Cold Harbor, Virginia
May 1864
The soldier groaned in pain as Phoebe tore open the sleeve of his uniform to examine his wound. One look at the raw flesh and shattered elbow told her that he would need surgery. She poured powdered morphine into the wound, then carefully removed some of his gear and sponged his face to make him more comfortable while he waited his turn. The temporary field hospital had been set up outside a small whitewashed church near a crossroads called Cold Harbor—mere miles from Richmond. As the battle raged nearby, the church had quickly filled with hundreds of casualties until the yard was overflowing with them, too. Dr. McGrath and the other surgeons couldn’t keep up.
“Would you like a sip of brandy?” she asked the soldier.
He nodded. She could tell by his new uniform and youthful face that he was a fresh recruit—as she once had been. She lifted his head to help him drink and brushed against a piece of paper fastened to the back of his uniform. “What’s this?” she asked.
“My name and address. We knew it would be a bloodbath today. The Rebels got here first and dug in behind breastworks. That meant we had to charge across the open field. So last night some of us wrote our names and addresses on paper and pinned it to our coats so they’d know where to send our bodies.” He swallowed another sip and looked up at Phoebe. Fear filled his eyes. “Am I going to make it? I-I’m afraid to die.”
She remembered how scared she and Ted had been the first time they’d gone into battle at Williamsburg, how terrified they’d both been of dying. She knew exactly how he felt. “We’re gonna do our best to see that you live,” she told him. “Don’t you worry none. Is there anything else I can do for you before I help this next fella?”
“Pray for me. Pray for God to have mercy on my soul.”
Phoebe had seen Reverend Greene earlier that morning, moving between the church pews, comforting some of the men. “You know what?” she said, slowly rising to her feet. “I haven’t had much practice at praying, but there’s a minister here who does it a whole lot better than me. I’ll go fetch him for you.”
She wove between the sprawled bodies, searching for the minister, wishing she could muffle the pitiful sounds of men moaning and weeping and crying out in pain every time they were moved. The doctors would do their best for them here, but after surgery they would have to endure a long, jolting ambulance ride to the evacuation hospital at White House Landing.
Phoebe found the minister inside the church, kneeling beside a soldier who had just died. Reverend Greene’s eyes were closed, and she saw the deep emotion written on his face. She waited quietly until he finished his prayer. “Excuse me, Reverend,” she said when he stood again. “There’s a soldier over yonder who’s asking for somebody to pray with him. Can you spare a moment?”
“Certainly, Miss Bigelow. Lead the way.” He followed her in silence. Phoebe knew from her own experience that sometimes the best way to grieve the loss of one patient was to help another.
“This here is Chaplain Greene,” she told the soldier. “He’ll be glad to pray with you.”
“Thanks,” he murmured.
She moved on to the next soldier and the next, but she noticed that the minister was still talking with the boy a while later when the orderlies finally carried him to Dr. McGrath for surgery. Phoebe hurried over to join them, remembering the last meeting between the two men and worrying that they might clash again. But the doctor ignored the minister completely as he crouched to examine his patient. And Reverend Greene continued preaching to the boy as if the doctor wasn’t even there.
“Those who know Christ have the promise of eternal life,” Greene was saying. “Do you have that assurance?”
“Do you have any sensation at all in this hand?” Dr. McGrath asked. The soldier looked from one man to the other as if unsure which one to answer.
“We don’t need to fear death, knowing that He has prepared a place for those He loves,” Greene continued.
“I’m going to lift your wrist to take your pulse. Tell me if you can feel my fingers.”
“Salvation is a free gift. … ”
Finally the doctor had had enough. “Would you please shut up!” he yelled. “I’m trying to save this man’s life.”
Reverend Greene frowned. “There is little use in saving his life if his soul is lost.” Dr. McGrath stood, motioning for the minister to step aside with him. “Kindly go do your hocus-pocus someplace else. You’re scaring my patients. They hear you babbling about heaven and they think they’re going to die.”
“You know very well that some of them are going to die. I’m simply preparing them to meet God.”
