A volunteer nurse in the Civil War: the diary of Harriet Douglas Whetten

              WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
SPRING,   1965
and diverse account of life during a period
of national crisis. For this was a melancholy
summer for the Union: the springtime victories of Fort Donelson and Shiloh had seemingly come to nothing ; McClellan's Peninsular
campaign had failed; and Lee's army, barefoot but victorious, was streaming up the
valleys toward Washington. The North badly
needed the courage, resoluteness, and devotion of people like Harriet Douglas Whetten.
Aboard the steamer Spaulding
Tuesday night, July 15th, 1862.
Another day of waiting and broiling monotony. It has been excessively hot, and this afternoon that wretched Willett No. 2 appeared
again and took up his old position in the
cabin.1 How I would like to shell him out!
I have been overseeing a little in the way of
bed-making. The ship is cleaner and in better
order now than ever before—I can hardly
tell how this hot day has simmered away. I
have read a little and written a long letter to
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A portion of White Oak Swamp east of Richmond.
Maria Potter, and had several long talks with
Mr. Winslow—who is personally, I believe,
an excellent Christian and avowedly an infidel.
The Monitor has been lying alongside of
us all day. I take it now as a common place
thing to lie between the Army and the Monitor.
We have no orders yet, but there is a rumour
that we may go to White House again for
our wounded men from Richmond whom they
will send down by railroad.2 Dr. Burgess
thinks the report true. I am afraid they will
greatly suffer as they will not only have the
railway journey, but what is worse, to come
over the corduroy road through the swamp.
It would be much easier to go up the river
for them to Turkey Bend and take them off
there, but that the rebels are waiting that we
should do. The Captain of the Monitor paid
our Captains a visit just before tea. He took
hardly any notice of me and none of Mrs. Willett, which we did not like. After tea a magnificent thunderstorm began. The forked lightning
has been incessant, quenching the lights in
the harbour vessels, and the next instant the
black cloud would fall like a curtain over the
lurid horizon. It is still raging—a crack like
artillery came just now—there is another.
The Monitor looked like a black monster in
the midst of the thick bronze waves. There
was a look of Hell about her. The dust from
the encampment was like a cloud. That hot
encampment! It gave me today an idea of
such intense heat, with its brown dusty ground,
and glaring white tents, and army wagons.
We sat on deck, but when Mrs. Willett came
down I was obliged to come too. It is a great
nuisance having the boat so filled with men.
It is uncomfortable in the cabin and disagreeable to be there alone, however Mr. Hyde &
Mr. Wilson generally take care of me. I do
believe that odious Willett No. 2 is going to
sleep in the cabin again tonight.
1 Mrs. Willett (No. 1) was apparently a Sanitary
Commission nurse attached to the transport Spaulding; her husband (Willett No. 2) was a lazy hanger-
on for whom Miss Whetten had nothing but contempt.
2 The Monitor was, of course, the famous ironclad
warship; the White House referred to was a landing
on the Pamunkey River used by the Union army as
its base of operations during much of the Peninsular
campaign. For a map of northeastern Virginia, see
the Winter, 1964-65 issue preceding this one (page
137).
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