Asylum on the Hill. Katherine Ziff

the siege of Atlanta before falling psychologically ill.

      Some Civil War veterans were sent to asylums because their violent behavior could not be controlled at home. Male Patient 243, a private in the Ohio Infantry, was hospitalized at Athens in 1874, according to the medical witness because of a blow on the head received while in the U.S. Army in 1863, when he was fifteen years old. He was soon hospitalized in the state asylum at Columbus, Ohio, which burned in 1868, no doubt creating further trauma for this veteran. Since then he had been confined at home, in Marietta, Ohio, “subject to paroxysms of violent mania.” His father initiated his second hospitalization when the Athens asylum opened in 1874.

      Families of soldiers who were killed suffered as well. Some were unable to recover and required hospitalization. An Ohio mother, age sixty-four, remained stricken with grief over the death of her son in the war, and her family brought her for commitment to the asylum, where she became Female Patient 286. The medical witness noted,

      This is to certify that I have this day examined Mrs. ______, a Widow Lady about 64 years of age, and find her labouring under that species of Insanity known by the name of Monia Mania, arriseing from the distress caused by her son, being killed in the late War[.] [S]he has been three times to the Asylum, and discharged each time cured[;] she has been home from the Asylum this last time two years and four months, continued Well and undisturbed in her mind until the first day of Last March, when she began to show symptoms of mental aberration—Since which time she has been more or less noisy and troublesome, being more so whenever the subject matter of her son is brought to her mind[.] [T]he Physical health is good, [and she] has been under no medical treatment, I therefore feel confident that removal to some asylum where she can get a proper Treatment will soon restore her Mind.

      Another mother, Female Patient 749, was hospitalized in 1874 because of “grief of the death of her son in the Army.”

      Male Patient 819, age twenty-eight, was admitted to the asylum by way of special legislation passed by the Ohio General Assembly. He had been sent to Athens from his family home in Philadelphia to live with an uncle. Because he was not a resident of Ohio, an act of the Ohio General Assembly was required for his admission to the asylum. His admission papers consist of a small certificate with a two-and-a-half-inch red wax seal signed by the Ohio secretary of state. Once in the asylum, he penned a series of plaintive notes to family members and to asylum physicians asking for help in going home. Written in purple ink, some in English and others in German, the letters were never sent but kept instead in asylum files. The undated letters repeatedly inquire about coming home; one letter directs his uncle in Athens to send him a drum over at the asylum.

      To Emil S., N. 6th Street Philadelphia

      Dear brother Emil

      I am wanting to wait to get home. I will inform you how I am getting along which to let you know about my coming home, since 10 years away from home . . . telegraph immediately and want to know whether farther is well nothing more at present hoping to see you soon.

      Leon S.

      Atlanta

      Dear brother Leon S.

      I would like to know how soon you will be in Philadelphia or you could send me a telegraph that you are well about my traveling home myself alone I was going to ask you about coming home telegraph to send me home.

      This is all at present

      Solomon S.

      Marshall, Missouri

      Dear brother Solomon,

      Hoping to see you soon I will let you know how soon. I will be at home and hoping that you are well and all I which to now [sic] whether you are going home. This it would be better at home so good bye at present.

      Nothing more.

      Mr. Abraham ______.

      Please Telegraph to Mr. Isaac ______. to bring his son home.

      Mr. Abraham S., Athens

      Bring over one drum at for ______.

      Mr. Abraham S.

      Please send over one drum for ______.

      Dr. Rutter

      Dr. Kelly

      Dr. Rutter & Dr. Kelly

      Please leave me know whether I can leave after dinner for my home my farther will pay for the time that I stayed in Athens and what it cost my farther will pay what it cost to travel home to Philadelphia.³⁰

      FIGURE 2.3 Note from Male Patient 819 to Superintendent Rutter and Dr. Kelly, 1880. Courtesy of the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, Ohio University Libraries.

      Some patients resisted hospitalization by taking matters into their own hands and escaping or making plans to leave.³¹ Their strong feelings and inventive plans are recorded in their own letters as well as in the asylum’s casebook. Male Patient 1060, a Captain C. of the Ohio River town of Marietta,³² was hospitalized by family and friends, who inquired by letter as to his well-being.

      Marietta, Ohio July 8, 1880.

      The Surgeon In Charge of the Asylum Athens O.

      Dear Sir

      Will you please keep us informed of Capt. C. and how he is getting along and what prospects there is of his recovery. His sister sent his clothes but did not here whether he rec’d them hope he did, please give us your Opinion and oblige.

      Yours Respectfully,

      Capt. Ben F. Hall³³

      Captain C., meanwhile, was making plans to escape from the asylum, which he documented in a note written in pencil on a scrap of paper that was confiscated and filed by asylum staff.

      To John Smart:

      Friend John, as I have become convinced that my imprisonment has turned into persecution you are all I have left to depend on now I want you to go and hunt up a saw blade new or old it will be better if fine and hand it up to me at the third windo from the angle don’t fail to get me something this evening for I want to start for home to night also get me a good stout heavy club to defend myself with don’t fail me in the name of the God we both serve and worship. I will be waiting for you.³⁴

      He did not escape; he died there two years later and was buried in the asylum cemetery, where his remains rest today.