Complete Prose Works
nights helpless on the field, between the city and those grim terraces
of batteries; his company and regiment had been compell'd to leave him
to his fate. To make matters worse, it happen'd he lay with his head
slightly down hill, and could not help himself. At the end of some fifty
hours he was brought off, with other wounded, under a flag of truce. I
ask him how the rebels treated him as he lay during those two days and
nights within reach of them--whether they came to him--whether they
abused him? He answers that several of the rebels, soldiers and
others, came to him at one time and another. A couple of them, who
were together, spoke roughly and sarcastically, but nothing worse. One
middle-aged man, however, who seem'd to be moving around the field,
among the dead and wounded, for benevolent purposes, came to him in
a way he will never forget; treated our soldier kindly, bound up his
wounds, cheer'd him, gave him a couple of biscuits and a drink of
whiskey and water; asked him if he could eat some beef. This good
secesh, however, did not change our soldier's position, for it might
have caused the blood to burst from the wounds, clotted and stagnated.
Our soldier is from Pennsylvania; has had a pretty severe time; the
wounds proved to be bad ones. But he retains a good heart, and is at
present on the gain. (It is not uncommon for the men to remain on the
field this way, one, two, or even four or five days.)
HOSPITAL SCENES AND PERSONS
_Letter Writing_.--When eligible, I encourage the men to write, and
myself, when called upon, write all sorts of letters for them (including
love letters, very tender ones.) Almost as I reel off these memoranda, I
write for a new patient to his wife. M. de F., of the 17th Connecticut,
company H, has just come up (February 17th) from Windmill point, and is
received in ward H, Armory-square. He is an intelligent looking man, has
a foreign accent, black-eyed and hair'd, a Hebraic appearance. Wants a
telegraphic message sent to his wife, New Canaan, Conn. I agree to send
the message--but to make things sure I also sit down and write the wife
a letter, and despatch it to the post-office immediately, as he fears
she will come on, and he does not wish her to, as he will surely get
well.
_Saturday, January 30th._--Afternoon, visited Campbell hospital. Scene
of cleaning up the ward, and giving the men all clean clothes--through
the ward (6) the patients dressing or being dress'd--the naked upper
half of the bodies--the good-humor and fun--the shirts, drawers, sheets
of beds, &c., and the general fixing up for Sunday. Gave J. L. 50 cents.
_Wednesday, February 4th._--Visited Armory-square hospital, went pretty
thoroughly through wards E and D. Supplied paper and envelopes to all
who wish'd--as usual, found plenty of men who needed those articles.
Wrote letters. Saw and talk'd with two or three members of the Brooklyn
14th regt. A poor fellow in ward D, with a fearful wound in a fearful
condition, was having some loose splinters of bone taken from the
neighborhood of the wound. The operation was long, and one of great
pain--yet, after it was well commenced, the soldier bore it in silence.
He sat up, propp'd--was much wasted--had lain a long time quiet in one
position (not for days only but weeks,) a bloodless, brown-skinn'd face,
with eyes full of determination--belong'd to a New York regiment. There
was an unusual cluster of surgeons, medical cadets, nurses, &c., around
his bed--I thought the whole thing was done with tenderness, and done
well. In one case, the wife sat by the side of her husband, his sickness
typhoid fever, pretty bad. In another, by the side of her son, a
mother--she told me she had seven children, and this was the youngest.
(A fine, kind, healthy, gentle mother, good-looking, not very old, with
a cap on her head, and dress'd like home--what a charm it gave to the
whole ward.) I liked the woman nurse in ward E--I noticed how she sat
a long time by a poor fellow who just had, that morning, in addition to
his other sickness, bad hemorrhage--she gently assisted him, reliev'd
him of the blood, holding a cloth to his mouth, as he coughed it up--he
was so weak he could only just turn his head over on the pillow.
One young New York man, with a bright, handsome face, had been lying
several months from a most disagreeable wound, receiv'd at Bull Run. A
bullet had shot him right through the bladder, hitting him front, low in
the belly, and coming out back. He had suffer'd much--the water came out
of the wound, by slow but steady quantities, for many weeks--so that
he lay almost constantly in a sort of puddle--and there were other
disagreeable circumstances. He was of good heart, however. At present
comparatively comfortable, had a bad throat, was delighted with a stick
of horehound candy I gave him, with one or two other trifles.
PATENT-OFFICE HOSPITAL
_February 23._--I must not let the great hospital at the Patent-office
pass away without some mention. A few weeks ago the vast area of the
second story of that noblest of Washington buildings was crowded close
with rows of sick, badly wounded and dying soldiers. They were placed in
three very large apartments. I went there many times. It was a strange,
solemn, and, with all its features of suffering and death, a sort
of fascinating sight. I go sometimes at night to soothe and relieve
particular cases. Two of the immense apartments are fill'd with high and
ponderous glass cases, crowded with models in miniature of every kind of
utensil, machine or invention, it ever enter'd into the mind of man to
conceive; and with curiosities and foreign presents. Between these cases
are lateral openings, perhaps eight feet wide and quite deep, and in
these were placed the sick, besides a great long double row of them
up and down through the middle of the hall. Many of them were very bad
cases, wounds and amputations. Then there was a gallery running above
the hall in which there were beds also. It was, indeed, a curious scene,
especially at night when lit up. The glass cases, the beds, the forms
lying there, the gallery above, and the marble pavement under
foot--the suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in various
degrees--occasionally, from some, the groan that could not be
repress'd--sometimes a poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy
eye, the nurse by his side, the doctor also there, but no friend, no
relative--such were the sights but lately in the Patent-office. (The
wounded have since been removed from there, and it is now vacant again.)
