Civil War writing - letter to Confederacy Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens about hospitals

Letter dated February 3, 1862 to Vice-President of the Confederacy Alexander H. Stevens by Mary H. Johnstone

As a nurse, I found this letter to be an excellent nursing leadership example of how an assessment about shabby patient care was reported to the executive branch of the Confederate Government.

Although I tried on-line searches to research more information abut Mary H. Johnstone, the author of the letter, I was only able to find one reference to her in another anthology about Civil War Women.  

I will post her letter in this blog to my Facebook page "Maine Nursing: Interviews and Histories about Caring and Competence" because Ms. Johnstone certainly raised the "competence" issue in her frankly worded assessment, sent to Vice President Stephens. 

Published in the anthology "Heroines of Dixie: Spring of High Hopes" by Katharine M. Jones, Editor "A moving first hand account of what life was like in the Confederacy," reported a review in the Christian Science Monitor.  (Mockingbird Books, Inc., St. Simons Island, Georgia, 1955, pp. 80-81.)

Mary H. Johnstone investigated hospitals in Northern Virginia at the request of the Confederacy Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens. In her report, she was caustically critical about the surgeons' inefficiencies. She attributed much of the incompetence she observed to heavy drinking. This observation was shared by nurses who worked with both the Union and Confederate hospitals 

The Stone House  
During the Civil War the house was twice engulfed in battle, serving alternately as hospital for the wounded of each side. Shells are still to be seen embedded in the walls.

1862 Savannah, Georgia

Katharine M. Jones Editor wrote: "Mary H. Johnstone- personal observations at some of the camps and hospitals. Mrs. Johnstone, of Savannah, George, at the request of Vice-President Stephens, made a survey of medical conditions at camps and hospitals in Virginia." 

Letter to Confederacy- Vice President Alexander H. Stephens

Private

Feby3rd, 1862

In compliance with a request made by Mr. Duncan in your name to my adopted son, Cap Waring, I committ to paper the result of my personal observation at some of the camps and hosptials in Va. No doubt, to the emergency, & to a want of practical experience in the organization & management on a large scale of this very necessary appendage to an army in war, may be attributed much that is reprehensible, but no great improvement can be expected so long as surgeon appointments remain a political preferment, and are consequently made with so little reference to the most important qualifications to the position.

The man's life in the Army is not sufficiently valued- though it is there of so great moment, and most recklessly in some cases have the scales of life been intrusted to inexperienced, if not incompetent hands. Suely, where neither Patient nor friend as a choice in the medical adviser, & the one freely offers his life for his country, the other more than life! Common justice requires a judicious selection by those in authority; above all, that power for good or for ill should not be confided to the Intemperate; Without desiring to make a charge, I simply ask, in the name of those being this sacrificed, that professional men of more experience be chosen, and that a more rigid examination into their habits be instituted. This one vice of Intemperance ought to be sufficient to condemn any applican for the post an dbe a reason for dismissal when already appointed....

....There should be local hospitals. Camp fevers, it is said, are incurable under canvass, & the camp Hospitals, where even under roof, are devoid of comfort, even necessaries, & yet to remove an ill person any distance is death in most cases. Supposing it be not possible to procure a suitable building in the direct vicinity of the encampment to form a proper hospital then it remains but to permit friends, or persons willing to receive a few, patients to do so...

It is a fact which came under my own knowledge that the private medicine chest of a company, recently arrived at Manassas, was in request immediately for the whole regiment to which it was attached.....

The few observations I was enabled to make upon my recent sojourn at Manassas are such as would strike any kind of practised eye, but many valuable suggestions might occur to one habitually a visitor, whose business it might be to investigate matters, & to be responsible for the faithful discharge of duty in every department. An Inspector General whose character & experience in his profession should command respect from his fellow surgeons, and of kindliness of heart not to consider the smallest matter that might contribute to the poor soldiers comfort beneath his notice.

This supervision should extend, not only over nurses & the minutiae of their duties, but also over surgeons themselves, and he should be invested with authority in turn, should be cashiered in default of moral courage to exercise this discretion.

Wishing you success in the beautiful & important work to which you are so charitably devoting your attention, I am, Sir, one most earnestly interested to the same cause.

Mary H. Johnstone

Rachel Carson's environmental protection metaphor

Environmentalism emerged as a popular grassroots political movement in the 1960s, with the publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. Her book's title became a metaphor for "environmental protection".

