[200] There are applications of the kind among Miss Nightingale's papers.
[202] _Notes_, vol. i. sec. i. pp. xxiv.-v. In a private letter Miss Nightingale's irony was more bitter. "K.C.B." meant, she supposed, Knight of the Crimean Burial-grounds."
To add to the mischief, the professional difficulty (as I may call it) became entangled with the religious difficulty. Some of the nuns who had previously been assigned to the hospitals at Koulali, proceeded in October 1855, at Dr. Hall's instance, to the General Hospital at Balaclava. This was naturally regarded by Miss Nightingale as an act of usurpation upon her authority; it gave an undue proportion of Roman Catholics to a particular hospital; and, moreover, she did not consider these particular ladies, or their Reverend Mother, Mrs. Bridgeman, wholly efficient. They were most devoted and self-sacrificing, and their spiritual ministrations were admirable, but as nurses and administrators she thought less highly of them. Mr. Fitz-Gerald, on the other hand, was strongly prepossessed, as independent observers thought, in their favour. As ill-luck would have it, these ladies were for the most part Irish, and the matter was made to assume the aspect of a racial-religious feud. People who could not understand Miss Nightingale's single-minded devotion to efficient and business-like administration supposed that she was actuated by prejudice. Dr. Hall was not moved by any such suspicion; but the ladies, whom Miss Nightingale regarded as not among the more efficient of her staff of nurses, were his nominees, and he strongly backed them. There was a somewhat similar dispute about another transference of nurses in the Crimea made without Miss Nightingale's sanction; and some of the women, taking their cue from their superiors, were inclined to question and flout her authority. "I don't know what she wants here," said one, when the Lady Superintendent appeared on the scene.[203]
[203] _The Autobiography of a Balaclava Nurse_, vol. ii. p. 163.
All this controversy raised Miss Nightingale's vexation to white heat. On January 7, 1856, she wrote an official letter to the War Office, complaining of the encroachment on her department by the Medical Officer. In semi-private letters to Mr. Sidney Herbert (Feb. 20, 21, 1856) she formulated her grievances. Dr. Hall was "attempting to root her out of the Crimea." Other officials were traducing her behind her back. The War Office was not adequately supporting her. "It is profuse," she said, "in tinsel and empty praise which I do not want, and does not give me the real business-like efficient standing which I do want." She begged Mr. Herbert to move in the House of Commons for the production of correspondence, so that the public might be able to judge between her and those who were traducing her, and striving to thwart her work. Mr. Herbert, in a reply[204] marked alike by good sense and good feeling, ventured "to criticize and to scold" his friend. "You have been overdone," he said, "with your long, anxious, harassing work. You see jealousies and meannesses all round you. You hear of one-sided, unfair, and unjust reports made of your proceedings and of those under you. But you over-rate their importance, you attribute too much motive to them, and you write upon them with an irritation and vehemence which detracts very much from the weight which would attach to what you say." There are letters to show that this was the opinion also of the more sagacious among Miss Nightingale's nearest friends. To move for papers would, Mr. Herbert added, be very injudicious. There was no public attack, and the publication of papers would call needless attention to disputes. The answers to her critics, which she had sent home, appeared to Mr. Herbert to be complete, and he understood that the War Office so considered them. Moreover the Secretary of State was about to issue orders which would clear up Miss Nightingale's position once and for all. And her own letters, though conclusive as to the facts, had in their tone done herself "less than justice."