The Summer of Pestilence - Pages 75-130



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LETTER V.
A PASTOR'S SABBATH IN A PLAGUE-STRICKEN CITY.

Sabbath, Sept. 2.

This has been a terrible day in our city, and I have witnessed such scenes 
as, I pray God, I may never be called to see again. 'Tis the fifth day 
after the cold storm mentioned in my letter of yesterday; the disease has 
had time to run its ordinary course, (for it is on the fifth or seventh 
day that death from the fever is most common,) and the great Reaper has 
begun to bind and carry home his sheaves to-day--literally his sheaves,--
for it is not here and there one that has been taken, but the dead and the 
dying are in every quarter. All day have I been going from one scene of 
affliction to another, and now, though tired in body, I cannot sleep; and, 
as sometimes

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the overburdened spirit finds relief in such a way, I will employ this 
waking hour in writing to you.

Never before had I an idea of what a pastor might be called to do and to 
witness in a plague-stricken city. Let me take you with me, not to all the 
houses I have visited today; I will not take you out of my own 
congregation; and even then I will ask you to go with me to such houses 
only as, within the last week, have been converted into hospitals. And, as 
we proceed, remember that mine is but one out of nine congregations, 
(including the Catholic,) and what you see here must be repeated nine 
times over, if you would have an idea of what is really taking place 
around you.

We will stop first here, near the main street. A widowed mother and two of 
her children, all victims of the fever, have been buried from this house 
within the last ten days, while the three remaining

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children of that family, all apparently convalescent, were on yesterday 
removed to the house of an uncle, in another part of the city. In the 
upper story, there is a maiden lady, with the three orphan children of a 
deceased sister, living--or rather, they were living yesterday, but all 
down with the fever, and the lady, Miss E. F. H., seemed then extremely 
ill. Can any thing be done for them to-day? Let us enter and see. The 
children are all better, but the aunt is breathing her last; the physical 
agony of death has passed, and life is going out like the flickering 
candle in its socket. A sister has stolen away from her own sick son and 
daughter, that she may close her eyes; and a nurse, sent by our kind 
neighbours of Charleston, is there also. All we can do here is to go and 
secure for her a coffin. She told me, when I called yesterday, that she 
had no expectation of recovery, but death had no terrors for her.

Let us enter another door, not far from

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our church. Here, too, there are two families living in the same house, 
and all of both families have the fever. This is the house of which I have 
told you that, a few days ago, I stood at the door and begged a passing 
physician to come in and prescribe for the sick, but begged in vain; not 
that the physician was not willing to come, but because he had already 
more cases in hand than he could properly attend to. I afterward succeeded 
in getting a physician from Savannah, who had just arrived, to visit them; 
and since then he has been both doctor and nurse for all the sick in the 
house. The mother, in each family, has now so far recovered as to be able 
to help the others a little. Provisions, sent from Baltimore, have been 
supplied them by the Howard Association. Can we do any thing for them? All 
seem to be on the mend; and what is most needed is some chicken-broth, for 
those who are beginning to feel like eating again. But how shall it be got 
for them? The soup-house

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of the Howard Association is on Market Square, and there is no one here 
that can go for them. An elder of our church took their pitcher and 
brought the soup to them yesterday, but he is by the bedside of a dying 
brother now. I must get it for them to-day.

We will stop now at the house of Mr. J. A request was sent me this morning 
that I would call there if I could. There have been several cases of fear 
in this house for some days past, but all apparently yielding to medical 
treatment excepting that of Mrs. J. who is now said to be near her end. 
Hers has seemed me a strange case from the first--little or no apparent 
fever, but an entire giving way of the nervous system. Those around her 
were at first disposed to think that she was suffering rather from 
ordinary nervousness than from yellow fever. She does not seem ill to-day, 
and yet her physician, who has come from New Orleans, and made this 
disease his study, tells me she

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will be dead before to-morrow morning. Mrs. J. has been hard of hearing 
for several years, and this disease has made her perfectly deaf. A warm-
hearted Christian woman she is. She gives me a smile of recognition, and 
stretches out to me her quivering hand. She speaks; there is something 
unearthly in the sound of her voice; its tone is hollow and yet strangely 
sweet. She is evidently in her right mind, but she speaks of herself as 
the third person. "She expected from the time the fever appeared in 
Norfolk that she would die of it. She had wished to live a few years 
longer for her husband's and her children's sake, but God's will be done. 
Her prayer was that God would do with her and hers as seemed to him good." 
Can it be that she is so near her end? If so, this is a phase of the 
disease that is new to me. Should she be taken, our church will lose in 
her a praying member. But why detain her? she is ripe for heaven.

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The hour for morning service has arrived. Two of our churches are open to-
day--one of the Episcopal churches, and my own. A mere handful have come 
up to the Lord's house; and yet--blessed be God!--enough to claim the 
Master's presence on his own terms: "Where two or three are gathered 
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." The congregation 
all come forward and occupy some eight or nine pews immediately in front 
of the pulpit; and it seems fitting the occasion that the preacher should 
quit the pulpit and stand in their midst. Our sick and afflicted ones are 
remembered in our prayers; our absent ones are not forgotten; and it is 
cheering to think that many a fervent prayer is offered by them in our 
behalf; that, though absent from us in body, in spirit they are with us, 
and their prayer and ours is one--that God would say to this wasting 
pestilence, "It is enough." A congregation of twenty-seven persons (for 
this was the number

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in our church to-day) in one of the three largest Presbyterian churches in 
Virginia! And yet, in so far as I know, all our people were there who 
could be; those not there are far away, or they are sick, or with the 
sick, or they are dead. A mere handful we were, but it was good to be 
there. Who, of this small number, shall come up to God's house on next 
Sabbath morning, if there be a congregation gathered here, I cannot tell. 
It may be all--it may be none of us. But then there is a more glorious 
sanctuary, and a holier, sweeter sanctuary worship than this, to which, 
through God's grace, we may look forward when we have done with the 
Sabbaths of earth.