“They’ll meet Him a lot sooner if you don’t get out of my way and let me work!” He returned to his patient, signaling to the orderlies to take him into the church for surgery.
The boy’s eyes went wide with fear. “No, wait! Where are you taking me? What are you going to do? Come with me, Reverend. I’m scared!”
“There’s no room for the chaplain in there,” Dr. McGrath said. “He’ll be waiting right out here when you come out of surgery.”
“You’re going to cut my arm off, aren’t you? Please don’t let him cut it off, Reverend!”
The doctor rested his hand on the boy’s head. “A team of three doctors, including myself, will decide what needs to be done. I never amputate without a patient’s permission. However, in your case I believe that amputation is necessary.”
“No! No! I don’t want to lose my arm!”
“It’s not possible to repair the massive damage to your elbow. If you won’t let us amputate, you may as well stay out here. The chaplain can get you ready to die.”
“There’s no need to be so cold about it,” Reverend Greene said.
“I’m being honest. There’s a very good chance he’ll live if we amputate. But if he keeps this mess it will putrefy and he’ll die of blood poisoning. It’s his choice.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“Let me have a moment to speak with him, please,” the minister said.
Dr. McGrath turned to Phoebe. “Who’s next, then? Let’s go.”
A different patient was taken into surgery, and Phoebe watched from a distance as Reverend Greene continued talking to the boy, praying with him. A half hour later Dr. McGrath emerged from the church again.
“He’s ready now,” the minister told him. “Do what needs to be done.”
Phoebe and Reverend Greene were both waiting when the orderlies brought the unconscious boy out of surgery. His elbow ended with a bandaged stump. The minister blanched and quickly looked away. Phoebe didn’t blame him one bit. Even after all this time, she still hadn’t grown used to the horror of amputation. She gave Reverend Greene a moment to recover before instructing him what to do next.
“It’s important to watch for bleeding, Reverend. If you can’t stay with him, then wake him up so he can tell somebody else if he starts to bleed.”
He nodded, dazed.
“It’s also a good idea to keep his arm covered up, at first. Don’t let him see …what’s left …until he’s prepared for the shock of it.”
“How will he see that it’s bleeding if he’s covered up?”
Phoebe recalled the warm, wet sensation of her own wound and shuddered. “Trust me, he’ll know. Come get me if he needs something for the pain.” She paused a moment, then added, “And please don’t let him give up and die, even if heaven is a pretty nice place.”
Phoebe’s work seemed unending, the slaughter that was taking place at Cold Harbor unimaginable. A wounded officer told her that he’d seen more than six thousand Union soldiers fall in the first half hour of battle. The medical team fought hard to save every man they could, but there were many who were too severely wounded to survive. All Phoebe could do for those patients was to keep them soothed and comfortable until they died.
At last there was a pause in the battle. The two armies reached a stalemate as they glared at each other across the battlefield—the Rebels defending their land, the Union unwilling to sacrifice any more men by hurling them at the Confederate breastworks. But neither side would call an official ceasefire so that the wounded men, lying in the field between the two armies, could be tended to.
For another long day, Phoebe worked with the ambulance crews to evacuate as many of the previously injured men as they could to White House Landing in order to make room for more casualties. Late in the afternoon she saw Reverend Greene searching for someone among the waiting men.
“You looking for anyone in particular?” she asked as she walked over to talk with him.
“The boy with the amputated arm. The one I prayed with the other day.”
“He’s doing pretty good. They already took him to White House Landing. Listen, I know it was a terrible thing, but Dr. McGrath was right. Taking that soldier’s arm off was the only way to save his life.”
The minister glanced around as if expecting the doctor to appear suddenly. “I understand that McGrath is your friend, Miss Bigelow, but I can’t pretend to like him. I want you to know that I’ve sent inquiries to the authorities in Connecticut. I’m awaiting their answer.”
“Dr. McGrath told me the whole story. He didn’t kill that rich man, the man killed himself. The police found a suicide note. That’s why they let the doctor go.”
“And you believe his story?”