"Serious, informed, yet also passionate, Silent Spring is a model of how to write for the general public about complicated things", wrote David Cloutier

“I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society.” - Rachel Carson

Science and Religion in alignment

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

An essay published in Commonweal Magazine by David Cloutier

Commonweal is a liberal American Catholic journal of opinion, edited and managed by lay Catholics, headquartered in The Interchurch Center in New York City. It is the oldest independent Roman Catholic journal of opinion in the United States. 

Rachel Carson was not anti-science. Nor was her approach what we would now call “deep ecology*.” Instead, it reflected an understanding of humanity’s relationship to the rest of nature that is now enshrined in Catholic teaching.

Cloutier essay:  I live in a large apartment building perched on the edge of what is surely the most obscure treasure in Washington, D.C.—Rock Creek Park. I had never heard of it before I moved here, but it didn’t take me long to realize that a trail at the end of my block led into miles and miles of forest, right in the middle of a city. As a native Chicagoan, I had no idea that a city “park” could be like this. Thanks to Rock Creek Park, I’ve not only encountered plenty of deer grazing peacefully on my apartment building’s front lawn, but I also get to wake up every morning to the sound of birds chirping away.
It turns out, I may have Rachel Carson (1907-1964) to thank. In a lecture included in this new Library of America edition of her work, Carson notes that among the “destructions of beauty” being planned is that of “a small but beautiful woodland area—Rock Creek Park.” There was at the time a proposal “to run a six-lane arterial highway through the heart of that narrow woodland valley.” Sadly, some of the Maryland portion of Rock Creek Park was sacrificed for the Capital Beltway, but the D.C. portion remained unbuilt, leaving only the original winding tourist roads (much to the chagrin of locals who still try to use those roads to commute).

But of course, it is those chirping birds that make me most grateful for the enormous impact Carson’s most famous book, Silent Spring, had in curtailing the massive, indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides, and in helping inspire a backlash that grew into today’s environmental movement. Those pesticides poisoned all kinds of wildlife, including birds. As Sandra Steingraber’s introduction to this edition notes, a blue-ribbon panel in 1992 named Silent Spring “the single most influential book of the past fifty years.” What author doesn’t hope that his or her book might make that kind of a difference in the world?

Silent Spring might not seem at first glance like such a book. 

Much of it consists of fairly detailed analysis of particular examples of pesticide overuse, annotated with sixty pages’ worth of citations from the scientific literature. Yet this is surely part of the book’s appeal. While evidently the work of an informed scientist, the text manifests Carson’s prior experience as a science writer, displaying a gift for intertwining broad findings with particular stories of egregious overuse and a deep appreciation for the beauty and wonder of nature. Serious, informed, yet also passionate, Silent Spring is a model of how to write for the general public about complicated things.

It may be hard for us now to imagine the original context. It was truly the era of better-living-through-chemistry. Readers too young to remember that time may be shocked to learn of the indiscriminate spraying of the 1950s. Take the campaign against the fire ant, an invasive insect in the South. Despite decades of evidence that the ant did little harm to crops, wildlife, and humans, its “eradication” was deemed necessary by the United States Department of Agriculture. Eventually over 20 million acres were sprayed with “relatively new” insecticides. Carson takes several pages to describe the animal deaths that followed. After a couple of years, the USDA severely reduced the program, not least because farmers were increasingly unwilling to sign up for it. Or perhaps it was because the FDA banned any residue of the main insecticide, heptachlor, on food. The ban was based on research already available when the spraying program began.

Carson was not anti-science. Nor was her approach what we would now call “deep ecology.” Instead, it reflected an understanding of humanity’s relationship to the rest of nature that is now enshrined in Catholic teaching. She would have agreed with Pope Benedict when he wrote in his 2009 encyclical, Caritas in veritate, that we should always aim to work with, rather than against, creation’s grammar. In her very first pages, Carson notes that she is not saying “there is no insect problem” but only that “control must be geared to realities, not to mythical situations.”

