
 
 " I've commenced a little school among the soldiers; 
 there were many among the conscripts and substitutes 
 who could neither read nor write. One, a North Car- 
 olina cracker, a deserter from the rebel army, came 
 and asked me to teach him and I told him to bring as 
 many others as he could. They are most of them 
 very hard cases and I am somewhat afraid they will 
 
 50 
 
steal everything in the tent and pick my pocket, but 
 I enjoy teaching them, they are so eager to learn." 
 
 Jan. 17, 1864, a meeting in the church on St. 
 Helena Island. "It was a beautiful day and the 
 church was crowded : we were quite early and the 
 scene at the church — itself surrounded by great trees 
 and literally in the woods where groups of people, 
 black and white, old and young, babies and children, 
 on foot, on horseback, in wagons, in donkey carts — in- 
 describable and nameless vehicles — the black women 
 dressed in gay colors — invariably wearing turbans, 
 the men, many of them in clothes Ham must have 
 brought out of the ark — the white ladies in fashion- 
 able poky bonnets and here and there an officer in 
 uniform — altogether was very picturesque. They 
 sang two of their wild hymns — then Mr. French read 
 a portion of scripture and made them a short address 
 and read them a circular from Gen. Saxton telling 
 them all about Mr. Lincoln's arrangements in regard 
 to the lands. They are to be allowed to preempt the 
 Government lands here just as other people are out 
 west and to buy, if they can, to the extent of 40 acres, 
 the ground being surve3^ed and laid out into lots of 
 twenty acres each and they are to pay only $1.25 per 
 acre. I am thankful so wise a plan has been adopted. 
 Now the world can see whether the blacks can take 
 care of themselves or not. He was followed by Gen. 
 Saxton, then by several other speakers, with singing 
 
 51 
 
by the congregation. It is a great day for the negroes 
 when they are permitted in South Carolina to become 
 land-owners. It was strange to see the intense though 
 still excitement among them, some of those in the 
 galleries bent forward so eagerly I thought they 
 would fall on their heads among the people below. ' ' 
 
 52 
 
The next spring we both went north, and 
 she wrote her husband : 
 
 ''I can't bear to leave the men, I want to be where 
 I can go to the hospital and see some of their faces 
 every day. It seems like home to me if I can only 
 see a soldier with a 7 in his cap." 
 
 And again March 9, 1864. "The more I went 
 about among our poor wounded men at Hilton Head 
 the harder it was for me to leave, and one of the old 
 nurses in the General Hospital, whom I knew pretty 
 well, begged me so hard to stay when I told him I 
 was going, sajang that he knew I did good among 
 the men — that even at the last moment I made an 
 effort to get a place in the linen room. I did not suc- 
 ceed, but I came away more than half determined to 
 go right back. I was pleased as any school girl in 
 watching the elegant carriages and fine horses and 
 superb dresses of the ladies as I drove up Broadway 
 Monday afternoon, but suddenly I seemed to see far 
 more plainly the bare rooms with long rows of narrow 
 cots, in each one a worn, patient, manly face, and 
 before I knew it I was sobbing. I must go back and 
 do what I can for my poor boys. It was hard enough 
 to come away, it seemed to pull my heart in two. I 
 
 53 
 
am afraid you will oppose me, but I want to get Miss 
 Dix to appoint me to some place in a Hospital at 
 Beaufort — in the linen room, or as an assistant nurse, 
 so that my duties shall not be too heavy for my 
 strength, but so that I shall have some regular work 
 to do and feel that I have a right to be there." 
 
 April 3d, answering a letter from her husband. 
 ' ' It does me good to have you write your whole soul 
 out to me so. It makes me feel that I haven't lived 
 with you all these years for nothing, that I really am 
 part of you — part of your life. I'm more and more 
 thankful that I have been with you this past year [in 
 the South]. How I thank God for giving me a hus- 
 band who can fight straight on under that great inex- 
 orable duty, not only through this war, but through 
 any political war that ma}^ come for God and the 
 right ! I honor you more and more as the years go 
 by — and though I'm not without ambition for you 
 [pray God it may not be a selfish ambition] yet I tell 
 you truly, I would rather live with you in utter pov- 
 erty all ni3^ life than have you stain one little corner 
 of your soul in a struggle for place or power. You 
 know how I love you, yet I do not exaggerate when 
 I say that I would rather see you dead than see you 
 
 such a man as . I am not exacftly content that 
 
 you should deserve promotion and not receive it, yet 
 perhaps I am as nearly so as it is worth while to be. 
 I can't help longing for rest, too, sometimes, but I 
 
 54 
 
shall never have it in this world, and I thank God 
 most heartily that at last I have something to do 
 better than crochet-work ! Not that I am going to 
 despise that, but if He will only give me strength 
 enough to do something real for Him !" 
 
 Then in April she was assigned to the 
 hospital at Armory Square in Washington, 
 starting a new ward, where none of her inti- 
 mate friends were with her and where her life 
 was such a round of trying labor, that she 
 never put much of it into her letters. 
 
 " It was terrible enough to live it, without 
 trying to reproduce it to others," she said 
 afterward when we remarked we knew very 
 little of her there. The worst cases from the 
 battlefields of the Potomac army were brought 
 there, because it was near the landing and 
 because the rooms were airy. Her ward 
 was large and sometimes six men died in one 
 day from their wounds, during that terrible 
 summer when McClellan was fighting before 
 Richmond. She wrote to her husband of the 
 less trying and touching scenes, keeping her 
 letters always cheerful and bright. She was 
 
 55 
 
on duty from six in the morning till ten at 
 night, with only a few minutes for hurried 
 meals. 
 
 "As I have so large a ward, my doctor has given 
 me two orderlies beside the ' No. 6,' which every lady 
 nurse has, and who is supposed to do her errands and 
 assist her in giving medicines. My ' No. 6 ' is inval- 
 uable." 
 
 She had been in her ward two days, six 
 men had died, two more were so low that 
 they could not live until morning, when she 
 writes : 
 
 " I am glad and thankful that I am here, just as I 
 am that you are there, yet the days drift by in one 
 long agon5^ I am learning not to let mj^self y"^^/ as 
 much as I did at first, yet I can never get used to it." 
 *'0, my men are dying so fast! The truth is this 
 Hospital is so near the boat that it is alwa3^s filled up 
 with the very worst cases, and this time they all say 
 they have never had men whose systems seemed in 
 such a low bad state. There comes a man to tell me 
 ' Capt. Bell is bleeding,' a secondary hemorrhage, 
 and I thought his amputated leg was doing so 
 nicely. There his sweet, gentle, motherly-looking 
 wife is standing right by him and his children." 
 
 56 
 
The tenth corps was ordered up to the 
 James River in Virginia in the spring of 
 1864. Of their first fighting at Bermuda 
 Hundreds she wrote, June 9th, 1864 : — 
 
 "The Seventh has been in heavy adlion. It is 
 terrible that it should have suffered so. My boys — 
 my boys — they don't know how I love them." 
 
 June 12, 1864. "I must stop and give out my 
 stimulants. To think that / should ever be glad to 
 see men drink whiskey ! We give a great deal, our 
 men are in so low a condition." 
 
 ' ' I had no idea of the amount of brains and labor 
 required to keep even one ward in a Hospital in good 
 working order, even after it is all started : nurses, 
 waiters, doctors and all, we all work as hard as we 
 can. How the M. C's pour in upon us ! All very 
 right for them to look after the soldiers, and especially 
 those from their districts, but I do wish they wouldn't 
 wear such squeaking boots and tramp about so noisily. 
 They wouldn't do so in the sickroom of a man at 
 home, why should they do it in the sickroom of thirty 
 men ?" 
 
 To her husband, July 24. "You see what the 
 Sanitar}^ Commission does and I see what the Sol- 
 dier's Aid does. One of the nurses who had been 
 here more than a year said to me to-day, that she 
 couldn't have made her men comfortable if it had 
 
not been for the Hartford Aid. The Government 
 provides all the essejitials, food and medicine, and 
 surgeons and nurses, but I don't think Uncle Sam 
 provides pocket handkerchiefs or easy chairs when 
 the sick boys first begin to sit up, or carpet slippers, 
 or lemonade when they are feverish, or jelly to tempt 
 their appetites a little when they're sick of Hospital 
 tea [which isn't like home tea], or books and games 
 [checkers and dominoes, and soltaire, etc.] to help 
 along the weary hours of a slow convalescence.. You 
 go into a Hospital and ask the boys if they want any- 
 thing and they'll tell you 'no, they are very well 
 taken care of, ' and yet you find that all these things 
 and many more are ver}^ acceptable when they are 
 offered, and really help the men to get well. Good- 
 night, there is the bugle and I shall be in darkness in 
 a moment." 
 