“Yes, sir. I do. I’m sure the police will tell you the same thing when they write back.”
“We’ll see. The report has likely been delayed seeing as the army has been on the move all month. The letter probably hasn’t caught up with me yet. Even so, the doctor is still a very disagreeable man. I don’t know how Julia could stand to work with him for as long as she did.”
“If you don’t mind me asking …how is Julia?”
The minister quickly looked away, but not before Phoebe saw him battle a storm of emotions. She wondered if something terrible had happened to Julia. “She broke off our engagement,” he finally managed to say.
“I’m sorry.”
He struggled for control. When he turned to Phoebe again, she was surprised to see that the emotion that had won out was anger. “She’s down here in Virginia,” he said. “She wrote to me from Fredericksburg. She’s working there, as a nurse.”
“That’s not far at all. Maybe you could ride along in one of the ambulances and go talk to her. Find out why she broke it off.”
“I know why. She decided she would rather be a nurse than my wife.”
“Can’t she be both?”
Her question made him angrier still. “No, Miss Bigelow. She cannot.”
“Listen, I know this is none of my business,” Phoebe said, “but can I tell you something?”
“What.”
From the way he said it, Phoebe knew that Reverend Greene did not like people telling him what to do. Even so, she spoke her mind.
“If the man I loved asked me to marry him, I’d be so happy I wouldn’t let anything stand in our way. For sure I’d find a way to get to Fredericksburg and talk things over with him.”
“Would you give up nursing if he asked you to?”
“That’s a dumb question. Why on earth would he ask me to stop helping people?”
His face grew so red and angry looking that all of a sudden Phoebe understood. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?” she said. “Julia came back to be a nurse, and you didn’t want her to.”
“I don’t want her to be in any danger. Not only is there a risk from bullets and shells, but there are thousands of men in these camps, far away from their homes and wives. A good many of them are unsavory characters, capable of anything. It isn’t proper for an unmarried woman to do this sort of work.”
“So what I’m doing ain’t proper?” she asked. He didn’t reply. “You know, that’s why I never went to church back home. They were always ticking off all the rules and telling me how I fell short of them all. I was at the hospital with Julia for more than half a year, and she never once did anything improper with any of those men. They respected her. Everyone could tell she came from a high-class family, but she gave up all her servants and money and things so she could help people. Didn’t Jesus tell the rich man to sell all he had and give to the poor so he would have treasures in heaven? You ought to be right proud of her.”
He seemed taken aback by her words. “I-I was proud of her. It’s the people in my church back home that won’t understand. They’ll never accept her as their minister’s wife if she keeps defying convention and scorning proper society.”
“So it wasn’t Julia who broke it off, then. It was the folks in your church. Seems like you were willing to let them tell you what to do and Julia wasn’t.”
“She knew how I felt about it,” he replied bitterly. “I made my wishes very clear to her. And she went to Fredericksburg anyway.”
“Do you love her, Reverend Greene? Or are you content to spend the rest of your life without her? Because it seems to me that if you don’t bend a little, that’s exactly what you’re gonna be doing.”
He started to turn away, and Phoebe was sure he was about to storm off. But then they heard Dr. McGrath, of all people, calling to him. “Chaplain …Chaplain Greene, wait! I need your help.”
Greene paused, turning back. “Yes, what is it?” he asked coldly.
“I can’t get any of the military staff to listen to me. I can’t even get near them. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”
Phoebe could tell how upset Dr. McGrath was by the way he ran his fingers through his hair and tugged on his beard. He couldn’t seem to stand still.
“For mercy’s sake, Chaplain, we’ve got to convince them to call a truce so we can help the wounded. It’s been two days now, and injured soldiers are still lying out there in that field between the two armies. Both sides are too stubborn to call a halt so we can bring them in for treatment. The generals won’t even stop to bury their dead.”
“Of course I’ll help,” the minister said. “I’m on good terms with at least one brigadier general. We can start there.”