Take, for example, her extended study of the Japanese beetle, an invasive pest originally imported to the East Coast of the United States in the 1910s. Carson describes the efforts of Midwestern states in the 1950s to combat this “only…moderately destructive insect” through widespread spraying. The city of Detroit was sprayed with Aldrin because, though a poison, it was the cheapest available product. Residents were told that “the dust is harmless to children and will not hurt plants or pests.” When birds and domestic animals began to die because of the spraying, authorities strenuously denied it. And this was only one among many spraying programs, most of which resulted in “only temporary suppression of the insect.” Carson then explains that communities on the East Coast had controlled the pests for decades by importing a particular wasp predator and introducing targeted bacteria that gave only the beetles “milky spore disease.” Carson never suggests that controlling pests is in itself a bad objective. The crucial question is what sort of control. She consistently favors “natural” or “biological” controls rather than chemical ones. She even has good things to say about prospective genetic manipulations that would render pests sterile over time. Such solutions use knowledge of the natural system itself to achieve their objective, for “the really effective control of insects is that applied by nature, not by man.”

The overuse of pesticides, as described by Carson, also exemplifies the core concept of Pope Francis’s Laudato si’—namely, the technocratic paradigm, according to which we “lay our hands on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us.” This contrasts with an approach to nature Francis describes as “in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves.” Like Francis, Carson seems convinced that a key reason the technocratic paradigm has been adopted is that it advances the interests of the powerful. She notes the “sales bonanza” for manufacturers that lay behind the fire-ant program. The chemical companies trot out “outstanding entomologists” whose research labs are entirely funded by the industry itself, while research on natural controls is “never so endowed.” As Carson reminds the reader more than once, this heavy-handed approach doesn’t even succeed on its own terms: the bugs quickly evolve to become resistant to the control, leaving an even worse problem. She also warns that the same kind of “resistance” will not be built up by slow-evolving humans, who will be subject year after year to greater and greater quantities of necessarily more potent poisons. After all, she notes forebodingly, new insect populations “arise in a matter of days or weeks,” whereas humans do so “roughly three generations per century.” The point is clear enough: if this is how humans fight insects, it is the humans who will eventually lose.

And surely it is this human peril that ultimately accounts for the large impact of Silent Spring. As Carson notes in a letter written while she was preparing the book, “it has always been my intention to give principal emphasis to the menace to human health, even though setting this within the general framework of disturbances of the basic ecology of all living things.” This Carson does slowly but effectively, waiting until later chapters to talk about the dangers of “innumerable small-scale exposures” that lead to “progressive buildup...and so to cumulative poisoning.” Knowing she will have to overcome the counterclaims of people who say they are “fine” even after using sprays in their gardens for years, she explains in great detail how cellular mutations caused by toxic chemicals generate cancers and long-term genetic damage. She reports that “mosquitoes exposed to DDT for several generations” became “strange creatures called gynandromorphs—part male and part female.” She never goes beyond the evidence, but simply asks whether “filling the environment with chemicals that have the power to strike directly at the chromosomes” is “too high a price to pay for a spoutless potato or a mosquitoless patio?” She pleads that we must simply “reduce the threat.” The analogy with our own ongoing, potentially catastrophic experiment with the earth’s atmosphere will be clear to any alert reader.

Like Laudato si’, Carson’s work also calls us beyond fear to a deeper appreciation for the beauty of natural systems. The Library of America edition helps us see this by including, along with Silent Spring, several shorter works by Carson. In one, she describes how her interest in the sea—the subject of her earlier books—first developed:

I had my first prolonged contact with the sea at Woods Hole. I never tired of watching the tidal currents pouring through the Hole—that wonderful place of whirlpools and eddies and swiftly racing water. I loved to watch the waves breaking at Nobska Point after a storm…. My first impressions of the ocean were sensory and emotional, and the intellectual response came later.

She goes on to write, “I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society.” This foundation of delight and wonder is especially evident in her letters, which chronicle days spent introducing the natural world to her young great-nephew and adopted son, Roger.

Where are we today? In one sense, rereading Carson’s book can give one hope. In the United States and around the world, the sort of indiscriminate use of pesticides she describes is now forbidden, and many of the worst chemicals she decries are no longer in use. The very existence of environmental regulatory agencies owes a great deal to her work. And the “Neanderthal science” she laments, which rejects any concern for ecological balance, is at least no longer the dominant paradigm. Finally, Carson’s impact as a woman scientist, faced with much blatantly sexist blowback, should remind us that even in a discriminatory social structure, a well-argued case can prevail.

Yet the book also inspires some less cheerful reflections. To begin with, its appeal depends on its readers having some active ties to the natural world. The “artificial” form of life she criticizes is opposed in her narratives by birders, household gardeners, and other ordinary observers of the natural world. These concerned citizens, often gathered in socially established associations, set off nonpartisan public alarms and provide Carson with many striking details. One can’t help doubting whether, a few generations later, the basic tie to nature embodied in these groups is still as strong as it was then.