Having rested for a little season now, let us visit the house of Mr. S. 
When last there, on Friday evening, there were five of the children down 
with the fever, and, although two of them were very sick, they did not 
appear to be in any immediate danger, and the mother and three other

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children were them to nurse them. We enter. The mother and another child 
were taken down yesterday, and the mother's case seems to be rather a 
threatening one. But "God is with her of a truth," blessed be his name! 
The eldest daughter has had the "black vomit" for several hours. Can it be 
that she is to die? She says that she does not suffer, and her mind seems 
clear and her spirit composed. She has been a member of the church for 
several years; and her regular attendance in the sanctuary, and in the 
prayer-meeting, and in the Sabbath-school, has borne witness that her 
heart was in the service which she rendered God. She is in the hands of 
her Heavenly Father, and there must we leave her; and to no better hands 
can we commit those we love. The other sick ones all appear to be doing 
well. Here let us kneel, midway between the three rooms in which the sick 
are lying, that all may hear and join in the prayer. How solemn a thing it 
is to pray in such

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circumstances! Whether we shall all unite in prayer again on earth God 
only knows.

Passing around the corner of the street, here, in this house just before 
us, there were five sick with the fever yesterday. There were well ones 
there then, to nurse the sick; but nearly worn out by the exertions they 
had been compelled to make. A lady from Washington, who has kindly come on 
as a nurse, is with them to-day. The sick ones are not arranged as they 
were yesterday. Why is this? Those most ill have been placed in a room by 
themselves; that, if they die, (and there is reason to fear that one at 
least will,) their death-struggles may not excite and thus do harm to 
those who seem to be recovering. There is great mercy in thus "sorting 
out" the sick at such a time as this. There is reason to fear that one of 
these two placed here together will die. Ida, the elder, seemed to be 
doing well yesterday; but last night she suddenly started up from her

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troubled sleep, and, before any one could get to her, sprang from the bed, 
and ran screaming down the stairs and to the front door. Here she was 
overtaken, and brought back to bed again; but the shock her nervous system 
received is likely to prove fatal. The account she gives of the matter is 
that in her sleep she dreamed that some frightful monster was just about 
to seize her, when she sprang from her bed and ran. In a disease which 
affects the nervous system as the yellow fever does, such cases as this 
are to be expected, and, on account of their fatal consequences, need to 
be very carefully guarded against. With the exception of Ida, the sick 
here seem to be in no immediate danger.

Going along this street to the head of it, let us visit Mr. B's. Two of 
the children had the fever yesterday, and when I saw them I had but little 
hope that either of them would recover. We enter the house;--no one thinks 
of bell or knocker now.

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A fierce watch-dog lies across the passage, and yet, strange to say, there 
seems to be a spell upon him, and he meets us as a friend. Hark! that was 
a fearful scream! The spell on the watch-dog's spirit is explained; for 
dogs seem, to understand by instinct such sounds as this. We ascend the 
stairs. Here, in this room, lies Eugene, just breathing his last. In his 
agony he has ruptured a blood-vessel; and now his pale white arm is in 
strong contrast with the blood-stained pillow on which it lies. Yesterday 
he was in his senses, and I had a very pleasant talk with him about Jesus 
and his love for children. He told me then that he thought he loved Jesus, 
and I trust he did. He is perfectly insensible and cold at the extremities 
now. The scream we heard was from his sister, in the next room--a raving 
maniac in the paroxysm of her fever. Her heart-stricken mother can hardly 
hold her. It is a little more than a year since Florence took her stand 
among the disciples of Jesus; and

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she promised to make a useful member of the church. Should she be taken--
and I think she will be dead before morning--she will be the third of 
those then gathered in that have now been gathered home. A nurse is with 
the mother. But where is the father? Down with the fever, in another part 
of the house, and with the disease showing the same terrible symptoms it 
has in the case of his children. What can we do for this household? I know 
not, but to assist in having Mr. B. removed to the hospital, and to secure 
a coffin for Eugene, Florence will probably not need hers before morning.

The sun is just setting; and this is the hour I promised to attend the 
funeral--if funeral our burial-service now may be called--of Miss Helen W. 
The case of this family is sad indeed. Captain S., Miss Helen's brother-in-
law, returned from a three years' naval cruise but a few weeks ago. The 
family consisted of Captain and Mrs. S.,

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Miss Helen, four children at home, and one away, at sea. About ten days 
ago Captain S. died; a few days later, his wife; then the eldest daughter, 
and now Miss Helen; and the two younger children are lying extremely ill. 
When I called last evening to see Miss Helen, she did not seem to be 
suffering in body at all; and knowing that she had been subject, for 
years, to occasional seasons of great depression of spirits, I thought 
that it was possibly as much depression of spirits as yellow fever she was 
suffering from then; and, seeing the condition of the children, I urged 
her to arouse herself, for their sakes. She told me then that she would 
get up in the morning. When morning came, she was a corpse; and now we are 
here for her burial. Mr. and Mrs. G., relatives of the family, are here to 
do what they can for them; and they, Wm. S., two men who have come with 
the hearse, and ourselves, are the congregation assembled for the funeral.