Phoebe watched in amazement as the two men strode off together as if there had never been any hard feelings between them at all. But it wasn’t until a third day had come and gone that the opposing generals finally called a temporary cease-fire. When they did, Phoebe prepared to go to work with a host of doctors, nurses, and stretcher-bearers, collecting the wounded and bringing them to the field hospital.
The battle had been spread out over five or six acres—and every inch of the battlefield was strewn with bodies, as thickly as if the men had decided to lie down side by side. Phoebe waded into the midst of the carnage, looking for a survivor to help, gazing at each face, searching for Ted’s. But the first dozen soldiers she bent to help were all dead, their bodies already stiff and bloating in the sun. The stench after three days was nauseating. But it wasn’t the smell that drove her from the battlefield and back to her tent. It was the vastness of it all, the sheer number of vibrant young men like the ones she had served with, fallen—for nothing. Not one inch of territory had been gained, nor was the war any closer to an end. The senselessness of it left her numb with grief.
She stayed in her tent, weeping, until her tears were finally exhausted. Later, she went back to the church to help. But she didn’t find the flurry of activity there that she had expected. One of the nurses told her that Dr. McGrath had returned to his tent, and Phoebe decided to go apologize to him for not helping. He sat inside on a campstool, his head in his hands.
“Doctor McGrath…? I just come to say I’m sorry that I didn’t help—”
“It doesn’t matter, Phoebe,” he said hoarsely. “We were too late.”
“What do you mean?”
He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes red with grief. “Do you know how many men we found alive out there?”
She shook her head.
“Two. Only two. Dear God, what a waste. … ”
City Point, Virginia
July 1864
Julia stood at the steamship’s rail with the other Sanitary Commission workers as they docked at City Point, their new hospital base at the junction of the James and Appomattox Rivers. This was the third time the evacuation hospital had been moved since May as they followed Grant’s army farther into Virginia. The first move had taken them down the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg to a new base in Port Royal. In June they’d moved up the Pamunkey River to White House Landing, where Julia had served on the hospital ship with Sister Irene two years ago. Now they had been transferred to Depot Hospital at City Point near Petersburg.
After Cold Harbor, Grant’s army had slipped away from the battlefield by night to advance toward Petersburg, crossing the James River on a huge pontoon bridge. Union engineers built the 2,100-foot span in only eight hours, and it had taken the massive army days to finish crossing it. But the four-day battle to take Petersburg, where the Rebels were entrenched, had failed, and now that city was under siege. Julia and the other medical workers had followed Grant’s army by ship.
She gazed at her new surroundings as the steamship finished docking. City Point’s cluster of homes and church steeples sat on a high bluff overlooking the two rivers. White-roofed army tents far outnumbered the houses, stretching from the village in both directions as far as she could see. Newly built warehouses and workshops clustered along the shore below. She saw so many canvas-covered army wagons lined up near the wharves that she couldn’t even begin to count them all.
“This was just a sleepy little village on the river before the war,” she heard one of the Commission nurses say. “Now it looks like a major seaport.”
Ships’ masts filled the harbor like trees in a forest, surrounded by steamboats, barges, rowboats, and skiffs. Julia counted eight wharves spread out along a mile of riverfront, crawling with blue-coated soldiers and Negro dock workers. Barges carried mountains of barrels and crates, and bales of hay for the army’s livestock. A row of new caissons and limbers for the field artillery lined one long wharf from the dock to the shore. A seagoing steamer, moored beside her own, unloaded two companies of fresh troops along with dozens of horses. On another wharf, she was amazed to see a barge unloading a steam locomotive onto the railroad tracks that snaked along the foot of the bluff. With all this manpower and equipment, surely victory would come soon.
Julia stepped down the gangplank with the four other Commission nurses and was met by a row of mule-drawn freight wagons. “You the folks from the Sanitary Commission?” one of the teamsters asked.
“Yes, we are,” the nursing director replied.
“Otis Whitney,” the man said. “I’ve got orders to haul you and your goods out to Agency Row.”
Julia waited on shore while a crew of contrabands loaded the Commission’s supplies onto the freight wagons. Above the whistles and shouts of the workmen, she could hear the sound of water lapping against the piers, the braying of mules, the distant whine of a sawmill. The blistering July sun shone bright and hot, reflecting off the river like bronze. There was scarcely a breeze, and the air tasted like hot metal.