Then too, the factual, straightforward, non-hyperbolic tone of the book will remind readers of a time when public discourse was better than it is now. Carson is not above appealing to her readers’ emotions with wrenching descriptions of birds slowly dying of poisoning. Yet pages and pages of the book methodically rehearse the basic scientific facts, and the overall tone is one not of outrage but of earnest concern. It sometimes seems today as though people believe that the only way you can write a book that “makes a difference” is through a dramatic, often angry depiction of heroes and villains. That was clearly not true in 1962.

Finally, one wonders if comparably egregious examples of the technocratic paradigm could galvanize such an immediate response in today’s fragmented and highly polarized media environment. It’s true that one of the difficulties with slow-emerging, large-scale environmental problems like climate change is the difficulty of identifying immediate impacts. Carson did not have that problem: her resonant example of a silent spring in the wake of a massive die-off of birds was no doubt one reason there was an instant response to her general argument. But such die-offs are hardly the only example of technocratic thinking. Arguably, the most alarming example today is the rapid and total penetration of smartphone technology, especially in the lives of the young. Despite well-documented studies of the neurological (Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows) and sociological (Jean Twenge’s iGen) impacts of the technology, little has been done to curb its overuse.

Indeed, in the church itself, Laudato si’, (Care for Our Common Home), although much celebrated upon its release, now seems to be overshadowed by a number of other dramas surrounding this pontificate. Francis’s criticism of the technocratic way of thinking and his call for radical lifestyle changes don’t seem to have had much effect on Catholics, let alone the wider world. On the political front, the pope’s insistence on the necessity of global solutions to a global problem hasn’t led American Catholics to pressure the Republican party to reconsider its opposition to international limits on carbon emissions. Nor has Laudato si’ succeeded in getting most Catholics to view protection of the natural world as an essential part of practicing their faith. Whenever I teach Laudato si’ to college students, parishioners, or seminarians, someone objects that bringing up “the environment” will immediately be perceived as political. Yes, there are policy implications to Francis’s work. But first one must recognize that it is just as appropriate—and today just as necessary—for a pope to write about the natural ecology of a world created and redeemed by God as it is for him to write about the human ecology of marriage.

Here is a final lesson of Carson’s book for Catholics. She asks questions that call on her reader’s deepest moral intuitions. Recording the painful details of how a meadowlark dies, she concludes, “By acquiescing in an act that can cause such suffering to a living creature, who among us is not diminished?” Elsewhere, she points out the undemocratic nature of these decisions by asking: “Who has decided—who has the right to decide—for the countless legions of people who were not consulted…?” Such questions unmask the technocratic paradigm not by proposing some exotic alternative but simply by noting how unseen powers impose a way of life that results in the destruction of natural habitats, including ours. 

Carson made people realize that this was not what they wanted; policy changes followed from this deeper recognition. Similarly, in Laudato si’, Pope Francis starts by celebrating the beauty of creation before denouncing the “throwaway culture” that endangers it—a culture that encourages us to reject God, our vulnerable neighbors, and all of creation for our own convenience. Who among us is not diminished by that? And who among us really wants that?

* Deep-ecology: An ecological and environmental philosophy promoting the inherent worth of living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, plus a restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas. Wikipedia

Silent SpringAnd Other Writings on the Environment
Rachel Carson
Evidence of the widespread misuse of organic chemical pesticides government and industry after World War II prompted Carson to reluctantly speak out not just about the immediate threat to humans and non-human nature from unwitting chemical exposure, but also to question government and private science's assumption that human domination of nature was the correct course for the future

Library tribute from Derry New Hampshire

Derry Public Library at 64 East Broadway, Derry, NH

Nice article beautifully describes "My library: Literay home away from home- rewards repeated visits", published in the Northern New England Journey (MarchApril 2019). Those of us who love our libraries will relate to this article by Rosalie J. Karjala.

What is it about our little town library that excites me? One of two in the town of Derry New Hampshire, it perches on a side street here, next to a park, a throwback to simpler times.  Once inside, I feel as though I'm in my favorite restaurant with a three dessert sampler in front of me, my spoon poised in anticipation. All these books! I'm ravenous for words, starving for stories, my voyeuristic urges eager to peer into other peoples' lives, real or imagined.