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No carriage accompanies the hearse, for none can be obtained; and we must 
do as we can and not as we would now. The coffin is brought down. We stop 
with it a few moments in the hall, while a brief prayer is offered; and 
then, placing it in the hearse, it is driven off to the cemetery at a 
rapid pace. Wm. S., that he may see his aunt's body laid with those of the 
family, mounts the hearse-box with the driver, and they are soon lost to 
view. Such are many of our funerals in this time of pestilence. Four out 
of seven have now been buried from this household; and two more, I fear, 
must shortly be added to the number of the dead. May we not call this a 
family removal from this, their last year's residence, to the cemetery?

One other call we must make, before returning home for the night. In the 
house we are entering, the husband, Mr. H., was extremely ill this 
morning; and there was little or no hope of his recovery. The children,

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through God's good providence, were all away when the fever began to 
spread in the city, and have not been suffered to return. There are now 
four of the family here--Mr. H., a niece who has had a slight attack of 
fever and is recovering, Mrs. H., who was so ill ten days ago that I 
little thought she would now be numbered among the living, (she is better, 
and, although feeble, she sits watching by the bedside of her dying 
husband,) and her father, an old man. He seems overcome by the threatening 
calamity. Mr. H. yet breathes, but the death-damp is gathering on his 
forehead, and he must soon be gone. "Can you get some one to help us lay 
him out?" And is this all that can be done for them? It is even so. No 
question I have heard to-day has struck so sadly upon my ear, heard where 
it is, as this; for to me it tells of the terrible "destruction" now 
wasting us. I do not believe that a family could be found in the city who 
have more uniformly

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and constantly "visited the sick in their afflictions" than this; and at 
any other time many a one would have been present, brought hither by the 
grateful remembrance of kindness done, to render every aid which man can 
render to the sick and dying. But now, so terribly does the pestilence 
prevail that even in this house the question is heard at the bedside of 
the dying--"Can you get some one to help us lay him out?"--"All our 
pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these 
things, O Lord?"



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LETTER VI.
THE CRISIS OF THE EPIDEMIC--FRIGHTFUL MORTALITY--BURYING IN PITS--A BURIAL 
IN A PLAGUE-STRICKEN CITY--APPEARANCE OF THE CEMETERY--APPEARANCE OF THE 
HARBOUR--CASES OF ROBBERY--CHARACTER OF NURSES FROM ABROAD.

Thursday, Sept. 6.

The fever continues to rage with unabated violence. The exact number of 
deaths, daily, I cannot tell; But it will not take many weeks of such 
pestilence as this to leave our city without inhabitants. On carefully 
looking over our church roll, on the first of this month, I found that we 
had just eighty-seven of our communicants then in the city. Out of this 
number, ten died during the first three days of this week. I have heard 
and read of cities decimated during a season of pestilence; but here is 
more than a decimation in three

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days. Through God's good providence, two-thirds of our church members are 
away, beyond the range of the fever which is wasting us. It may be that 
this is God's plan for preserving us "a seed alive in the earth."

Walking with a friend yesterday, he remarked, "The verse of an old hymn 
has been constantly running in my mind for the last day or two:--

"'One army of the living God,
To his commands we bow;
Part of the host have cross'd the flood,
And part are crossing now.'"

Certainly no words could more accurately describe our case then these. Had 
I not God's own assurance that the church was ever his care, and did I not 
know that his church on earth was established, in the first instance, 
simply as a training-school for the church above, I should be ready to 
say, with Jacob, "All these things are against me."

I have just returned from the burial of a

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young man, a member of my church, whose death was an exceedingly painful 
one, in so far as the body was concerned. When first taken, he seemed to 
be slightly attacked, and in the course of five or six days was up and 
walking about his room. In this condition he ate imprudently, and thus 
brought on a relapse. After the fever returned upon him, it was found 
impossible to break it again; and yesterday the blood actually oozed 
through the skin, on different parts of his body, before he died. As a 
general thing, death by yellow fever seems to be rather an easy one; but 
occasionally cases occur, like this, where the death-struggle is terrible.

I said above that I could not tell the exact number of deaths now 
occurring daily. It is commonly reported at about eighty; but this I know 
must be below the real number. On yesterday, between four and five 
o'clock, P. M., I accompanied a corpse to the cemetery, and seeing a large

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number of coffins lying in different parts of the ground, awaiting 
interment, I asked the principal grave-digger the number of graves then 
ordered in the city cemeteries for the day. He replied, "Forty-three." 
Passing on to the Potters' Field, I saw two piles of coffins and rough 
boxes, such as we are compelled to substitute for coffins in many 
instances now, piled up like cord-wood, as high as a man could 
conveniently reach to pile them; while close by, men were busy in digging 
a pit in which to cover them up from sight. I did not count them, but the 
person having charge of the matter said there were upward of forty in all. 
Now, besides these, several coloured persons had been buried that day; one 
under my own eyes, where friends went along and dug the grave after the 
corpse was carried to the ground. We have, then, for that day, in the city 
cemeteries and in the Potters' Field, not less than ninety burials; and 
this does not include the interments in the Catholic

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burial-ground, which is distinct from the city cemeteries; and I do not 
know the number buried there. And this before five o'clock in the 
afternoon; while for a week past they have continued to carry out and bury 
the dead until nine or ten o'clock at night. On such ground as this it is 
I say the number of deaths must be much greater than the published 
estimate.

