My Name Is Mary Sutter
Read My Name Is Mary Sutter Online
Authors: Robin Oliveira
Table of Contents
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in 2010 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Robin Oliveira, 2010
All rights reserved
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Oliveira, Robin.
My name is Mary Sutter / Robin Oliveira.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-19014-2
1. Nurses—Fiction. 2. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3615.L583M9 2010
813’.6—dc22 2009046312
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For Drew, whose love and generosity never falter,
and for my mother,
who bequeathed me her muse
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to my husband, Drew, my daughter, Noelle, and my son, Miles, for their forbearance and support during this book’s evolution.
In addition, I am indebted to the stellar faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program, with special gratitude to Douglas Glover, David Jauss, and Xu Xi, whose uncompromising commitment to excellence fostered my ambitions. Program Director Louise Crowley and Assistant Director Melissa Fisher (with a nostalgic nod to Katie Gustafson) infuse the entire community with a deep generosity of spirit. And to all the students (current and former) of that fine institution, my deepest thanks for the joyous experience that is being an MFA candidate at VCFA.
I wish to thank Kaylie Jones, Mike Lennon, and Bonnie Culver, the judges of the 2007 James Jones First Novel Fellowship, for choosing my manuscript from the pile of outstanding applicants, and Christopher Busa of Provincetown Arts, who published a chapter of the novel in 2008.
Marly Rusoff, my extraordinary agent, and her partner, Michael Radulescu, brought enthusiasm, competence, and dedication to
Mary Sutter
. I am a very lucky writer to have found Marly, and in turn to have been found by her. My editors, Kathryn Court and Alexis Washam, are insightful women whose eagle eyes and critical acumen drove me deeper into the story, helping me find its best and truest incarnation. The whole team at Viking has been kind and supportive.
Liesl Wilke, my dear friend, read the final manuscript and helped me unsnarl some very reluctant sentences. My husband, a physician, tutored me on the finer points of childbirth. Dennis and Kathy Hogan spent a week one winter driving me around the greater D.C. area visiting Civil War sites and museums. In addition, Domenic Stansberry read my final manuscript and made several helpful suggestions. For their words of encouragement, I also wish to thank Andre Dubus III and Wally Lamb. And finally, to Douglas Glover, an enduring and heartfelt thank-you for the gift of the question that guided me home.
People have asked me about the amount and type of research I conducted. What follows is a brief and by no means comprehensive account of an effort that spanned several years and myriad institutions and was gleaned from books, Web sites, historians, libraries, museums, and various primary documents, including newspapers, journals, government publications, lectures, and diaries. Most important, I delved into the records of the National Archives for the original documents from the Union Hotel Hospital. The Library of Congress proved invaluable for Dorothea Dix’s letters and the records of the Sanitary Commission’s visit to Fort Albany. The New York Public Library also provided me with additional information about the Sanitary Commission. The Interlibrary Loan of the King County Library hunted down book after book and untold amounts of microfilm reels for me. The Special Collections at the University of Washington Medical School Library holds a plethora of books on medicine and midwifery that I plundered. I made heavy use of the
New York Times’
s online archives. I would also like to note the Son of the South Web site for posting issues of the magazine
Harper’s Weekly
.
A number of researchers steered me toward some invaluable discoveries. I am especially grateful to the online librarian at the Library of Congress who directed me to Clara Barton’s War Lecture, which provided firsthand documentation of the aftermath of the Second Battle of Bull Run and South Mountain. I hope Miss Barton won’t mind that occasionally I used her specific details; they captured the peril under which the men and women at Fairfax Station and South Mountain were working, particularly her fear of the candles’ catching the hay on fire and her conversation with a surgeon who intimated that triage occurred after the battle. The inimitable Miss Barton also was at Antietam, but there we parted ways. I relied mostly on my imagination and on
Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign
by Kathleen Ernst.