 Aug. 12. "I am weary of this whole matter of 
 promotion. The way these things are managed here 
 in Washington is unutterably disgusting to me. If I 
 did not reall}'^ believe that you could do much more 
 good as an officer, that you are needed as one, I should 
 really think of asking you to resign and enlist as a 
 private. I can't tell you how hateful the whole busi- 
 ness seems. O, I think the world needs to have 
 Christ come again." 
 
 " For God's love don't say you wish it were per- 
 missible to fight duels. I can imagine no circum- 
 
 58 
 
stances which would excuse a duel in this age. If a 
 man is good for anything, he is too good to be shot at 
 for any personal quarrel, — if he is good for nothing 
 he certainly is not good enough to shoot at you. If 
 two utterly abandoned wretches choose to agree to 
 shoot each other, that might save the hangman a job, 
 but I suppose that would hardly be called a duel. 
 No, I cannot conceive of anything which could make 
 a duel seem right to me, though I think there are out- 
 rages which justify a man in shooting another in cold 
 blood just as he would an uncaged tiger." 
 
 Aug. 14, 1864. " I wish you could look in and see 
 my ward now, all so clean and nice and quiet, every- 
 body with clean shirts and clean pillow cases and 
 clean spreads on the beds, most of the men either 
 reading or asleep, and all evidently comfortable. It 
 would take but a few things more to make my ward 
 come up to my ideal. I shall be as proud of it as 
 you of your regiment. I'm not sure whether my men 
 like me very much, but I know they mind me and 
 keep order, and that's what I care most for." 
 
 She went away for needed rest about Sept. 
 8th, 1864 and returned Nov. 26th of the same 
 year. 
 
 ' ' Having got creditably through with our ' inspec- 
 tion,' having made out and sent in my requisitions for 
 59 
 
food, and having revised my medicine list and given 
 all my boys their dinners, and brought an apple to 44 
 and made him some lemonade and cut his hair, and 
 changed the cushions under 39' s foot and leg so that 
 the poor fellow could be comfortable, and having had 
 a short service conducted by a member of the Chris- 
 tian Commission, I can write you with a good con- 
 science." 
 
 Dec. 18, 1864. " Last evening we ladies had a tea- 
 party. These tea-parties are quite festal occasions 
 with us, though they consist simply in our taking 
 our tea together in the minute parlor otherwise called 
 lumber room of the ladies' house. Each one con- 
 tributes what she can to the table, each one owns a cup 
 and saucer and teaspoon, and we have three or four 
 knives and two forks among us. Plates we scarcely 
 know the use of, and a deceased sheet does duty as 
 a table cloth, the table consisting of three of the little 
 stands which we have in our rooms for dressing tables, 
 set together. My poor boy with the lock-jaw is really 
 better to-night, I think he may live it through, and 
 so I shall sleep." 
 
 Dec. 25, 1864. "They [her 'boys'] made me a 
 charming present this morning greatly to my surprise, 
 of a nice photograph album — a really handsome one 
 in which I hope to see many of their thin faces soon. 
 I was very much pleased and touched, for I have 
 always had the feeling that my boys cared very little 
 
 6U 
 
about me. I have been so busy always, had so much 
 more to do all Lummer than I possibly could do, that 
 I had no time to be agreeable to my men or to make 
 special friends of them, and have always felt that they 
 could not possibly know how much I cared for them. 
 And when I came back this fall, I found my ward 
 had been mismanaged and was so completely demor- 
 alized — the men were so noisy and dirty, and rude, 
 that, though I took hold of the work of reformation 
 with good pluck, yet I felt and knew that I must 
 share the fate of all reformers in becoming thoroughly 
 unpopular. But my boys are good ones I find, as 
 well as brave ones, and can stand my fault-finding as 
 well as bullets, and some of them certainly appreciate 
 my efforts to do all I can for them." 
 
 Dec. 25, 1864. "We trimmed the ward by way of 
 keeping Christmas. A wreath of evergreens hangs 
 on each of the twelve pillars, festoons across the center 
 of the hall, a large garrison flag looped across the far 
 end, while at this end are crosses and stars. Mrs. 
 Foster sent me eight beautiful flowering plants which 
 stand in the windows, and a bouquet of fresh flowers 
 from Miss Dixon on the piano. I have rarely enjoyed 
 anything more than sitting and chatting with my 
 men and tying greens yesterday. The Commissary 
 and I clubbed together and gave all the full diet 
 patients a plum pudding, and we lady nurses did the 
 same by all the others. I take great comfort in Ward, 
 
 61 
 
m}^ No. 6, who is not only faithful in his ordinary 
 duties but a reliable friend and able to be of very 
 great assistance to me in telling me about the men." 
 
 Dec. 30th, 1864. "We were wild with delight 
 when we heard of Sherman's victory. I couldn't 
 help going down in the dining-room where my full 
 diet patients and those of the ward above — a hundred 
 and thirt}'- — were at breakfast, and getting the ward- 
 master to call for three cheers for Sherman." 
 
 Jan. ist, 1865. "To-day being New Year's, I 
 treated my boys by adding turnips and potatoes to 
 their dinner of stewed beef [fresh], and pickles and 
 pudding. I gave them a dessert too, of some of Mr. 
 Clark's nice apples, and I said Happy New Year to 
 everybody I met, and that's about all. I forgot that 
 I gave a cravat to each of my four section nurses and 
 have another waiting for the little black-eyed boy, 
 who made me a Christmas present of some paper and 
 envelopes. A strange life we lead here — monotonous 
 enough, yet very intense, very absorbing and very 
 exciting. Isolated to a degree which is really absurd 
 considering where we are, we have a little world of 
 our own, and there is a great deal of pleasure in it and 
 a strange fascination." 
 
 She went into Ward A, in January, 1865. 
 
 January 6th. " I felt very badly to leave the 
 armory, and must confess I am not a little homesick 
 
 62 
 
to go back to it, as it was my duty to induct the 
 ' new lady ' into the armory at the same time I was 
 to report for duty in ' A ' — and as the new lady had 
 never been into a hospital before, and didn't know 
 anything about it, I really took charge of them both, 
 making out requisitions, etc., at first, and I still feel 
 it my duty to go up there and visit my boys at least 
 once every day. Then we are turned out of the 
 ladies' house, which is to be lathed and plastered, 
 and put into rooms in the rear of the wards." 
 
 Jan. 15, 1865. " My boy, who has the lock-jaw, is 
 slowly dying ; perfectly resigned and happy. I had 
 a good little talk with him just now ; it is a comfort 
 to talk with anyone who seems to stand and look as 
 it were into the other world so calmly and happily. 
 
 " Capt. Nichols, of one of our Conne(5licut regi- 
 ments, is dying in the next ward. I have just been 
 to say a few comforting words to his poor aunt, who 
 reached him this morning. She brought him up and 
 has been more than a mother to him. One of my 
 men died last night very suddenly, indeed. The doc- 
 tor was as much surprised by it as I. Such things 
 are exceedingly painful, for they leave with me a 
 mingled grief and remorse and self reproach, that I 
 had not done more for the poor fellow — had not real- 
 ized how sick he was." 
 
 In this new Ward she speaks of the dififer- 
 
 63 
 
ence in the work, the men mostly convales- 
 cents. 
 
 "The work not exhausting but most of it very- 
 pleasant, as it brings me into very pleasant and 
 friendly relations with my men." 
 
 Feb. 19, 1865. "I think you will go back to the 
 * Press.' I do not believe you would be contented long 
 if you should have an appointment abroad. I think 
 you would very soon feel the sort of stimulus the 
 work at home would be, and I think the work there 
 needs you." 
 
 ' ' There comes that odious Walt Whitman to talk 
 evil and unbelief to my bo3^s. I think I would rather 
 see the evil one himself — at least if he had horns and 
 hoofs — in my ward. I vShall get him out as soon as 
 possible." 
 