The women behind the front desk welcomes me with a smile of recognition- I'm well known from my frequent forays into the stacks.  And, it's all there waiting for me, free for the taking.  Truth in fiction, treasures in fantasy. Human folly revealed, stripped bare of pretensions.  P plethora of information in bold, pre-electronic print, mine to hold in my hands.  Real pages waiting to be turned.  An abundance of endless gifts.

I don't even mind the officious librarian whose cheery desk sign reads "Please bother me- your question is more important than my task!"  Her body language, however, tells me to do anything but that. I smile at the irony and interrupt her anyway only to have my suspicions confirmed as she first ignores me, then looks up in irritation. But, I press on. This is a battle I can win.  Slowly, she warms to my inquiries about G.K.Chesterton as she picks up on my excitement. She can't resist. Her librarian soul has been awakened. She emerges from behind her fortress like desk and trots off eagerly in the direction of the book I am seeking.

"Come here- I'll show you just where to find it!"

I love her for the orderly quiet she imposes on this place.  I love her for her hissings of "shh!" when those two teenagers, at that table over there, start to giggle. I love the way she reminds me, "You realize that the fine for late DVDs is a dollar a day." She revels in her power over me, but who cares? 

I wander through the quietness, savorign the dusty smell of old books.  How long has it been since anyone checked some of them out?  Henry F. MacGregor, a library patron, looks down in august splendor from his portrait hanging over the 93-year-old brick fireplace. The fire spreads its blanket of warmth over me as I nestle into a chair with a real, genuine book. The stained glass window shuts out New Hampshire's pelting winter rain. Pages turn. My imagination sours, caught up in Chesterton's metaphors. 

The feast is on!

Rosalie J. Karjal is a 27 yeaer member resident in Derry, New Hampshire. Her essay is published on the back page of Northern New England Journey, March/April 2019.

Letter to the editor in the Capital Gazette- Can't take anymore change!

As a Marylander, I enjoy reading the Capital Gazette, an Annapolis daily newspaper. Although the Gazette is proud of its history as being among the oldest continuously published newspapers in America, the news was horrible on June 28, 2018, when a mass shooting occurred at the newspaper's Annapolis offices. The gunman shot and killed five employees with a shotgun. Two others were injured while trying to escape. 

Nevertheless, the Gazette never missed a deadline, even when faced with this unbelievable horror.  

Periodically, while cruising through my volume of daily reading, I find writing gems where its least expected. A letter to the editor, published in the Gazette, reached into the dissonance we often feel when confronted with changing times. We are powerless to stop change, but we can surely be unhappy about having to live with the outcome.  

This letter describes one Marylander's anguish about seeing her life on Kent Island, on the Chesapeake Bay, becoming urbanized. It's a heartfelt piece of writing and I am happy to share with the Let's Write blog readers. Thank you Patty Baker for this convincing point of view.  We often yearn for the ability to turn back time.

This letter is a nice piece of writing because we can feel the author's emotions through her words.

New bay bridge- opinion letter published in The Capital Gazette

I find your editorial paper to be less than sympathetic to those of us living with the traffic issues of the existing (Chesapeake) Bay Bridges on a daily basis (The Capital, Feb. 15).

I was born and still live on Kent Island, experiencing first hand the explosive population growth and problems that have come with that. I commuted to Annapolis to work for 32 years, watching the construction of the westbound span as I went.

Even then, we islanders had to plan our weekend errands and travel because navigating the island was at times, very difficult due to the increased traffic.

Fast forward to the present, and we are all but gridlocked from Wednesday, Thursday, through Sunday evenings during the vacation months, and any other day of the week that an accident occurs on the bridge.

Service roads and side streets become parking lots because travelers cut through the few side streets we have. This island cannot take more traffic congestion.

We are an island. One main route north and south of Route 50, we're only about four miles wide. When there is a traffic issue, we cannot move. Emergency vehicles cannot get through.

If another bridge is ever built, putting it here would be the final nail in the coffin for what was once a peaceful, beautiful and serene place to live. I understand the other areas' reluctance to have one in their back yards, but if placed in an area that has more space and land mass to have alternate roadways so residents aren't trapped is a much better way to approach this debacle.

Kent Island cannot take anymore!

PATTY BAKER Kent Island  (MaineWriter postscript: I'm not sure if the Gazette readers want to applaud or cry....)