Hospital Abuses -- Putting Logwood in the Coffee

There was a very large hospital at Madison, Ind., which was very much crowded in 1864-1865 with the sick and wounded. I established a special-diet kitchen there for the preparation of food for the very sick and the severely wounded, and placed one of my lady helpers in charge. She had scarcely assumed the supervision of the cookery till she began complaining of the quality of the food, especially of the coffee. As she put it: "There is nothing in this hospital fit for a well man to eat, much less these sick and wounded and dying men."

I was in Washington at the time; but I telegraphed to Miss Louisa Vance, one of the shrewdest and most careful workers of the Christian Commission, to report at the hospital at Madison, Ind., and await instructions. I met her there with carefully written instructions: "Go on with the work, and don't complain, but watch. There is something wrong in that hospital; _find out what it is_. The government furnishes good supplies and good coffee; find out what becomes of them, but don't, for the life of these men, let the surgeon and hospital steward know that they are suspected. Make frequent errands to the room of the commissary," etc. She was not long in finding out as to the cheating and adulteration. The first clew was obtained because of the rule in that hospital, that a barrel be placed beside the kitchen door, and all the coffee-grounds emptied into it. "Boys," she said to some of the men who did the cooking, "why do you put the coffee-grounds there? They have been used; they are no account."