 February 23d. "Glorious victories! I stood and 
 listened to the salutes yesterday. There are so many 
 fortifications in and around Washington that the roar 
 and thunder was grand. My boys said it was like old 
 times in front of Petersburg, etc." 
 
 " One of my boys died last night. A little slender 
 delicate-lookir;g black boy, about as fit to be a soldier 
 as I — less so, for he had consumption. He never 
 thought of enlisting, but a substitute broker went 
 over into Canada [he lived just over the line] drugged 
 him and several others, and when they woke up they 
 
 64 
 
were in Buffalo, where they were sold as substitutes ; 
 not only outraged himself, but made to cheat the Gov- 
 ernment also. He never did any duty, never could, 
 but has been here dying for the last three months, 
 and at last sank away to sleep as quietly as a little 
 child. That night he seemed to suffer no pain, but 
 lay and sang ' I want to go to Jesus ' and the Halle- 
 lujah song [the first time he has ever sung since he 
 came here], stretched out his hand to his black friend, 
 who lay in the next bed, saying, ' give me your 
 hand, ' and shook it ; and when asked if he felt better, 
 replied, ' O, yes, I'm well now,' and sang the Halle- 
 lujah once more. There are wrongs which only 
 Heaven can right — but surely that poor child had a 
 little glimpse, even here, of the happiness of the 
 Eternal City. I am taking comfort among my boys, 
 though I have two men very sick with the lung fever. 
 I can see that I have a great deal of influence in the 
 ward and many of the men are very much attached to 
 me as I to them." 
 
 March 3d, 1865. "Do you remember Mr. O ? 
 
 His son was brought here from City Point about a 
 month ago — very low, dying — and only lived long 
 enough to be put into a decent bed. He was not in 
 my ward, but I happened to be in just in time to 
 close the poor boy's eyes. I wrote to his father and 
 was surprised by a visit from the old man a few days 
 ago. He had come to obtain the body of his son. 
 
 65 
 
He came in this morning — his simple hearted, honest, 
 earnest patriotism and grief were very touching. ' ' 
 
 March 5, 1865. "I have to give passive move- 
 ments to No. 30 — it is time after that for my Bible 
 class and then the lights will be turned down." 
 
 She saw the second inauguratiou of Lincoln 
 and says : 
 
 ' ' The most significant thing to me in the celebra- 
 tion was the battalion of colored infantry and the 
 colored brass band and delegation [a large one] from 
 the colored Odd Fellows. It is difficult to remember 
 sometimes that this is the District of Columbia." 
 
 March 12, 1865. " My life here is more absorbing 
 than anything I could have ever imagined. It is 
 more like that of a mother of a very large family than 
 anything else. Irately some of my boys have mani- 
 fested some interest in religious subjec5ls, and every 
 evening a few of us gather around my table and read 
 a chapter or two in the Bible and talk a little just 
 before the last bugle. These things give me an added 
 sense of responsibility." 
 
 Feb. 16, 1865. **My men are all doing well. I 
 am trying to persuade some of the j^ounger ones who 
 are convalescent to stud}^ regularly every day, biit 
 don't know that I shall succeed." 
 
 Feb. 27, 1865. To a sister at home — "You spoke 
 of a bedquilt in your last ; and havn't you a Soldiers' 
 
Aid which could send me some bandages too ? made 
 of either strong old cloth or new which has been 
 washed, so that it is entirely free from starch. I 
 should particularly like the quilt, for I have a couple 
 of poor fellows here who have been lying on their 
 backs — one since last June, the other since last May — 
 and I think they will be amused by looking at the 
 pieces. One of them, who cannot read very much, 
 would I know enjoy it for he has told me about his 
 own sewing when a bo3^ I've been teaching him to 
 crochet, which he seems to find quite a comfort, and 
 if any of your j^oung ladies want to make him a 
 present tell them to send him half a dozen skeins of 
 bright colored worsted, such as will make pretty little 
 lamp mats. Do not blame me if I neglect you and 
 everything else, the life here is so absorbing. I grow 
 to love my boys so much and I can at last see that I 
 am having some influence over them, and that gives 
 me a greater sense of responsibility than ever." 
 
 Whether taught by her own experience or 
 by the gentle gift of ministry which belonged 
 to her, she was so deeply convinced that no 
 trifle was unimportant which could vary the 
 depressing monotony of a sick-room, that dur- 
 ing her stay in the Armory Square Hospital, 
 when she went to her room at noon she 
 
 67 
 
always clianged her dress, though it was only 
 substituting for one simple cambric gown, 
 another of different color and pattern. 
 
 After the battles in the Wilderness, the 
 hospital was so crowded that many men were 
 in tents outside. Her way to and from the 
 hospital to the dinner barrack lay past one of 
 these tents, in which were two men so placed 
 that one saw her as she approached and the 
 other as she went away. Later, when they 
 were moved into the building, it was found 
 that the events which had varied their weary 
 day had been seeing her pass by. At the 
 regular hours of her coming, the one who 
 could see her, was on the watch. 
 
 " There comes the neat little woman," he 
 would say to his comrade, who answered, 
 
 " What dress has she got on .^" 
 
 " We always called you the neat little 
 woman ; we did'nt know your name," one of 
 them told her afterwards : '' John and I used to 
 wish we could have a wife like that, if we ever 
 got well and got home. We didn't know, then, 
 you was married ma'am," he added, simply. 
 
 68 
 
She made strong efforts to get some mem- 
 bers of the Seventh who were in prison, re- 
 leased, Captain Chamberlain and others — 
 interviewing Senator and Mrs. Foster and 
 then Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, and 
 Mr. Faxon, Asst. Sec. They all promised to 
 do what they could. 
 
 To her husband — "I've just received a note from 
 Mr. Foster saying that the Secretary of War had put 
 the names of our four Seventh officers on the list of 
 special exchanges ; so the main point I have gained, 
 but do not say anything about it at present, for it 
 may be many months still before they are free. Of 
 course I shall not give it up till they are." 
 
 69 
 
Her husband in March, 1865, was ordered 
 to Wilmington, N. C. ; he had become com- 
 mander of a brigade and was now put in com- 
 mand of this post. Harriet soon joined him, 
 finding more work to be done there than even 
 in the hospital. 
 
 She wrote to her sister — "A steamer goes North 
 to-morrow, but as you haven't ' a son among the 
 paroled prisoners who reached Wilmington about 
 March ist, and hasn't been heard from since,' I can- 
 not spend much time on you." 
 
 To a cousin, April 7, 1865. "I intended long ago 
 to write you acknowledging the receipt of the pictures 
 you sent me for my ward in the Armory Square Hos- 
 pital, but I had so many pressing duties to occupy my 
 time and strength that the time for letter-writing 
 never came, and I am not sure it ever will come in 
 any satisfadlory way. 
 
 ''It is twelve days since I arrived here, sea-sick, 
 weak and wear}^ — having had five da3^s and nights 
 on the propeller between Washington and this place. 
 I did not enjoy the trip, but I have been sicker once 
 or twice in my life. Wilmington is a larger place 
 than I had supposed it to be ; quite a city in fadl, but 
 
 70 
 
like every city I have seen in the South, shows de- 
 cided marks of decay and of the war. Evidently no 
 repairs of any sort have been made for the last four 
 years. We are pleasantly situated in a very large 
 house, a rather showy one, but still very handsome in 
 all respe<5ls. It is at present, nearly destitute of fur- 
 niture, and I see but little prospedl of obtaining some 
 of the articles that we consider indispensable at the 
 North— such as carpets and window curtains or shades 
 of any sort. My room is furnished principally with 
 an enormous elegantly framed mirror, but that is 
 better than nothing, you know. 
 
 ' ' My husband has more to do than you can well 
 imagine. Besides the infinite variety of vexatious 
 little questions, legal and military, which his position 
 as commandant of the district necessitates his settling 
 every day of his life, he is constantly receiving and 
 forwarding troops and provisions to General Sher- 
 man's army and to do that, has been obHged to repair 
 railroads and bridges with [of course under such cir- 
 cumstances] insufficient means and too few men and 
 tools. You know that over nine thousand of our 
 prisoners were delivered to us here, and no human 
 tongue or pen can describe the horrible condition 
 which they were in. Siarvi?tg to death, covered with 
 vermin, with no clothing but the filthy rags they had 
 worn during their whole imprisonment — a period of 
 from five to twenty months ; cramped by long sitting 
 
 71 
 
in one position so that they could not straighten their 
 limbs — their feet rotted off — oh, God! I cannot 
 endure to speak of it ! 
 