Burying the dead in pits, if burial it can be called, and in many an 
instance with nothing but a rough box to surround the body--to this has 
stern necessity driven us. And even this is not the worst; the boxes used 
have generally but one body placed in them, and yet this is not always the 
case; in one instance I know that four bodies were crowded into a single 
box; and one of the most active members of the Howard Association told me, 
that, a few nights ago, the supply of coffins and boxes having given out, 
he helped to bury eight corpses just tied up in the blankets in which the 
persons

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had died. Thus are the dead carried out to the Potters' Field, sometimes 
in furniture-wagons, sometimes in carts, sometimes upon drays; and there, 
placed layer upon layer in the pits, they rest, until the morning of the 
resurrection. You know our people too well to think that this arises from 
any want of a disposition to show a proper respect for the dead, or from 
any lack of those feelings of our common humanity which are shocked at 
such a course. It is a stern necessity which compels us to do as we are 
doing; for thus only can we keep the tainted air from becoming so deeply 
infected that none shall be left to bury our dead; thus only can we keep 
pace with death in his rapid strides. The "great Reaper,"--surely this is 
his harvest season; and the living toil and sweat in binding and carrying 
home the sheaves after his sickle.

We have burials, but no funerals, now. And that you may know just how our

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burials are performed, let me take you with me to one to-day. By the 
exertion of friends two carriages have been secured to accompany the 
hearse. We enter one of them, and are driven off rapidly toward the house 
where the corpse is lying. We stop a short distance from the door. It is 
the mother we are to bury; and the daughter is now so extremely ill that 
they dare not let her know that her mother lies dead in the very next room 
to herself; and this is the reason why the hearse and carriages are not 
suffered to come up to the door. Enough are present to carry the coffin to 
the hearse; and now that it has been placed there, we drive off, hearse 
and carriages, at the same rapid pace at which we were driven hither. The 
principal grave-digger opens the cemetery gate; but instead of silently 
pointing us to the grave, as in ordinary times, or inquiring in a whisper 
the name of the deceased, and then, in the same tone, giving us our 
directions, as he did ten days

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ago, he now asks, in very much the style of the challenge given by a 
sentry on guard; "Who's this?" and when the answer is given, we are told 
which way to direct our course. Arrived at the lot belonging to the 
family, we find no grave dug there as yet; so many graves have been 
ordered to-day, that, with all the help that can be hired to labour at 
grave-digging, it is impossible the orders should be promptly attended to. 
The hearse cannot wait; the carriages cannot wait; all we can do is to 
deposit the coffin where the grave is to be dug, and, offering a short 
prayer, there leave it, to take its turn at the hands of the over-tasked 
grave-diggers.

Before we quit the cemetery, stand here and look around you. This is 
September,--the season of the year when in ordinary times every thing 
looks green in this place, and under the shade of these old cedars a quiet 
reigns which well becomes a cemetery--a resting-place for the dead. But 
now there are labourers toiling in every part of

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the ground, and the sound of the shovel of the grave-digger is heard on 
every side, even while our little company stood for a few moments 
uncovered for prayer. "God's-acre" has the appearance of a ploughed field. 
Instead of a resting-place for the dead, the cemetery looks more like a 
camping-ground being got ready for a coming host of the living. The city 
and the cemetery have exchanged characters. The latter now wears the busy 
aspect which belongs of right to the former; and almost the silence of 
death reigns in the deserted streets.

Returning from the cemetery, let us take our way to the drawbridge, that 
from thence we may have a full view of the harbour, and of what, a few 
weeks ago, was the business part of the city. As we pass along, notice 
these flies collected about the doors and windows of almost every house we 
pass. This is said to be the plague-fly, and its coming is thought to mark 
the crisis

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of the epidemic. I first noticed it about a week ago; and since then the 
pestilence might well be called "the destruction which wasteth at 
noonday." Here, in this house on our left, we made our last visit 
together, on Sabbath night. Mr. H. died shortly after we left the house. 
His father-in-law followed his corpse to the cemetery on Monday evening, 
and, returning home with a chill upon him, died and was buried on 
yesterday. So rapidly does this fever, in some instances, do its work. God 
help the heart-stricken one from whom He has, almost at one and the same 
time, taken both father and husband!