Other books of great help were
Civil War Medicine
by C. Keith Wilbur, M.D.; all volumes of the
Pictorial Encyclopedia of Civil War Medical Instruments and Equipment
by Dr. Gordon Dammann;
A Vast Sea of Misery: A History and Guide to the Union and Confederate Field Hospitals at Gettysburg, July 1-November 20, 1863
by Gregory A. Coco;
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898
by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace;
Mr. Lincoln’s City
by Richard M. Lee;
Loudonville: Traveling the Loudon Plank Road
by Sharon Bright Holub;
Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt
by Herman Haupt; and
Doctors in Blue: The Medical History of the Union Army in the Civil War
by George Worthington Adams.
The Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Major and Surgeon U.S.V., 1861-1865
detailed for me some of the history behind the founding of the Army Medical Museum, which eventually became the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Also, his captivating observations about battlefield rigor mortis enlivened the aftermath of battles more than almost any other detail that I read. The six-volume
Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion,
first encountered at the National Archives and later through interlibrary loan, provided critical medical information. My special thanks to the
Journal of Forensic Sciences,
Volume 51, Issue 1, pages 11-17, “The Effects of Chemical and Heat Maceration Techniques on the Recovery of Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA from Bone,” for the methods and list of chemicals that might have been employed to skeletonize bone.
Historians and rangers at the National Parks of Gettysburg, Antietam, Ford’s Theatre, and Bull Run were helpful not only with verifying obscure points of history, but also in directing me toward primary documents that proved pivotal, especially Herman Haupt’s memoir. Frank Cucurullo at Arlington House not only educated me as to the significance of the site, but also read a chapter of the book and made suggestions. The director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland, George Wunderlich, spent time on the telephone with me early on in my research. I am also grateful to Terry Reimer, director of research at the museum, for her generosity. In addition, the museum’s exhibits helped in visualization of battlefield care. Also, the National Museum of Medicine at Walter Reed has a wonderful Civil War exhibit. The Albany Institute of History and Art’s archives yielded critical information on nineteenth-century Albany. To Erin McLeary, Michael G. Rhode, Brian F. Spatola, and Franklin E. Damann, curator, Anatomical Division, National Museum of Health and Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, thank you for helping me track down information on bone preservation. Special thanks to the Town of Colonie historian, Kevin Franklin, for information on Ireland’s Corners, or Loudonville, as it is currently known. And to Kathy Sheehan of the Rensselaer County Historical Society, thank you for walking me around the historic district of Troy, New York. Many thanks to James Dierks of the New York Museum of Transportation for answering my questions regarding transportation speeds in the nineteenth century. More thanks to Martha Gude, Roger S. Baskes, Joan R. McKenzie, and Jane Estes.
When I read in Louisa May Alcott’s account of her brief tenure at the Union Hotel Hospital in January of 1863 that a rat had nested in her clothing and stolen even the meager amount of food that she had purchased at a corner grocer and set aside for herself in hope of augmenting the paltry army hospital diet, I knew I had a view into the destitute conditions under which both the nurses and patients were suffering. I acknowledge that I was perhaps a bit hard on Dorothea Dix, though I believe I portrayed her as she was perceived at the time. I am happy that history has revealed her courage and independence.
For insight into President Lincoln, his whereabouts and state of mind, I consulted a variety of sources. An account of a conversation between the president and Willie’s nurse related Lincoln’s sudden crisis of faith. John Hay’s diary yielded additional perception.
The Lincoln Log,
published online by the Lincoln Presidential Library, was incredibly helpful, and I turned to it again and again. (It was also my deep pleasure to be able to contribute, in a small way, to this invaluable resource.)
I took artistic license as much as I could when it served the story. Of special note, while I stayed true to the public record of Lincoln’s activities, I did move the president approximately a quarter of a mile into Arlington House, a license I hope Frank Cucurullo will forgive me. In addition, though the questions on the Sanitary Commission officer’s form were taken directly from the actual form, I invented the answers; their report on the Union Hotel is, however, quoted verbatim. And while Appleton’s Guides did exist, I made up the entry for Washington, because the true entry wasn’t interesting enough.
And finally, to all the women of the nation who braved disease, despair, devastation, and death to nurse in the Civil War hospitals, we owe our endless thanks. Nearly twenty women became physicians after their experiences nursing in the Civil War; it is to honor them and their collective experience that Mary Sutter lives. The willing sacrifice of their own health and well-being to serve the men debilitated by the war deserves our commendation and admiration, but especially our remembrance.