 " Of course thej^ brought the jail fever with them — 
 it could not be otherwise ; yet they must be fed and 
 cleaned, and clothed, and cared for. There were no 
 hospital accommodations here worth mentioning ; 
 there were not dodlors enough, and they over- worked 
 themselves and caught the fever and died. Buildings 
 of all sorts were converted into temporary hospitals 
 and the nurses [enlisted men] fell sick at the rate of 
 fifty a day. The chaplains worked as only Christian 
 men can work, and they sickened too ; Chaplain Eaton 
 [7th Conn. Vols.] died a real martyr ; Mr. Tiffany 
 [6th Conn. Vols.] has barely struggled through a 
 most terrible attack of the fever and is slowly recover- 
 ing. Another, whose name I cannot recall, is still 
 very low ; can hardly be expedled to live. Three out 
 of the five lady nurses sent by Miss Dix have been 
 very ill, and one, Miss Kimball died this morning 
 resigned and happy, as such a woman could not fail 
 to be, yet leaving many friends to mourn for her, and 
 a place here that no one can fill. 
 
 ' ' Dr. Burrill, the general medical officer and one 
 who cannot be too highly spoken of both as a man 
 and a physician, died of the fever last week. Dr. 
 Palmer has since followed him ; but the terrible list 
 of those dead and still sick of the fever, is too long 
 
 72 
 
for me to try to write it. It is only within the last 
 five days that they have received any hospital sup- 
 plies. Previous to that time many of the men were 
 lying in straw spread on the floor, although the vari- 
 ous citizens have given and done all in their power. 
 What could a few families do from their private sup- 
 plies, toward furnishing thirty-nine hundred men with 
 beds and bedding ? Besides these there were the con- 
 valescent ones to be clothed. Thank God, the vessel 
 that the Sanitary Commission sent came soon with 
 nine thousand shirts and drawers, so that when I first 
 saw them they all had at least so much in the way of 
 clothing. 
 
 * ' We got possession of twelve hundred yards of 
 cotton cloth and a bale of cotton. I called a meeting 
 of the benevolent ladies of the place, the Sanitary 
 Commission gave us thread and in a week's time the 
 materials were made up : a hundred and thirty-eight 
 pillow cases, a hundred and fifty-three pillows, eighty- 
 four bed sacks and as many sheets. With these and 
 other stores the hospitals are now all tolerably well 
 supplied. 
 
 ' ' Of course many have been sent North, all who 
 were able to go, and many have died on the road, yet 
 there are still many here. And as if this were not 
 misery enough for one poor little city, Sherman sent 
 here six thousand refugees, black and white, old men 
 and women, children and babies, with nothing but 
 
 73 
 
what they could carry on their backs, or in a few 
 cases, drag in a little old mule-cart. 
 
 * ' And these poor wretches must be housed and fed 
 with the city already crowded and the fever spreading 
 among the citizens. It is impossible for you to im- 
 agine the misery which has stared me in the face at 
 every step since I have been here. I can find no 
 words to describe it. This very afternoon I carried 
 food and wine to a woman who had been l3dng sick 
 for three days on a little straw in an old wagon in an 
 open shed, discovered accidentally by one of our 
 officers. Of course this is not an every day case, but 
 it is a wonder that it is not. Many of these refugees 
 have been sent North and many more will be, but 
 the mere fa(5l of their being transported thus involves 
 a vast amount of labor which must mostly fall upon 
 the soldiers, and the garrison here is small — as small as 
 it can be kept and do the necessary work and guard 
 duty. And besides all this the city has been shame- 
 fully neglected for many months and it is fearfully 
 dirty, and there is but a small number of teams and 
 wagons to do so great an amount of scavenger work. 
 Well, I meant to give you some idea of the various 
 kinds of work and care my husband has on his shoul- 
 ders and I have made a long story of it, yet it seems 
 to me I have told you little. 
 
 ' * It did, and still does sometimes look very hope- 
 less here on all sides. You at the North will never 
 
 74 
 
be able to conceive of our prisoners. You may see 
 all the piAures and read all the accounts and believe 
 or think you believe, every word of them, and then 
 you will have but a faint idea. Men have lain on the 
 ground here, dying, with the vermin literally swarm- 
 ing in steady paths up and down their bodies, as ants 
 go in lines about the ant-hills ; one poor fellow, a 
 sergeant, died in the house of a kind lady here, 
 whose limbs were so cramped by long sitting through 
 weakness, that they could not be straightened, even 
 when he died, so that his coffin had to be made with 
 the cover shaped like a tent. 
 
 ' ' Women were afraid to walk over the plank side- 
 walks where some of the prisoners had been congre- 
 gated for a little time, through fear of vermin. Men 
 who had once been educated and cultivated with fine 
 minds, were reduced to idiocy — to utter and hopeless 
 imbecility. 
 
 ' ' More than forty men, whose feet or portions of 
 them had rotted off, left on the steamer yesterday. 
 I do not know how manj^ more such cases there had 
 been among them, but these men I saw. Think of 
 it, feet so rotted away that the surgeon cut them off 
 with scissors above the ankle ! Has God any retri- 
 bution for those who inflicted such suffering ? Has 
 their country any rewards for the men who suffered 
 thus month after month, rather than turn traitor — 
 rather than deny the old flag ? 
 
 75 
 
"To-day we have been firing salutes and ringing 
 the bells for the capture of Richmond. You should 
 have heard the hoarse voices of the boys in the hos- 
 pitals as they tried to cheer, when they heard the 
 bells this noon. I stood still in the street and cried 
 like a child as I heard them and it all ru.shed over my 
 mind at once how much it meant to theyn. 
 
 ' ' Good-bye. This is a long rambling letter ; for it 
 has dragged its slow length along through many 
 interruptions ; but I think you will read it and judge 
 it mildly. Just now a negro band comes up to seren- 
 ade us, and how very charmingly they play. Isn't 
 it a satisfaction that the negro troops were the first to 
 go into Richmond ? God gives us a little poetic jus- 
 tice sometimes. ' ' 
 
 May 28, 1865. "I spend my entire forenoons in 
 going about among the sick and poor. I load up v^y 
 little buggy with a miscellaneous stock of shirts, corn 
 starch, socks, condensed milk, tin cups, cologne, rags, 
 towels, tin plates, farina, whiskey, pillow-cases, diar- 
 rhea medicine, knives and forks and smelling salts, 
 not to mention apple-sauce and newspapers if I am 
 going among the soldiers ; Dennis, who drives for me, 
 has become very expert in finding out what I want. 
 I've been exposed to about every disease I know, 
 measles, small-pox, typhus fever and spotted fever, 
 but I seem to come out safely. ' ' 
 
 76 
 
Later in the year her husband was removed 
 to Richmond where he was Gen. Terry's 
 chief-of-staff. They were in the house of 
 Jefferson Davis. 
 
 July 30, i860. "Major-General and the Misses 
 Terry were once hissed in the street while quietly 
 riding, and once a pack of children yelled Yankee 
 Doodle, etc., after them ; but I am not so fortunate as 
 to meet with any adventures more exciting than an 
 uncivil degree of neglecft and inattention from the 
 proprietors of a dry goods store which was full of 
 F. F. V. customers whom they dared not offend." 
 
 While here she went with an uncle to visit 
 the grave of Uriah Parmelee, a much loved 
 cousin, who had been a captain in the ist 
 Connecticut Cavalry and was killed at the 
 battle of Five Forks. When returning the 
 mules became frightened and she was thrown 
 from the ambulance, striking her head. There 
 was no immediate anxiety felt as she was not 
 unconscious for any length of time, but the 
 injury resulted in an inflammation of the 
 brain from which she never fully recovered, 
 though with a patience and bravery which 
 
 77 
 
she had always shown, she came to live a 
 useful life again. She was shut up in a 
 darkened room for two years, in as quiet a 
 place as could be found for her — the noise of 
 the rustling of even a soft silk dress which 
 her mother wore in her room once, was too 
 much for her to bear. She told me after- 
 wards that she felt very proud when she 
 could sew two stitches a day. How persis- 
 tent her effort was to be better, to lose no 
 chance of improving, can be understood only 
 by those who have had long invalidism to con- 
 tend with and have risen triumphant above it. 
 She was obliged to lie many hours in total 
 silence and darkness. Even the crackling and 
 snapping of a little wood fire was unbearable. 
 During these days, she was escaping insanity. 
 She said, '' I used to look at an angle of 
 the wall of my room, and long to go and 
 strike my head against it. To do so would 
 be a relief to my agony it seemed, yet I knew 
 if I did it, I should go mad. I resisted the 
 temptation, but it almost overpowered me 
 once or twice." 
 