Now that we are out upon the draw-bridge, look along the water-front of 
the city. Wharves and warehouses, with the names of occupants painted in 
large letters upon their fronts, all appear as usual, saving that their 
doors and windows are closed, and there is no living thing to be seen 
about them. The names painted there

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will, many of them, if they are to give true directions, soon have to be 
blotted out, and graven, instead, upon the sign-stones in the "city of the 
dead." But look along the wharves, where at every season of the year there 
are many vessels lying, and in the winter and early spring they often line 
the wharf-heads five and six deep. There is not now one single vessel to 
be seen afloat, from the drawbridge to Town-Point. There are the two 
slender masts of a fishing-smack sunken in the county dock; and here, in 
this shipyard, there is a vessel drawn up as if for repairs; but there is 
no shipwright at work upon her. There is a plank half fastened to her 
side; but the hand that placed it there "shall not have any more a portion 
forever in any thing that is done under the sun." The only boat which 
enters our harbour now is the little steamer, J. E. Coffee, run to meet 
the boats from Baltimore and Richmond in Hampton Roads. By her our mails 
are

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carried and all our commerce done. Yesterday she came in with her whole 
deck piled with empty coffins; and coffins for the dead are one main 
article of import now, more needed, more sought after, than any other 
article offered in our market. I have seen furniture-wagons drive rapidly 
hither and thither through the city, of late, and the only article of 
furniture they have carried home has been coffins. I looked over the day-
book of one of our principal furniture-dealers, yesterday; and, all down 
the page, there was no charge but the oft-repeated one of "A coffin;"--"a 
coffin." Poor, desolate Norfolk! The coming of a ship into her harbour to-
day would cause almost as much surprise to the beholder as did the coming 
of the ship whose hull first rippled the surface of her waters to the 
Indian who then dwelt here. The sun shines as brightly, and the sea-breeze 
seems as balmy, as at other times; and yet this, one of the finest 
harbours on the Atlantic

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seaboard,--the unseen pestilence has made it to be shunned by the mariner, 
more than if it were full of quicksands and sunken rocks.

And now, having witnessed something of the desolation which has settled 
down on our plague-stricken city, let me tell you of troubles of another 
kind, which have, very unexpectedly to me, come upon us. A man by the name 
of Isaac Marks came here a short time ago as a nurse, and so won the 
confidence of those in authority that the City Hospital was put under his 
supervision. This man has been detected in robbing the dying, has 
confessed his crime, and has pointed out the place where he concealed his 
plunder. One would think that persons coming to such a city as ours now is 
would be possessed of pure and holy motives; or, at the least, that the 
sight of our sorrows would move the heart of the most hardened villain to 
pity, and, even though he might have come with intent to

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curse, cause him to stay that he might bless us. It is not so. "The love 
of money is the root of all evil;" and there are men from whose hearts it 
has blotted out every trace of a better humanity.

The way in which this robbery committed by Marks has been found out is 
worthy of record. He was acting as nurse in a family living next door to 
the hospital, and where the pestilence has swept away father and mother, 
and child after child, until, out of a family of eleven, only three, I 
believe, remain. These were all sick, and the elder, a boy about fourteen 
years old, was thought to be dying. When taken sick, this boy had placed 
under his pillow the key of a trunk containing jewelry and other articles 
of value given him by his father before his death. Marks knew where this 
key was; and, supposing the boy to be too far gone to take notice of what 
he did, possessed himself of the key, and thus of the valuables contained 
in the trunk. Contrary to all expectation,

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this boy is now recovering, and has given the information which led to the 
detection of the robbery.

It is painful to know that such cases as this can occur, and to feel that 
while watching with the sick you have to guard against the robber; and yet 
this is not the only instance of the kind which has occurred among us. A 
few days ago, I was accosted in the street by a stranger, so drunk that he 
could hardly stand, who told me that he had letters of introduction to me 
from a friend in Richmond, and asked me to get him a place as a nurse in 
some family needing such services. He did not show me any letters, nor do 
I believe that he had any; for, great as is the want of integrity 
manifested by thoughtless men in giving letters of recommendation, I do 
not believe that any one would recommend a drunkard as a nurse in yellow 
fever. Knowing how useless it was to reason with or to attempt to reprove 
a drunken man, I turned from

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him, simply warning him to quit the city as soon as he could find the 
means of getting away. I learned the next day that this man had come here, 
and, by his plausible representations, had succeeded in getting a place as 
nurse in a family where all were down with the fever; and there, having 
robbed the young man whose special nurse he was, had then made himself 
drunk with the brandy ordered by the physician for his patient, and in 
this condition had left the house and come to me.

You may ask, where is our city government, when such occurrences as these 
can be suffered to take place, and yet the criminal escape the punishment 
he deserves? I wrote you, some time ago, that Woodis, our mayor, was dead. 
I have now to add that Dr. Whitehead, our acting mayor, is down with the 
fever. His case does not seem, to-day, a very threatening one; and yet God 
only knows how it will terminate. And so with almost every one of our city

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officers that remained with us. They are now numbered either with the sick 
or the dead; and those of our citizens who have thus far escaped have no 
heart to punish even the criminal.

Do not infer, however, from the cases just mentioned, the general 
character of those who have come among us from abroad to act as nurses. 
Those sent us by the Howard Associations in our southern cities (and I 
find them now in very many houses) are careful and attentive, and seem to 
have been selected with great judgment by those who sent them. So, too, 
with the Sisters of Charity, several of whom have come hither from abroad 
and are now with us. And among the volunteer nurses acting under the 
direction of our Howard Association there are many worthy of all praise. 
And their coming was a blessing indeed to us; and many a life has been 
saved through their unwearied exertions.



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LETTER VII. THE PESTILENCE ABATING--DEATH OF MISS ELIZA SOUTTER--SCENE AT 
THE POST-OFFICE--PROPOSAL TO REMOVE THE PEOPLE TO OLD POINT.

Wednesday, Sept. 12.

