My Name Is Mary Sutter Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Epilogue

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  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

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  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 Ba
rton’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.

  Chapter One

  “Are you Mary Sutter?” Hours had passed since James Blevens had called for the midwife. All manner of shouts and tumult drifted in from the street, and so he had answered the door to his surgery rooms with some caution, but the young woman before him made an arresting sight: taller and wider than was generally considered handsome, with an unflattering hat pinned to an unruly length of curls, though an enticing brightness about the eyes compensated. “Mary Sutter, the midwife?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am Mary Sutter.” The young woman looked from the address she had inscribed that afternoon in her small, leather-bound notebook to the harried man in front of her, wondering how he could possibly know who she was. He was all angles, and his sharp chin gave the impression of discipline, though his uncombed hair and unbuttoned vest were damp with sweat.

  “Oh, thank God,” he said, and, catching her by the elbow, pulled her inside and slammed the door shut on the cold April rain and the stray warble of a bugle in the distance. James Blevens knew Mary Sutter only by reputation. She is good, even better than her mother, people said. Now he formed an indelible impression of attractiveness, though there was nothing attractive about her. Her features were far too coarse, her hair far too wild and already beginning to silver. People said she was young, but you could not tell that by looking at her. She was an odd one, this Mary Sutter.

  A kerosene lantern flickered in the late afternoon dimness, revealing shelves of medical instruments: scales, tensile prongs, hinged forceps, monaural and chest stethoscopes, jars of pickled fetal pigs, ether stoppered in azure glass, a femur bone stripped in acid, a human skull, a stomach floating in brine, jars of medicines, an apothecary’s mortar and pestle. Mary could barely tear her eyes from the bounty.

  “She is here, at last,” the man said over his shoulder.

  Mary Sutter peered into the darkness and saw a young woman lying on an exam table, a blanket thrown across her swollen belly, betraying the unmistakable exhaustion of late labor.

  “Excuse me, but were you expecting me?” Mary asked.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, waving her question away with irritation. “Didn’t my boy send you here?”

  “No. I came to see you on my own. Are you Dr. Blevens?”

  “Of course I am.”

  Now that the time had come, Mary felt almost shy, the humiliation of her afternoon rearing up, along with the a
nger that had propelled her here, looking for a last chance. On her way, she had waded through crowds, barely conscious of a mounting commotion, lifting her skirts out of the mud, struggling past the tannery and the livery, finally arriving at the two-story frame building with its unpainted door and narrow, steep stairs, so unlike the echoing marble hallways where she had just been refused entry. And all the while, newspaper boys had been yelling Extra! and tributaries of people had been trickling toward the Capitol, and still she had pressed on.

  “Dr. Blevens, I came here today—” Mary stopped and exhaled. All the hope of the past year spilled over as she stumbled over her words. “Today I sat in the lobby of the medical college for four hours waiting for Dr. Marsh, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to see me.” Mary shut out the memory of her afternoon spent in the unwelcoming misery of the Albany Medical College, where after several hours the corpulent clerk had finally hissed, Dr. Marsh no longer wishes to receive letters of application from you, so you are to respectfully desist in any further petition.

  “When he refused to see me, I decided to come and ask something of you,” Mary said.

  “Would you mind asking me later?” Blevens asked, propelling Mary toward the young woman. “I need your help. This is Bonnie Miles. Her husband dropped her here early this afternoon. He said she has lost a child before—her first. I think the baby’s head is stuck.”

  Mary pulled off her gloves and unwrapped her shawl, her quest forgotten for the moment, all her attention focused on the woman’s exhaustion and youth. Bonnie was small-boned, tiny in all her features, too young, Mary thought, perhaps fifteen, maybe seventeen. Her hips were too narrow, which might be the problem Dr. Blevens had encountered.

  “Have you been laboring long?” Mary asked.