 78 
 
She got better because she willed it, and was 
 ready to undergo intelligently the require- 
 ments necessary to recovery. She and her 
 husband boarded two or three years in Hart- 
 ford, the general having gone back to his 
 work as editor of the " Hartford Courant,'^ 
 and when she felt that she was again able 
 to be something more than a hopeless in- 
 valid, he bought a house on Sigourney street, 
 and they moved out there and she commenced 
 housekeeping. 
 
 79 
 
" A good liusband, a good house, and 
 twenty-four glasses of currant jelly, are what 
 I shall have to begin with," said she, '^ and 
 what could one ask more ?" 
 
 Behind this house in Sigourney street is a 
 small oblong yard, perhaps twenty feet in 
 width, from which a strip of ground, five or 
 six feet wide, runs under the south windows 
 of the kitchen and dining room, to the west 
 wall of the back parlor. The wall of the 
 next house is so near that the sun never 
 shines upon this narrow place ; and in the 
 yard itself there is but little room which was 
 not occupied by the paved walk between the 
 kitchen door and the back gate, and the dry- 
 ing ground for the clothes. Yet here Harriet 
 had her flower garden. 
 
 The afternoon sun shines upon the little 
 yard, and all around it were borders gay with 
 flowers ; sometimes long vines of brilliant red 
 and yellow nasturtiums even crept over the 
 
 80 
 
tiny bit of greensward which belonged to the 
 clothes reel. 
 
 The narrow strip of ground was only wide 
 enough for a path and a border, and in that 
 more shady place she had lovely fuchsias, 
 which she petted in the house every winter 
 till they grew very large ; they were seldom 
 without blossoms. The farthest corner of all, 
 damp and dark, was beautiful with great 
 ferns. Over the kitchen door ran morning- 
 glories which she had trained with her own 
 hands, but they were not especially favored ; 
 every root and seed and cutting was planted 
 by the same slender fingers. 
 
 And she did more for her flowers than 
 merely plant and cultivate them, for, first of 
 all, she made the soil in which they grew. 
 The ground was at first, as it is almost every- 
 where in Hartford, a cold stiff clay. What 
 she did for her garden is given in her own 
 words, as she told it, some years after, to a 
 friend, who wished to know how to treat a 
 similar case. 
 
 81 
 
''When I came here this yard was just one big 
 brick — it wasn't fired, only sun-dried ! There wasn't 
 a blade of grass, or even a weed. I thought I must 
 have something to enrich it, and, above all, sand to 
 lighten it. But I found sand ' ruled in the market ' 
 about as high as gold dust, and what I wanted would 
 cost a king's ransom — whatever that is ! 
 
 ''So I had to do something else. I never had any- 
 thing carried off the place. All the cinders were sifted 
 out, and the ashes dug in all over the yard. Of 
 course, being coal ashes, they didn't enrich the soil — 
 their effect was only mechanical — they did lighten it. 
 Then whatever was left from the table, I buried in the 
 yard, with all the parings of the vegetables, and every 
 scrap of every kind which could not be used in the 
 house. Fish-skins and bones are particularly good ! 
 
 "When weeds began to grow, I pulled them up 
 and buried them. I still bury refuse in the flower- 
 bed, but not everything now, because I don't have 
 time ! But things you never would think of are good 
 for flower-beds. My very finest nasturtiums grew 
 where I buried the kitchen door mat !" 
 
 She was at this time still so far from strong 
 that she could walk btit a little way, could 
 not bear the motion of a carriage, and was 
 entirely unequal to any continued effort. But 
 
 82 
 
when sHe could do no more, she would work 
 very gently ten minutes in her flower-beds, 
 and then go into the house and lie down and 
 rest. In this way she got a little out-door air 
 and exercise with '' an objedl," which so many 
 invalids need and cannot find. She perse- 
 vered in this day after day and week after 
 week, even season after season, till gradually 
 the ^' sun-dried brick " became a lovely gar- 
 den, and by like slow imperceptible degrees, 
 every day's life being guided by unfaltering 
 resolution and self-control, she patiently and 
 bravely worked her way back to some meas- 
 ure of her former health. 
 
 Notwithstanding her illness and invalidism, 
 time touched her very gently, and when 
 most of her contemporaries had wrinkles and 
 gray hair, she had neither. One morning, 
 during a political campaign, an old man from 
 one of the country towns came to the house 
 to see General Hawley. He was not at home 
 and the old man asked many questions — when 
 he went, where he had gone, when he would 
 be at home, etc., which the maid could not 
 
 83 
 
answer. Harriet heard liim and went into 
 the hall. 
 
 " I am sorry General Hawley is not here. 
 Can I give him any message for yon ?'' 
 
 '' Why, I don't know — wal, yes — yon tell 
 the old general — you're his darter, I spose?" 
 
 ^' I am Gen. Hawley's wife," said Harriet, 
 with dignity. 
 
 "His wife! Wal- — you just tell him that 
 I came — and that I want him to — I reckon 
 General Hawley must have been pretty well 
 inter years when he married you ? Consider- 
 able younger than he is, I presume?" 
 
 Harriet's dignity was frigid now. 
 
 " We are about the same age," she said. 
 " What did you want me to tell him ?" 
 
 It happened that the evening of the same 
 day a friend repeated to her a compliment 
 which had been paid to her youthful appear- 
 ance. 
 
 " I don't care for that," she said, almost 
 sadly. " I don't wish to look young. I wish 
 to grow old as fast as Joe does — with him." 
 
 84 
 
One day, when putting a gun in order, Gen. 
 Hawley asked for sweet oil. Harriet diredled 
 him to the medicine shelf in the library closet. 
 He could not find it at first, and she said, 
 
 '^ It is in a bottle marked chloroform." 
 
 Still looking, he answered with the well- 
 worn truth that in a medicine cupboard every 
 thing should be correcfhly labelled — to neglect 
 it was often culpable carelessness — even fatal 
 accidents resulted from it. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, agreeing in the hum- 
 blest of tones. " Only suppose now, that any 
 one had smelled at that siveet oil^ taking it for 
 chloroform !" 
 
 Her sense of beauty was always remarka- 
 ble. Once, when she was only a child, she 
 followed a lady a long distance through city 
 streets, because she wore a handsome old 
 India shawl, such as the little girl had never 
 seen before. '^ I couldn't help it," she said, 
 '' it was so beautiful." 
 
 Her views as to the adoption of children 
 were carefully thought out and very decided. 
 She regarded it as a duty. 
 
 85 
 
" There should be no such thing as a home- 
 less child. There are homes enough — good 
 homes — enough for every child that God has 
 sent into the world," she said. " Only people 
 don't do their duty." 
 
 For some time her illnesses and lack of 
 strength prevented her endeavoring to accom- 
 plish her own strong wish in regard to this 
 matter, but when she was living in the house 
 on Sigourney street she thought herself able 
 to do it. She had always been watchful for 
 such a child as she wanted, but she now made 
 more active search, and, with that view wrote 
 to Dr. Samuel Abbot Green then city phy- 
 sician in Boston. 
 
 The child was to be a girl : she said she 
 had " not ground enough for a boy," and be- 
 sides she thought the establishing of a boy in 
 life involved more than she felt herself at 
 liberty to pledge to it. This girl was to have 
 no parents — it must be entirely Harriet's own 
 — and her belief in heredity was so strong 
 that she could not bring herself to be willing 
 to put forth all her little strength and allow 
 
 86 
 
herself to pour out the love of her motherly 
 heart on the child of immoral parents. These 
 were the essential points. Further, she wished 
 that the child should have no brothers or 
 sisters. 
 