The pestilence is evidently abating in violence, the number of deaths 
daily being now not much more than half what it was ten days ago. And yet 
I feel sad today; more sad, I believe, than I have felt any day since the 
pestilence first appeared. This may be in part owing to physcal causes; 
for neuralgic pains in my face have broken my rest for several nights 
past, and this and depression of spirits often go hand-in-hand in this 
world of ours, the willing spirit suffering under the weakness of the 
flesh.

This sadness is not, however, owing altogether to the body. I have had to-
day one

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of the most painful acts in my pastoral life to perform; and that was to 
follow to the grave the remains of our dear friend, Eliza Soutter. It 
ought not to have been a saddening act to me, I know; and, had I but the 
faith to look above and beyond these present scenes, and to trust 
unquestioningly the interests of Zion in the hands of Zion's God, it would 
not so appear. At the grave of one in whose death we have no hope, tears 
well may flow, but not at that of one who "sleeps in Jesus." I recollect 
once to have read of an old Scotch minister--in those times of persecution 
when God's people, "of whom the world was not worthy," were hunted like 
wild beasts--who used to pray, "Lord, spare the green and take the ripe." 
Oh that I had faith thus to pray! but the ripest for heaven seem, to 
mortal sense, the very ones we can most illy spare from the Church on 
earth. I do not know that I have ever met with a Christian whose character 
exhibited

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more of symmetry,--a character in which the lovelier graces were more duly 
attempered with Christian frankness and integrity,--than the one I have 
followed to the grave to-day. For the last two weeks I have been called so 
regularly, every day, to bury some one or more of the members of my 
church, that I now find myself, on awaking in the morning, asking myself 
the question--Whom have I to bury to-day? And, from closely noticing the 
symptoms of this fever, I can generally answer the question, at least in 
part, without a prompter. When I saw our dear friend on yesterday, I knew 
that she was in a dying state; and the first thought that occurred this 
morning was, "I must help to bury her to-day." And yet, when the 
announcement came that she was dead, it seemed to me I could hardly 
believe it--so much, and often insensibly too, do our wishes control and 
overbear the decisions of the judgment. She is in the grave now; no: she 
is not in the grave,--the

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body alone is there; the spirit, the ransomed spirit, I doubt not, "hath 
immediately passed into glory." In her last hours, and ere reason was 
dethroned, Christ, and the glorious fulness and perfection of his gospel, 
seemed to engage her thoughts. Well, no longer does she see Him whom she 
hath loved "through a glass, darkly--but face to face." I heard the remark 
quoted, some weeks ago, as that of an eminent physician, "Beware the 
Parthian arrows of the pestilence!" It made but little impression when 
first I heard it; I shall long remember it now. The Parthian arrows of the 
pestilence are striking down some of the noblest and loveliest among us.

I was at the post-office to-day shortly after the mail arrived, and the 
scene which met my eye, as contrasted with what it was a month ago, was 
truly affecting. When the post-office was first removed from Commerce 
Street to the Academy Building,

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it used to be a place of general meeting for our people; and at the time 
the mails were due, a crowd would collect in the ample porch and on the 
steps of the building, while in the yard, and especially in the shade, 
there were always boys playing marbles, or engaged in some other sport, 
and this with all the characteristic thoughtlessness and hilarity of 
youth. Here we met, and inquiries were made and answered respecting 
friends and acquaintances in different parts of the city; and 
companionship in trial made us sociable, so that those who before had 
known each other by sight only now met almost as old friends. Thus, even 
after a general gloom had spread itself over every other part of the city, 
here was a spot which yet wore a busy, cheerful aspect. All is changed 
now. To-day I saw no boys playing around, no crowd collected in the porch; 
but, one by one, men with sad countenances came, and, receiving their 
letters and papers, turned

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and went away again, one hardly having the heart to speak to another. 
While connected with the college in Lexington, I used at one time 
regularly to take my morning walk through a small piece of wood not far 
from the college buildings. One season a covey of partridges selected this 
wood as their feeding-ground. Here my approach would often start them up, 
and with a great fluttering of wing they would scatter in every direction. 
But the hunter found them out, and every day one or more of them would 
fall before his deadly aim, until the whole flock disappeared. In the 
early winter I would occasionally startle a single partridge from the old 
feeding-ground--one, I suppose, left alone of all that used to congregate 
there. I know not how often the thought has occurred to my mind, in the 
last few days, that such as was the history of this hunted flock, such 
will be that of the crowd that, a month ago used to collect at our post-
office.

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I wrote you in my last that Dr. Whitehead, our acting mayor, was down with 
the fever. He is now so far recovered as to be sitting up again; but a 
sore affliction has befallen him, in the death of his only daughter, and, 
indeed, his only child, that remained at home unmarried. A member of my 
church she was, and, although many years younger than Eliza Soutter, she 
gave promise of much of the same excellence of Christian character which 
has made her death so great a loss to us. "Passing away" seems to have 
been written by the finger of God, as a motto, upon the standard around 
which the Captain of our salvation has marshalled our little band.