When the work was nearly finished, Otis Whitney sidled up to where the women stood waiting. He was a powerfully built man in his mid-thirties with long, greasy black hair and an ill-kempt beard. Julia thought he looked like an outlaw or an escaped convict. He removed his hat to wipe the sweat off his forehead, then jammed it onto his head again. He stood very close to Julia. “You nurses just keep getting prettier and prettier,” he said, brushing against her. “What’s your name?”
She was so astounded to be addressed in such a familiar fashion by a common teamster that she couldn’t reply.
“My name’s Otis,” he said. “Me and my brother own this freight-hauling business. Also own a little eating establishment where we sell oysters and such to the soldiers. Sell liquor, too, when the provost marshal ain’t looking.” He winked and nudged her with his elbow. “Doing right well for ourselves since the war started. Reckon we’ll be rich by the time it ends. We’re moving up in society.”
She breathed a sigh of relief when he walked away again to oversee the final loading. But as the wagons were leaving, she was dismayed to learn that Otis Whitney had arranged for the other nurses to ride in three of the wagons, leaving Julia alone with him. “You’re gonna ride right up there next to me, darling,” he said, patting the seat.
Julia wanted to protest, but it was too late. The other freight wagons were already rolling up the road, and his was the only one left. He kicked a box into place for her to use as a step, then took her hand to help her up onto the wagon seat. He left no space between the two of them when he climbed up beside her. She could only hope that it wasn’t a long ride.
“How far away are the Commission’s headquarters?” she asked. She shifted her legs and straightened her skirts as an excuse to move away from him, but her efforts were in vain. He leaned against her as he drove his mule team up the hill, brushing shoulders with her again. He smelled of sweat and horses and whiskey.
“Just outside the city a little ways, darling. No more than a mile. It’s right across the road from Depot Hospital. We call it Agency Row because there’s a whole bunch of relief agencies camped there. They stay in tents. Pretty gal like you ought to be in a house, though. You tell that Commission of yours to grab yourselves a decent Rebel house like some of the army officers did. Be out of the elements that way. ’Course, you’re welcome to come stay at my house.” He nudged her with his elbow again.
“I’m quite used to a tent, thank you.”
The mules snorted and puffed as they climbed up the steep road from the river, passing a grim pyramid of pine coffins waiting to be filled. Julia also saw workers carrying two closed coffins down the wharf to a waiting ship.
“This your first visit to City Point?” Otis asked.
“Yes. I had no idea it was such a busy place.”
“I’m told there’s some two hundred ships coming and going every day. Made me a rich man. I hear that pretty gals like you are partial to rich men.” He winked at her as if they were old friends.
“Is that bread I smell?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.
“Yep. The army has a huge bakery over yonder. They make more than a hundred thousand loaves a day. It’s still warm when the men get it in the trenches.”
They passed a row of stores and eating houses where sutlers sold nonration food and drink to the soldiers. “That’s my establishment,” Otis said, pointing to one of the shanties. “How about I treat you to dinner there tonight?”
“Thank you, but my nursing work keeps me much too busy for a social life. I’ve heard that Depot Hospital is very large.”
“More than a thousand tents, all told. Plus there’s a separate hospital for the Negroes. They’re using colored soldiers now, did you hear? Got a whole bunch of them down here. Can’t say as I’ll ever get used to the idea of colored fellas toting guns. Ought to stay separate if you ask me. I won’t let any of them in my establishment.”
Julia saw row after row of hospital tents ahead and the other three freight wagons pulling to a halt. She was relieved that she’d finally arrived. Otis leaped down first and reached up to help Julia. She didn’t want him touching her, but it was too far to jump down by herself, and he hadn’t put the box in place for a step. She was revolted when he grabbed her waist to lift her down.
“Sure you won’t change your mind about dinner?” he asked, his hands lingering a little too long. She twisted away.
“No, thank you. I have too much work to do.”