 ^' I know how little I can do," she said. ^' I 
 can only take one now. If I should grow 
 stronger, perhaps I could take more, but now 
 even one is an experiment. I could not in- 
 fluence the future, or control the surrounding 
 of the brothers and sisters ; I could not even 
 be sure I should be able to keep track of 
 them. And how I should feel, by and by, to 
 have to tell her, ^' You have brothers and 
 sisters somewhere in the world, and if I had 
 done my duty, I should know where they are, 
 and you could have their affection ? She 
 wouldn't think much of me then — and she 
 would be right !" 
 
 Of the baby girls then in the charge of the 
 Temporary Home for Destitute Children in 
 Boston, there were none who fully came up 
 to the requirements. But there was one, 
 eighteen months old, whose parentage was 
 
 87 
 
unexceptionable, but who had an older brother 
 and a sister three months old. The child was 
 a lovely little creature, and a friend who went 
 to see it reported so favorably upon it that 
 Gen. Hawley went to Boston to see it, for 
 Harriet was not able then to take even so 
 short a journey. It was ill with measles 
 when he came, but he was delighted with its 
 beauty and its loving, winning ways. She 
 decided to take it, and began to love it at once, 
 notwithstanding its brown eyes, " though," 
 she said, " I did want it to have blue eyes 
 like Joe." True to her principles, she en- 
 deavored to find homes for the other children 
 among her friends, and her life-long friend, 
 Mrs. James Beecher, adopted the little baby. 
 Harriet made prompt arrangements for the 
 reception of her little girl. Indeed, she was 
 so delighted that she hardly thought of any- 
 thing else. She took the back chamber for 
 her own bedroom, that the airy and sunny 
 front room, afterward the library, might be a 
 nursery and sitting room. She bought ma- 
 terial for little white dresses, she engaged a 
 
 88 
 
nursery maid, and pondered hours upon the 
 baby's name. '' Aunty Gwynne " wrote from 
 the temporary home that the child was doing 
 well in the measles, and later that it had 
 recovered and the doctor thought there would 
 be no risk in the change. A day was fixed 
 when Gen. Hawley was to go to Boston to 
 bring it home. 
 
 That very morning a telegram announced 
 that the child was dead. Some after effect of 
 the disease had appeared suddenly, and it had 
 died after only a few hours' illness. 
 
 The sorrow of a real loss, almost of a be- 
 reavement, fell upon the expedlant household, 
 —not to be understood except by those who 
 knew the inmates well. Though not having 
 seen it, she had really loved it. She gave 
 away the little garments she had made with 
 loving anticipation, almost as if her child had 
 worn them. Her large eyes were piteous in 
 their sadness when she said, '' Nobody would 
 think I could so miss what I have not really 
 had ; but I have seen that child sitting on every 
 floor in the house. I miss her everywhere." 
 
The Boston people tried to fill the place in 
 various inappropriate ways, once sending the 
 pidlure of twin boy babies, thinking " Mrs. 
 Hawley might like to take them," but no 
 satisfadlory child was offered at once, and ere 
 long, illness and changes prevented another 
 adlive attempt to find one, until the death in 
 1885 of a widowed sister-in-law leaving four 
 children. The youngest of these Harriet 
 adopted. 
 
 Her life in Hartford in the new house is a 
 chapter full of incidents of her work for 
 others. She was interested in a charitable 
 society there for fallen women as she was 
 later in Washington, and she also helped 
 establish an art students' class, and decorative 
 art association ; she herself was one of the 
 pupils, developing a talent she had for paint- 
 ing, but to which she had never before had 
 the time to pay any attention. 
 
 She always kept open the channels of com- 
 munication between herself and a young girl, 
 the daughter of drunken parents, whom she 
 had taken under her charge before she was 
 
 90 
 
married, and had taught her housework and 
 sewing until the girl was able to support her- 
 self. This girl eventually married a decent 
 man and led a comparatively happy and pros- 
 perous life. 
 
 Young people were always attracted to 
 Harriet. Her sympathy with them was fine 
 and keen, full of fun and full of comfort too. 
 
 Among her letters we have found some 
 from girls who confided to her their love 
 affairs for the sake of her advice and sym- 
 pathy — letters that we did not read through 
 ourselves, because we felt that we were intrud- 
 ing on their privacy with her. One young 
 friend called her " Dame Burden," because 
 of a resemblance between her and Dickens' 
 Esther Summerson in Bleak House. 
 
 In setting forth this many-sided character, in 
 giving the gay, sweet, part of her intercourse 
 with others, the strong side is not to be for- 
 gotten. She was walking on Main street, in 
 Hartford, one day when she saw a policeman 
 forcing a very drunken woman along the 
 street toward the police station. The woman 
 
 91 
 
was struggling, disheveled, swearing and 
 screaming, making a spedlacle of herself 
 sickening to the beholder. Harriet went up 
 and spoke to her, laid her hand on her, saying, 
 " If you will go along quietly I will go with 
 you.^' The woman consented and walked the 
 rest of the way by Harriet's side. But when 
 she was sent to her cell she again became 
 furious, threatened to strip herself unless she 
 was released, and began tearing off her 
 clothes. 
 
 '' No," said Harriet, steadily, '' you will not 
 do that. Remain here quietly and I will come 
 to you to-morrow, when you are brought 
 before the judge." As Harriet spoke she 
 handed the woman a pin to fasten up her torn 
 clothes. The small act supplemented the 
 quiet words so practically, that the woman 
 yielded, took the pin, used it on her rent dress 
 and passed the night without more outbreaks. 
 The next morning Harriet appeared at the 
 police court and promised to find the woman 
 a place in the country where she could make 
 an effort to reform, if the judge would remit 
 
 92 
 
the sentence she deserved. The jndge did so 
 and Harriet sent her to the place as she had 
 promised, and the influences were so good 
 there that the woman lived for a year a decent 
 respectable life. Then she fell again and 
 once more was drunk. Harriet helped her 
 up once more, and then the woman reformed 
 — kept her promise and lived a new life for 
 the rest of the time that was left her on earth. 
 
 It was chara6leristic of Harriet to say noth- 
 ing about this matter at the time to us of her 
 household. When the message came to tell 
 her the case was to come up in court in an 
 hour, we wanted to know what a policeman 
 was coming after her for. 
 
 General Hawley was eledled Representative 
 to Congress in 1872. Mrs. Hawley went with 
 him to Washington. During her first winter 
 there she was an invalid, the next winter she 
 was in better health, and when he was re- 
 eleAed she was well again, although always 
 delicate from the severe accident before spoken 
 of which befell her at Petersburg. She began 
 life again, she always said, after she recovered 
 93 
 
from the years of invalidism which that in- 
 flicted upon her. 
 
 General Hawley spent the greater part of 
 two years in Philadelphia, in his duties as 
 President of the Centennial Exposition held 
 there in 1876. 
 
 Mrs. Hawley went with him appreciating 
 the situation both in its social aspects, as well 
 as the broader part, namely, the re-United 
 States, both northern and southern celebrat- 
 ing the patriotism of their Revolutionary 
 forefathers. She took French lessons and 
 revived her old studies in the language in 
 order to be able to talk to Foreign Commis- 
 sioners who came there to represent their 
 respective countries. 
 
 ^' I may take the language now praftically,'^ 
 she said, " not so theoretically as when I was 
 sixteen and they set me to reading Tele- 
 maque." 
 
 She was well most of the time during the 
 summer of the exposition, and went with the 
 General to many of the receptions and parties 
 given in honor of the strangers there. She 
 
 94 
 
was expefled to call on the Empress of Brazil 
 wiio was there with the Emperor. 
 
 " One must put on one's best clothes and 
 yet one must be arrayed in a republic sim- 
 plicity. How lucky that good manners are the 
 same everywhere. You change your skies 
 but not your breeding. That is the same 
 always." 
 
 She afterward said, '^ The Empress was as 
 unpretending as one could ask. She drew 
 the line — she was neither condescending or 
 over-friendly. You would not find it hard to 
 have an empress on your list of callers." 
 
 In Washington she interested herself first 
 in the people immediately around her. The 
 boarding house where they lived was kept by 
 a gentleman and his wife, v/ho were of good 
 Virginia families. Mr. Corse had been a 
 wealthy merchant in Alexandria, but lost his 
 money by the war, and with his wife and 
 family of charming daughters kept a board- 
 ing house in the now unfashionable part of 
 the town, C street, which was then on the 
 decline, but had very old handsome houses. 
 