I learn from the papers, and from private letters too, that our friends at 
a distance are talking of the propriety of the removal of our people in a 
body to Old Point, or to some other place beyond the reach of the deadly 
epidemic prevailing here. Perhaps some lives might be saved by such a 
course;

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but the thing is in itself impossible. Not that we are so numerous now 
that the means of transportation could not be found; it would not take 
many boats to remove us all to Old Point in a day or two. But there are 
the sick and the dying in almost every family, and these in a condition 
which places their removal out of the question; and those yet well cannot 
leave the sick. Our case is like that of the detachment of a retreating 
army to whose care the wounded have been confided. The enemy is closely 
pressing upon them, and word is sent them from those at a distance, who 
see naught but the danger in which this detachment is, "Flee--flee for 
your lives!" "But what of our wounded companions, who cannot flee? we are 
moving as rapidly as we can, and carry them with us." And word comes yet 
again--" Flee! leave the wounded, if you must; there will be less 
sacrifice of life if they are all left to die, and you save yourselves by 
flight, than if you stay at the risk

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of perishing with them, while the enemy is pressing so closely upon you." 
"This may all be true; but the wounded are our brethren,--those who have 
fought side by side with us in many a battle,--those who would never have 
deserted us had we been the wounded and they the whole. Flee we cannot. We 
can die with them, if God's will be so, but never leave them.



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LETTER VIII.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE FEVER--UNFULFILLED PRESENTIMENT OF DEATH--
PROPOSED DEPARTURE FROM NORFOLK.

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 1855.

Just a week has elapsed since last I wrote you, and yet it seems to me an 
age. That I should have the fever, and possibly, perhaps I ought to say 
probably, die under its attack, has for weeks past entered into all my 
calculations, when I have thought upon the subject at all; and yet, I can 
truly say, this prospect has caused me no anxious thought. When will we 
Christians learn to exercise faith commensurate with the fulness of God's 
precious promise--"as thy day so shall thy strength be"? for it is to his 
sustaining grace alone I can attribute the quiet I have enjoyed.

The very night after my last letter was

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written, the fever did attack me; and today, for the first time, I am 
sitting up for a little while, although I find myself weak as a child. In 
several of my letters I have had occasion to speak of the character and 
symptoms of this disease as they present themselves to a bystander; I can 
now speak of them as they present themselves in one's personal experience; 
or, if I may be allowed the use of the figure, I have attempted to exhibit 
to you the mode of attack and to expose the wiles of the enemy as they 
might be learned by a looker-on. I can now speak of them as learned in a 
personal encounter.

The fever prevailing here has seemed to change its type, at least in so 
far as its most obvious symptoms are concerned, and this more than once 
since its appearance among us. In almost all the cases I saw several weeks 
ago, an intense burning sensation in the pit of the stomach, aggravated by 
almost every thing which the patient would swallow,

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especially the stimulants which were given as the fever passed off, was 
the symptom chiefly complained of by the sufferer. I recollect the Rev. A. 
Dibbrell's remarking to me, the last time I saw him before his death, that 
he never had felt the force of the Scriptural expression, "the worm that 
dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched," so much as while suffering 
from this fever. Of late I have heard very few complain much of this 
burning sensation; and in my own case, although I suffered to some extent 
in this way--enough to lead me to think that the stomach was in an 
exceedingly irritated condition, yet not to such an extent as to make it, 
in the retrospect, a marked characteristic of the disease.

Very much the same remarks might be made respecting the intense pain in 
the head and the back of which almost every one complained, when first-
attacked, in the earlier stages of the epidemic. Some pain in the head and 
hack I did suffer at first,

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but these were speedily relieved by the application of a plaster, made of 
equal parts of cayenne pepper and flour, to the spine.

A few weeks ago almost every case commenced with a distinct, and sometimes 
protracted, chill. Of late, in many an instance, the person attacked is 
conscious of no distinct chill. In my own case, it would be difficult to 
say just when the attack commenced. When writing my last letter to you, I 
was conscious of an unusual nervous irritability, and walked the floor of 
my room for several hours after finishing it, suffering from what I 
thought neuralgic pains in my face. Such pains had broken my rest almost 
every night for the week then past; and when, after a few hours of 
unrefreshing slumber, I awoke, the next morning, with a dull pain in the 
head and a slightly feverish condition of the whole body, I was disposed 
to attribute this to my loss of rest, and after breakfast went out, as 
usual, to visit the sick and to take

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part in burying the dead. After following a corpse to the cemetery at ten 
o'clock, I found myself so much indisposed that I returned home, and in 
the course of an hour went to bed. Even then I was hardly willing to admit 
to myself that this was the beginning of the fever; yet such it soon 
proved to be.

The main characteristic of the fever, as it now presents itself to me, is 
a terrible nervous restlessness, which increased as the disease progressed 
toward its crisis, and of which I am yet by no means free. You may think 
that I am using a very strong expression when I call this a terrible 
nervous restlessness; yet no other words will convey just the impression 
which it has left upon my memory. My feelings during the whole of Saturday 
night, when this affection was at its height, I do not know that I can 
describe; or rather, I ought to say, I know that I cannot describe in 
language. I can perhaps give you the best

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idea of it by simply noting the fact that during that long, long night, as 
it seemed to me, the following changes were gone through with about every 
ten minutes. First, awaking with a nervous irritability, such that it was 
only with the utmost effort I could lie still, or keep the bedclothes upon 
me. I well knew, and the thought was constantly before my mind, that my 
life depended, in so far as second causes were concerned, upon keeping 
quiet and covered up, so that the gentle perspiration in which I was 
should not be checked; and yet, as this restlessness increased, it seemed 
to me that I had rather die than lie still; and this, although I would 
reason with myself as a Christian, and a husband and father with a family 
dependent upon him. Then, this restlessness, increasing, would become 
absolutely irresistible in the course of five or six minutes; (I had 
caused a lamp to be placed so as to throw its light upon a clock on the 
mantel, that

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I might mark the passage of time, and I therefore say, "five or six 
minutes," although the time often seemed to me a full hour;) when, taking 
a small piece of ice in my mouth, I would yield for the moment to my 
restlessness, and, throwing myself over in the bed, drop to sleep for a 
minute or two, to awake and go through precisely the same changes during 
the next ten minutes.