“You’re an awful pretty little thing. I told you my name, but you never told me yours.”
Julia hesitated, appalled by his coarseness. She considered lying again and telling him she was married, but she was afraid that the other Commission workers would overhear. “It’s Hoffman …Nurse Hoffman.”
“You must have a first name.”
“Julia,” she said reluctantly.
“Ever had oysters, Julia? I could bring you a mess of them.”
“I have, and I don’t care much for them. Thanks just the same.” She hurried to join the other ladies and settle into her new home. But Otis Whitney continued to hang around as the Commission’s goods were unloaded, watching Julia from a distance as she was assigned to a tent. When he was ready to leave, he went out of his way to find her and speak to her one last time.
“I never did see a gal as pretty as you, Julia. I’ll bet you and me could have a real good time together. All the single gals I’ve met around here are in business for themselves, if you know what I mean.”
For as long as she’d been a nurse, Julia had never felt afraid of any of the men she’d worked with. Otis Whitney was the first. He was exactly the sort of man that Nathaniel had been worried about—and the main reason why he hadn’t wanted her to return to nursing.
“I am not that kind of woman, Mr. Whitney,” she said in a shaking voice. “I’m here to take care of the wounded men, nothing else. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have a great deal of work to do.”
Julia was eager to begin work, and she wasted no time unpacking her things. Depot Hospital’s location on a high bluff overlooking the Appomattox River was peaceful and serene in spite of the grievous nature of her work. There were plenty of shade trees around, and in the evening a cool breeze often drifted up from the river. She learned that the doctors treated the wounded men at field-dressing stations near the trenches first, then sent them by ambulance train on specially constructed tracks to Depot Hospital. The hospital had its own dock where recuperating patients could be loaded onto ships and sent to hospitals up north.
Most of the patients she tended suffered from gunshot and shrapnel wounds. The opposing armies now lobbed shells and bullets at each other from their networks of trenches as the siege of Petersburg continued.
“When you wake up each morning, you never know if you’ll be alive when the sun goes down at night,” one soldier told her. “We’re so used to hearing Minie balls whistling over our heads that we don’t even duck anymore.”
“Is that what happened to you, Captain?” she asked as she carefully removed the dressing on his shoulder. “Did you forget to duck?”
“No, ma’am. A piece of shell hit me. You can see those coming, but there’s no place to hide.”
Julia checked the wound for signs of pyemia and gangrene as Dr. McGrath had taught her, then doused it with carbolic acid and replaced the bandage. “Did you see this shell coming?” she asked.
The captain nodded. “With shells, the first thing you see is a puff of smoke behind enemy lines. Couple of seconds later, you hear the boom and see a dark speck climbing up in the sky. Ever hear a shell screaming through the air, ma’am?”
“Yes, I have. One landed quite close to me at Bull Run.”
He gritted his teeth as she worked. “Terrible sound, isn’t it? By the time you figure out it’s coming right at you, it’s too late.”
Julia finished dressing his wound and moved to the next patient. “I don’t see any wounds at all on you,” she said, looking him over.
“Sun got to me,” he said. “There’s no shade down in those trenches. I was digging away when all of a sudden I felt dizzy and couldn’t walk straight. The sergeant thought I was drunk until I fell down and took a fit.”
“Can I get you anything?” Julia asked.
“You can do us all a favor and douse him for ‘graybacks,”’ the captain in the next bed said. “He’s lousy with them.”
“Won’t do any good,” the man replied. “They’ll be crawling all over me again as soon as I go back. You know what they say, ma’am—we got ‘graycoats’ in front of us and ‘graybacks’ on our rear.”
Julia couldn’t help laughing. Her next patient was smiling, too, even though he looked quite ill. She knew right away from his swollen legs, discolored skin, and puffy mouth that he suffered from a severe case of scurvy. “I just arrived with the Sanitary Commission a few days ago,” she told him. “We brought some fresh supplies. What would taste good to you?”
“Anything except those awful desecrated vegetables the army gives us.”
