View from Fort McHenry

Memoirs from head nurse show suffering of soldiers at Fort McHenry

Ft. McHenry as it looked during WWI in 1920 when it was occupied by the Army's General Hospital No. 2, the country's largest receiving hospital. (Photo courtesy Emily Raine Williams)

Emily Raine Williams, who was born in Baltimore in the late 1870s, graduated from St. Mary's School of Nursing and became superindendent of nurses at the Fort McHenry Hospital during World War I. During the influenza pandemic, Williams wrote the following in her memoirs:

"Then came the dropping of patients, one after the other with the flu. They dropped like flies. The adjoining camps sent to us their worse cases. An order came through and I was sent with Miss George Hutton as the Chief Nurse to Camp Holabird. We took six nurses with us and when the nurses had packed their belongings in suitcases, we drove down, a distance of 10 miles. Reaching the Holabird Gate the guards waved wildly to us and ran along side of the ambulances, yelling to the others: 'Here come the nurses!' 'Here come the nurses!' Now these sick boys will get well.' One could hardly picture the tragedy on their faces, and I feel sure that we who saw them will never forget that picture. In this very large room, all the eye could see was a lot of cots, and on each cot was a sick boy, groaning and moaning, all huddled together. Poor kids. I so often think of that sight. In a short three hours, every cot was made afresh, lined in orderly fashion, faces sponged, and each pulse and temperature taken and recorded. Each boy was given a cool drink of milk or orange juice. The sickest patients were placed in the ambulances and I took them back to the Fort with me for more serious treatment.

"At the Fort, during the epidemic the operating rooms were closed and the doctors and nurses went from bed to bed doing rib resections. At nights when the nurses needed sleep, it was impossible due to the death rates of their comrades in the adjoining wards. The nurses kept well, only after the flu did we lose many of the girls, and mostly those who had been overseas. Lena Price, who was then in the Orthepedic [floor], coming off duty one afternoon saw men leaning up against the door jambs along the corridors, and heard them talking of how terrible was the flu. She went along unassumingly until she reached the Mess Hall, and one of the nurses said to her 'Oh my, have you seen the medical ward? It is filled with flu.' 'Flu,' said Miss Price, 'What kind of a flower is that?' It seems that the Baltimore people were constantly sending quantities of flowers down to the patients and many times immense suit boxes were filled with them.

"One day when the first cases of flu appeared in the Hospital at the Fort we realized the enormous amount of work that would be thrown on the laboratory by such an epidemic. Their work had been of wonderful value as was shown in their reports. Most of the flu cases had a severe backache, headache, a racking cough, flushed face, infected eyes and as a rule, a pulse from 80 to 100, with a temperature from 101 degrees to 104 degrees. Most all of them were dull and apathetic, went to sleep no matter where they were -- on litters while being carried into the hospital, on chairs, or in doorjambs, before being put to bed. They had to be aroused to answer questions. They only roused up to cough, or to take medicine or nourishment. They all looked prostrated and sick. All slept 12 hours, some 16 to 24 hours. The fever and prostration in mild cases lasted 48 hours. The patients would then begin to get up and sit on the edge of their beds. They were weak, some of the severe cases had fever three or four days. The cases that had fever longer than four days almost always proved to have broncho-pneumonia. A very noticeable feature in the early stages of these cases was the bleeding from some portion of the body. Everywhere one went he saw men with bleeding or packed noses. Pneumonia developed secondary to the influenza in many cases.

"There were so many people all over the country who died that the Casket Companies were notable to furnish the Government for long periods (days) with the required number of caskets for our boys who had died. Many a time I went to the 'Peace Chamber' with the Corps men to see where we could arrange space to place another body. I would like to say to the world that when those Corps men had to take a body over -- there was the greatest reverence shown in the handling of the body. It was not just performing a duty, it seemed to be a sacred rite.

"On one occasion, there was a Polish boy (Czakowski) and he was one of the substitute drivers of the ambulances -- so when placing a body on the shelf with the other helper Sam Offit, the helper, Sam, went out and closed the door, thinking that Czakowski had preceded him. The lad found himself locked with the dead for over two hours. He finally made himself heard by breaking the window pane and attracting the attention of the Guard as he neared the place on patrol duty. He said, 'I was not afraid. I just kept praying all the time until I got out.' ...

"When the flu was at its height and during my time off, I would contact the patient officers' families in Baltimore, solving the difficulties as I could, so that my patients could return to normalcy in less time and without a worry complication. That work enlarged itself, and I went to Colonel Parnell and received permission for the time off, (if I could arrange my time off). I told him how I had worked out a plan by which the sick wives of the officer patients could be assisted. Almost all of them had some wife or relative who had come to Baltimore to be near their loved one and they were all strangers in a strange town. He gladly agreed. He was so nice, he always wanted things that were for some one's good.

"I might add that all the schools were closed by the epidemic of the flu, and the schoolteachers were free to work and were glad to be able to help. Most of the wives coming from all parts of the country are not accustomed to the climatic conditions of living in furnished rooms, or even in those uproarious times. They were happier when they were free to visit their kinfolks."

Emily Raine Williams served in the Army Nurse Corps Reserve 18288. She went on to provide care for wounded soldiers of the Korean War, serving at the 104th Medical Battalion Armory on West Fayette Street. She died on Oct. 9, 1961, at Perry Point Veterans Hospital.