Several weeks ago, I sat by the bedside of a young man, in the crisis of 
his fever, who would throw the bedclothes off him every few minutes. I 
tried to persuade him to control himself in this particular; when he asked 
me, in a tone and with a look which showed that the question was asked in 
all seriousness, "What think you will be the consequence if I do not keep 
covered up?" As his case was then a very critical one, I replied,. "Unless 
you can be kept covered you will certainly die." "Well, die I must, then," 
said he, and with a single

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effort threw all the clothes off him again. I did not understand, his 
feelings then. I do now. On account of this nervous restlessness it is, in 
part at least, that the constant attention of a careful nurse is so 
important.

This restlessness has been to me one of the most marked characteristics of 
the fever in most of the fatal cases which I have seen,--a nervous 
irritability which even the stupor preceding death does not overcome; for 
I have seen the dying man throwing his head from side to side upon the 
pillow, even after all the organs of sense had ceased their office. I will 
not attempt to discuss the nature of yellow fever--that I leave to the 
physician; but, taking this nervous irritability as an index of the 
progress of the disease, (and this it certainly seemed to me to be, in 
very many instances,) I would simply record the fact that any thing which 
increased the irritation of the stomach or checked the perspiration seemed 
always to

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increase it. And hence I would infer--first, that as gentle medicines as 
possible should be used to act upon the stomach and bowels; in my case, a 
dose of castor oil, followed in the course of two hours by enemas of oil 
and warm water, were the only medicines used to act on the stomach. And, 
second, that moderate perspiration (not excessive, lest it weaken the 
patient too much in this wonderfully prostrating disease) should be 
produced as soon after the commencement of the attack as possible, and 
thenceforward kept up by external applications, (mustard and steambaths 
are the means upon which our physicians rely,) or by some pleasant 
sudorific, such as balm or orange-leaf tea. Some such practice as this is 
that which has proved most successful here. Of course, there are cases in 
which the disease presents some peculiar symptoms, or assumes an unusual 
type, where other remedies, even violent ones, have to be resorted to; but 
this

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is true, in so far as I have seen,--whether it is to be attributed to the 
fact that the cases in which more violent remedies were resorted to were 
of a more malignant type or not,--that in very few of these cases has the 
patient recovered.

It is also true, and ought to be stated in connection with what I have 
written above, that the fever prevailing among us, if it be one and the 
same disease in all cases, (and there are many good reasons why it should 
be so regarded,) is a disease Protean in its forms, as there have been, 
from the first, cases occurring which seemed to resist all kinds of 
medical treatment,--cases in which, even though the medicine administered 
produced the immediate effect designed, the disease has moved right onward 
to a fatal termination. Some ten days ago, one of our first physicians 
said to me, "I have never felt so powerless in the presence of any disease 
as in the presence of this. In some of its forms it laughs the

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skill of the physician to scorn." And such, I believe, is the feeling of 
all the more intelligent physicians among us. One exception there was, at 
least, a few weeks ago. I then heard a practitioner say, in what seemed to 
me a boasting tone, he had not lost a patient; but this I know, that 
before forty-eight hours had passed I helped to bury two who had been 
under his treatment.

While speaking of my personal experience of this fever, I should leave the 
account incomplete did I fail to note a fact respecting "a presentiment" 
which fastened itself upon my mind in spite of all I could do to throw it 
off. For some time past the thought had occasionally occurred, I cannot 
tell why, that I should die of the disease on my birthday, the 15th of 
this month. When taken with the fever, just three days before that date,--
the very time which it takes in some instances to run its course,--this 
thought fastened itself upon my

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mind as a "presentiment of death;" and, although by no means inclined to 
superstition, I could not succeed in throwing it off until after twelve at 
night on Saturday, when of course the time was past. I note this fact, 
because such presentiments have been very common in this fever,--perhaps 
owing to the disordered, excited state of the nervous system,--and in many 
an instance, by depressing the spirits, have had some influence, I fear, 
in producing the fatal effect they have foreshadowed. I am yet in a very 
feeble condition-- by no means beyond the danger of relapse,--and 
therefore cannot speak of myself as one recovered; but this much is 
certain, my presentiment has not been fulfilled.

I am now expecting to leave home for a short time, purposing to go with my 
family to Hampton on the morrow. In my present state of health I must be 
useless here for some time to come; and I am going now mainly for the 
purpose of getting my

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family, who have all along been unwilling to go unless I would go with 
them, beyond the range of this deadly epidemic. They may, it is true, have 
the poison now in their systems, and if so, it will doubtless work its way 
out, even in the most healthy place, as many of our citizens have sickened 
and died in almost all the towns and cities around us; but my hope is, 
that in a more healthy atmosphere, even if they have the fever, they will 
have it in a milder form than they would here. And now that my motive for 
staying is taken away, at least for the present, I feel that the sooner we 
get away the better.