 95 
 
The friendliness and good will of Mrs. Haw- 
 ley showing itself in various helpful ways 
 endeared her to the family. 
 
 It was during the summer she spent at a 
 quiet Virginia country house near Hampton 
 that she received a severe injury to her knee, 
 which resulted in what is called synovitis. 
 She got better after long and careful nursing, 
 but she was obliged to use crutches at inter- 
 vals for years after that. The knee would 
 resent the slightest fatigue or sympathize 
 with any ailment in any other part of the 
 body. 
 
 She went on however with her work. The 
 second winter in Washington she was again 
 well enough to do ^' full work," as she said, 
 She was made one of the diredlors of the 
 Garfield Hospital among other things. 
 
 She was able to go into society a little, feel- 
 ing as she said, much the same pleasure at 
 a party as a girl who is going to her first 
 gaieties of that sort. Besides her work as 
 one of the board of direftors at the Garfield 
 Hospital, later, she was much interested in 
 
 96 
 
the welfare of a House of Refuge for fallen 
 women. She was also made the first President 
 of the Washington branch of the Woman's 
 National Indian Association, having done 
 much to give the society a start. She held 
 this position until her death. In this capa- 
 city she became a warm friend of Miss Alice 
 C. Fletcher, who has since done so much 
 among the Indians as an allotting agent. A 
 friend speaks of the impression she made 
 upon him, at the meeting of the Indian Com- 
 missioners in Washington. '^ Mrs. Hawley 
 was called upon to say something about the 
 work of her society and the needs she had 
 found among the Indians. She stood up, 
 slight and delicate, and leaning on crutches, 
 with a look of great sweetness in her face and 
 of great strength singularly intermingled, I 
 do not remember the words she used, but I 
 was struck by the whole effeft of what she 
 said. She sustained so well what I had read 
 in her face. There was no waste of words, 
 but great straightforwardness and simplicity, 
 with a proper knowledge of the point she 
 
 97 
 
wished to bring before us. Two or three 
 spoke afterwards as being impressed just as I 
 was by her manner and by what she said." 
 With all this care for others, she had the 
 charge of her husband's pensioners — old sol- 
 diers who appealed to him for help in getting 
 a pension or a place in some of the depart- 
 ments. It was her business to ascertain as 
 far as possible, how deserving these requests 
 were and with his approval to forward them as 
 much as possible. It necessitated her writing 
 often as many as fifteen letters a day, and 
 she had two letter books especially for that pur- 
 pose, in which she kept the dates and- records 
 as a reference book. How busy her mornings 
 were can be imagined ; she said laughingly 
 she had come to hate people who made her 
 morning calls. She had no time for them. 
 By the afternoon she was ready to make and 
 receive visits, and she liked evening parties 
 because she had been shut away from them 
 so long. Her evenings had been those of an 
 invalid for several years, and she was tired of 
 them and of dressing-gowns. " A pretty 
 
 98 
 
party dress and party slippers made an agree- 
 able change ; besides that, it is pleasant to visit 
 one after another with people yon know and 
 like and have a little chat with them." Gen- 
 eral Hawley served two consecutive terms as 
 Representative, and in 1881 was elected Sen- 
 ator from Connedicnt. This widened her 
 circle of acquaintances still more, and in- 
 creased the number of her invitations to gay 
 scenes. It became necessary for her to give 
 up a good many things, because she had not 
 the strength for them all. 
 
 ''I shall treat myself," she said, ''as a per- 
 son who can dip into society as much or as 
 little as I please. I can go in to my eyelids 
 sometimes, and then not more than to the 
 ankles." Her head had been hurt, but not 
 her brain. Her brightness in ordinary life 
 was great. Some of the things she said in 
 those days were clever enough to be jotted 
 down at the time. 
 
 Speaking of a young lady friend, Harriet 
 said, " She has gone up stairs to giggle with 
 a two-girl power." 
 
 99 
 
Another time — ^^ You'll melt," said her hus- 
 band, seeing her lie down on the sofa and draw 
 a heavy fur robe over her. " I'd like to," said 
 she, ^' and be run over into a prettier shape." 
 
 Another time, she looked at me in the 
 course of some conversation we were having, 
 and said with her eyes sparkling with laugh- 
 ter, " If you don't believe what I say, I will 
 knock you down." 
 
 *'What a truly Southern argument for a 
 Northener to use," I replied. 
 
 '' Of course. Would you have me sectional 
 in my methods," she retorted. 
 
 " You are like Webster," said I ; '^ You 
 know no North, no South ; you only know 
 your country. I like breadth in argument." 
 
 On another occasion she was deliciously 
 impertinent to her husband. '' Oh," said she, 
 " You are saucy in proportion to the square 
 of your ignorance on any subject." 
 
 She " received " as the wives of public men 
 do in Washington on a certain day every week ; 
 while Mr. Hawley was a Representative it was 
 Tuesdays ; afterward it was Thursdays. On 
 
 100 
 
these days she set a table in her back parlor 
 with tea and cakes and wafers, and visitors 
 were made to feel themselves welcome by 
 this added tonch of hospitality. She usually 
 asked one or two ladies to help her, as there 
 were often so many people calling that it was 
 impossible for her to do more than welcome 
 them as they came in. She also when her 
 husband joined the Washington Literary 
 Society entertained them, although they were 
 living in a boarding house at the time, and 
 she had to make as many especial arrange- 
 ments, and it was as much care as if she had 
 been keeping house herself. Mrs. McElroy, 
 the sister of President Arthur came to the 
 White House to preside during the social 
 season, and she and Harriet made a pleasant 
 acquaintance. Mrs. McElroy wished to in- 
 vite Mrs. Hawley to receive with her at the 
 Saturday afcernoon receptions given to the 
 public at the White House during a month 
 or two of the winter. She feared to do so, 
 however, after seeing Harriet using crutches. 
 She said something about it to Harriet, who 
 1(11 
 
answered, " Oli, I should like to come, do not 
 fear to ask me. You don't know perhaps 
 that I am goose enough to stand on one foot." 
 The invitation was given and Harriet went. 
 I asked her afterward what she did. 
 
 " I stood up as long as I could and then I 
 went and sat down. We all had relays ready 
 to take our places. I quite enjoyed it." 
 
 In the spring of 1885, the widow of her 
 brother, C. Spencer Foote, died leaving four 
 children. The youngest, Margaret Spencer 
 Foote, was not quite four years old. Harriet 
 and her husband having no children, adopted 
 her. Both became devoted to the child from 
 that moment. 
 
 The next winter in Washington she said to 
 me, ^' I don't care now to do anything, but 
 stay with that little creature. I must go out 
 a little, but I do not really care for it as I did. 
 I should like to stay at home and plan her 
 little gowns, and watch her little walk in life 
 and see her develop." 
 
 The child was very sweet and of a loving 
 disposition, and with less of the reticence in 
 
 102 
 
expressing her feelings than one often sees in 
 a person of English descent. Harriet enjoyed 
 this freedom of speech in the child with the 
 accompaniment of caresses inexpressibl}^ 
 
 She had a minute table and chair in the 
 parlor for the child, and on Mrs. Hawley's 
 reception days, with her two favorite dolls in 
 her hands she was much noticed by visitors. 
 I remember seeing General Logan and Sena- 
 tor Piatt bend their great forms to bring them- 
 selves nearer the pretty little midget and her 
 receiving their attention with serenity and 
 perfect baby dignity. 
 
 But all this was to come to an end. Har- 
 riet had two or three attacks of a throat 
 trouble which weakened her a great deal, and 
 while in this weak state she was seized with 
 pneumonia which took a severe form and on 
 the evening of March 3d, 1885, she died, the 
 illness lasting less than a week. 
 
 The Thursday that would have been her 
 reception day was that of her funeral. Many 
 of the wives of the Senators did not receive 
 that day on this account, and the Senate ad- 
 
 103 
 
journed to permit the brother Senators of 
 General Hawley to attend her funeral. 
 
 She was taken to Hartford, Connefticut, to 
 to be buried, and in memory of the work she 
 had done among soldiers, a flag lay across the 
 foot of her coffin, the Grand Army Post at- 
 tended the services and the flags were set at 
 half mast on the State House and the Arsenal. 
 The soldiers of the Seventh Regiment after- 
 ward placed a tablet to her memory on the 
 walls of the Congregational Church on Asy- 
 lum avenue, whose pastor, the Rev. J. H. 
 Twichell, had himself been a chaplain during 
 the war. They always mark her grave in the 
 cemetery with a little flag and flowers just 
 as they do those of the other soldiers, when 
 preparing for the celebration of Decoration 
 Day. 
 