Julia smiled. “I think you mean ‘desiccated’ vegetables.”
“No, ma’am, by the time the army’s through with them they’re desecrated. The doctor’s been feeding me potatoes in vinegar, pickles in vinegar, and kraut in vinegar, but I can’t say as I care for all that vinegar.”
“Let me go see what else I can find,” Julia said. “I’ll be back shortly.”
She left them and started across the hospital grounds, weaving among the rows. Suddenly a familiar figure emerged from a nearby tent. There was no mistaking a woman that tall with hair that yellow. She wore the same dark blue calico dress that Julia had bought for her in Washington.
“Phoebe Bigelow!” Julia said in surprise. She rushed forward to embrace her friend. “What on earth are you doing here? I thought you went home a year ago.”
“I never did make it home,” Phoebe replied a bit sheepishly. “I was still hanging around Washington City when Dr. McGrath asked me to work with him as a nurse.”
“He asked you?”
“Yeah. He was going back to Fredericksburg as a field surgeon, and he asked me to come with him.”
“He told me women didn’t belong on the battlefield.”
“They don’t. But he knew I already been to the battlefield as a soldier. Tell you the truth, I reckon he was afraid I’d enlist again, so he figured he might as well take me along so he wouldn’t have to carve any more shrapnel out of me.”
“Would you have enlisted again?” Julia asked.
Phoebe shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do with myself, to tell you the truth. But I like being a nurse real fine.”
Julia was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Is Dr. McGrath here at Depot Hospital?”
“Yeah. I can take you to see him if—”
“No, no. I really don’t care to see him at all. In fact, I’d just as soon avoid him if I can. Good thing it’s a big hospital.”
Phoebe studied her curiously for a long moment then said, “I heard you was in Fredericksburg.”
“How did you hear that?”
“Your friend Reverend Greene told me. He explained all about your engagement and said that you broke it off.”
“Oh, no. Don’t tell me Nathaniel is here, too?” Julia glanced around in dread as if he might suddenly appear out of nowhere, as Phoebe had.
“I’m not sure where he’s at. I ain’t seen him since Cold Harbor. I told him he should go up to Fredericksburg and patch things up with you, but I reckon he’s pretty stubborn.”
“Nathaniel never answered my last letter. I wasn’t even sure he got it. But if he told you our engagement is cancelled…” Tears came to Julia’s eyes, and she couldn’t finish. Phoebe rested her hand on Julia’s arm.
“He got mad when he told me about it. He said it was because he didn’t want you to be a nurse no more and you wanted to be one. I’m real sorry, Julia. I know how hard it is to lose someone you love.”
She could only nod. She was still standing beside Phoebe, trying to pull herself together so she could return to her work, when she heard someone calling her name. She looked up—and was dismayed to see Otis Whitney striding toward her, carrying a small wooden crate.
“Oh no,” she moaned.
“Howdy, Julia. I brought you another present.”
He held out the box to her. It contained a dozen lemons. Otis looked as though he had recently washed his hair, but it hadn’t improved his sinister appearance.
“I’ll bet your patients could use these, huh?”
“Yes, they could. Thank you, Mr. Whitney.”
He grinned. His eyeteeth were pointed, like a wolf ’s. “Didn’t I ask you to call me Otis?”
“Thank you, Otis. I know a soldier who could use these right away. Good day.” Julia hurried away. She was grateful when Phoebe decided to follow her—and Otis didn’t.
“He’s a mighty rough-looking fella,” Phoebe said. “Who is he?”
“He owns the freight-hauling company that brings the Commission all their supplies. He’s been showing up nearly every day, bringing me presents. I don’t like him hanging around, but the nursing director begged me to be nice to him. She’s afraid to make him angry for fear he’ll raise our prices—or cut off our supplies altogether.” Julia paused when she reached the end of the row. “Otis Whitney makes me nervous, Phoebe. I’m afraid of him.”
“I don’t blame you one bit. Maybe you should tell him you’re married—like you used to tell folks in Washington.”
“It’s too late. He knows I’m single. I was tired of lying—but now I wish that I had.”