THE WHITE HOUSE BY MOONLIGHT
_February 24th._--A spell of fine soft weather. I wander about a good
deal, sometimes at night under the moon. Tonight took a long look at
the President's house. The white portico--the palace-like, tall,
round columns, spotless as snow--the walls also--the tender and
soft moonlight, flooding the pale marble, and making peculiar faint
languishing shades, not shadows--everywhere a soft transparent
hazy, thin, blue moon-lace, hanging in the air--the brilliant and
extra-plentiful clusters of gas, on and around the façade, columns,
portico, &c.--everything so white, so marbly pure and dazzling, yet
soft--the White House of future poems, and of dreams and dramas, there
in the soft and copious moon--the gorgeous front, in the trees, under
the lustrous flooding moon, full of realty, full of illusion--the forms
of the trees, leafless, silent, in trunk and myriad--angles of branches,
under the stars and sky--the White House of the land, and of beauty and
night--sentries at the gates, and by the portico, silent, pacing there
in blue overcoats--stopping you not at all, but eyeing you with sharp
eyes, whichever way you move.
AN ARMY HOSPITAL WARD
Let me specialize a visit I made to the collection of barrack-like
one-story edifices, Campbell hospital, out on the flats, at the end
of the then horse railway route, on Seventh street. There is a long
building appropriated to each ward. Let us go into ward 6. It contains,
to-day, I should judge, eighty or a hundred patients, half sick, half
wounded. The edifice is nothing but boards, well whitewash'd inside, and
the usual slender-framed iron bedsteads, narrow and plain. You walk down
the central passage, with a row on either side, their feet towards you,
and their heads to the wall. There are fires in large stoves, and the
prevailing white of the walls is reliev'd by some ornaments, stars,
circles, &c., made of evergreens. The view of the whole edifice and
occupants can be taken at once, for there is no partition. You may hear
groans or other sounds of unendurable suffering from two or three of
the cots, but in the main there is quiet--almost a painful absence of
demonstration; but the pallid face, the dull'd eye, and the moisture
of the lip, are demonstration enough. Most of these sick or hurt are
evidently young fellows from the country, farmers' sons, and such like.
Look at the fine large frames, the bright and broad countenances, and
the many yet lingering proofs of strong constitution and physique. Look
at the patient and mute manner of our American wounded as they lie in
such a sad collection; representatives from all New England, and from
New York, and New Jersey, and Pennsylvania--indeed from all the States
and all the cities--largely from the west. Most of them are entirely
without friends or acquaintances here--no familiar face, and hardly a
word of judicious sympathy or cheer, through their sometimes long and
tedious sickness, or the pangs of aggravated wounds.
A CONNECTICUT CASE
This young man in bed 25 is H. D. B. of the 27th Connecticut, company
B. His folks live at Northford, near New Haven. Though not more than
twenty-one, or thereabouts, he has knock'd much around the world, on sea
and land, and has seen some fighting on both. When I first saw him he
was very sick, with no appetite. He declined offers of money--said
he did not need anything. As I was quite anxious to do something,
he confess'd that he had a hankering for a good home-made rice
pudding--thought he could relish it better than anything. At this
time his stomach was very weak. (The doctor, whom I consulted, said
nourishment would do him more good than anything; but things in the
hospital, though better than usual, revolted him.) I soon procured B.
his rice pudding. A Washington lady, (Mrs. O'C.), hearing his wish,
made the pudding herself, and I took it up to him the next day. He
subsequently told me he lived upon it for three or four days. This B. is
a good sample of the American eastern young man--the typical Yankee.
I took a fancy to him, and gave him a nice pipe for a keepsake. He
receiv'd afterwards a box of things from home, and nothing would do but
I must take dinner with him, which I did, and a very good one it was.
TWO BROOKLYN BOYS
Here in this same ward are two young men from Brooklyn, members of the
51st New York. I had known both the two as young lads at home, so they
seem near to me. One of them, J. L., lies there with an amputated
arm, the stump healing pretty well. (I saw him lying on the ground at
Fredericksburgh last December, all bloody, just after the arm was taken
off. He was very phlegmatic about it, munching away at a cracker in the
remaining hand--made no fuss.) He will recover, and thinks and talks yet
of meeting Johnny Rebs.
A SECESH BRAVE
The grand soldiers are not comprised in those of one side, any more
than the other. Here is a sample of an unknown southerner, a lad
of seventeen. At the War department, a few days ago, I witness'd a
presentation of captured flags to the Secretary. Among others a soldier
named Gant, of the 104th Ohio volunteers, presented a rebel battle-flag,
which one of the officers stated to me was borne to the mouth of our