 After the tablet was put up, people passing 
 the church one day were asked earnestly by a 
 man who was walking with one crutch and a 
 cane, how he could get into the church. " I 
 want," he explained, "to see the tablet they 
 have put up to Mrs. Hawley. If it hadn't 
 
 101 
 
been for her, like as not I shouldn't have been 
 here." 
 
 Some one was curious enough to ask why, 
 and he said : '' I was in Andersonville. That 
 don't need no explanation. One day we 
 heard that there was a hundred of us to be 
 exchanged. You can't think, because you 
 wasn't there yourself, how we felt about it 
 and how we gathered round the Confed., when 
 he came in to read out the names. There 
 was only a hundred names and its seemed as 
 if my ears would crack off listenin' for mine 
 and not hearin' it. It got down to ninety-six, 
 to ninety-eight, and I began to feel mine 
 wasn't there when he read the name of a man 
 I knew who had died only a few days before. 
 The name was like mine, and the real man 
 was dead. I saw my chance before he had 
 got through callin' that name and I stepped 
 forward and stood among them that was to 
 go. No objections was made tho' I was 
 shakin' from head to foot you'd better believe 
 for fear they would. Well, we was taken up 
 to Wilmington, and there it all come out. 
 
 105 
 
Our officers didn't know what to do. I allow 
 they would not want to send a man back to 
 that hell, but Mrs. Hawley heard of it and 
 she did somethin' I never knew quite what, I 
 guess because I was so 'fraid I should have to 
 go back — anyhow she got a letter from some- 
 body and our officers said it was all right, 
 and I was sent North into the white man's 
 country on the first boat. I hain't never for- 
 got it. She was tormentin' good to me, and 
 I want to see the monument they have put 
 up to her. Me and my wife have come from 
 Milford a-purpose." 
 
 106 
 
H. W. H. 
 
 MARCH 3, 1886. 
 
 Give her the soldier's rite ! 
 
 She fought the hardest fight : 
 
 Not in the storm of battle, 
 
 Where the drum's exultant rattle, 
 
 The onset's maddening yell, 
 
 The scream of shot and shell. 
 
 And the trumpet's clangor soaring 
 
 Over the cannon's roaring, 
 
 Thrilled every vein with fire. 
 
 And combat's mad desire ; 
 
 She fought her fight alone. 
 
 To the sound of dying groan ; 
 
 The sob of failing breath, 
 
 The reveille of death ; 
 
 She faced the last of foes, 
 
 The worst of mortal woes ; 
 
 The solitude of dying, 
 
 The hearts for kindred crying ; 
 
 By the soldier's lonely bed, 
 
 In the midnight dark and dread, 
 
 'Mid the wounded and the dead, 
 
 With life-blood pouring red, 
 The cries of woe and fear, 
 Rending the watcher's ear, 
 The hovering wings of death, 
 Fluttered by dying breath. 
 There was her truthful eye, 
 
 m 
 
Her smile's sweet bravery, 
 Her strong word to impart 
 Peace to the fainting heart. 
 
 Give her the soldier's rite ! 
 Let the old Seventh wave 
 Their flag above her grave ; 
 Let the deep minute gun 
 Tell of her battle done ; 
 Lo ! on the other bank, 
 Comes down a serried rank, 
 The souls she comforted. 
 The army of the dead ; 
 For her salute and shout : 
 Their victory is our rout. 
 Give her the soldier's rite ! 
 Honor her sleep to-night, 
 For now she ranks us all. 
 Weave laurels for her pall, 
 And fold above her bier 
 The flag she held so dear ; 
 For another fight is won. 
 Another soldier gone 
 Through the night, to the light 
 — And another left alone ; 
 God of battles ; help us all ! 
 
 ROSE TKRRY COOKE. 
 
 108 
 
Mr. Twitchell's address at Mrs. Hawley's 
 funeral, in Hartford. 
 
 What more rich and precious gift of God, than the 
 gift of a good woman ! I think we can all testify 
 that for nothing in this world have we had occasion 
 to be more grateful. And that gratitude is renewed 
 in our hearts to-day. 
 
 For we are here come to the burial of one in pres- 
 ence of whose form still in death, and in memory of 
 whose life, we can think of nothing so much, as of 
 what a good woman she was ! 
 
 We ought to chasten our words in speaking the 
 praise either of the living or the dead. Yet in the 
 tumult of our love and sorrow this one thought rises 
 above all, and will be uttered — what a good woman 
 she was ! And that is the thought in every one of 
 the man}^, many hearts, that in this hour are turned' 
 to this place. 
 
 How true she was, how gentle, how modest, how 
 sincere and earnest, how friendly in every look and 
 word, and act ! How clothed in the sweetest grace 
 and dignity of womanhood ! How wholly faithful in 
 every relation of life ! How sympathetic and tender 
 toward all alike — the high and the lowly. The law 
 
 109 
 
of kindness was in her tongue. How full she was of 
 all helpfulness ! How unselfish and brave ! How 
 thoughtful for others, how willing to serve them ! 
 
 How great-minded, and great-hearted, and royal- 
 natured ! How did all the noblest, highest loyalties 
 and affecftions abound in her, and shine out of her ! 
 Of what fine and high enthusiasm was she possessed ! 
 
 She loved much. She loved her friends ; she loved 
 her country ; she loved every right and just cause. 
 The cry of the poor and needy came into her ears. 
 How much she made room for in her generous soul ! 
 
 No one ever went into her presence that he did not 
 experience in some way the influence of her pure 
 heart ; or left her presence without being made aware 
 that the best that was in him, had been touched and 
 quickened by her. And she has been a great bene- 
 fadlor. That sweet voice now stilled has calmed how 
 many a trouble ; her smile has chased away many a 
 care and many an evil thought ; that cold hand has 
 wiped away many tears. She has been an inspiration 
 to everything that was good and true and pure. 
 
 Thank God for her ! Thank God for the precious 
 memory of her ! To a great many it is one of the 
 most dear and cherished treasures of their lives, to be 
 so reckoned as long as life shall last. Would that 
 our daughters might be like her ! 
 
 I see here a large number of young women. May 
 I be permitted to say to them that here, in the light 
 
 110 
 
of the thought that rules this hour, of the honors of 
 the life we now remember, they may see what the 
 true crown and glory of womanhood is. 
 
 It is in goodness, in womanly purity and truth, in 
 the pitiful heart, and ministering hand, in unselfish 
 devotion to life's highest ends, in Christian piety — 
 may the lesson of this hour be written in your deepest 
 hearts, to stay with you forever. 
 
 As she lived she died. In the strength of the faith 
 by which she had lived she was strong and fearless 
 and brave to the end. She departed in peace and in 
 hope, with blessings on her lips. As she could say 
 with " Standfast" in the great Christian allegory: " I 
 have loved to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever 
 I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I 
 have coveted to set my foot too." So what is said o 
 him could be said of her, when her feet touched the 
 brink of Jordan. "There was a great calm at that 
 time in the river." 
 
 Again as ' ' Standfast ' ' said, ' ' I see myself now at 
 the end of my journey. My toilsome days are ended 
 — I am going to see that head which was crowned 
 with thorns and that face which was spit upon for 
 me." So could she. Or, in her own words, when 
 she was reminded of the friends to whom she was 
 going : " Yes, and I am going to the Best Friend." 
 
 With that Best Friend we leave her, safe and secure 
 in His keeping forever. She was ready for God's call 
 111 
 
and what wonder, for many yeans ago she gave her- 
 self to him. 
 
 She leaves behind her here, love, gratitude and 
 sorrow unspeakable, yet sorrow mixed with unspeak- 
 able comfort too. 
 
 When our beloved Lord was about to disappear 
 from earth, He said to His friends: " Ye now there- 
 fore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your 
 heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh irom 
 you." And these words of sweetest consolation, with 
 all the blessed things they certify us of, we commend 
 to those who are in mourning here to day, thanking 
 God with them and for them that their sorrow is so 
 full of hope. 
 
 113 
 
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