THE HOSPITAL AFTER SEVEN PINES
[Richmond During the War, pages 135-136.]
On this evening, as a kind woman bent over the stalwart figure of a noble Georgian, and washed from his hair and beard the stiffened mud of the Chickahominy, where he fell from a wound through the upper portion of the right lung, and then gently bathed the bleeding gash left by the Minie ball, as he groaned and feebly opened his eyes, he grasped her hand, and in broken whispers, faint from suffering, gasping for breath, “I could-bear-all-this-for-myself-alone-but my-wife and my-six little-ones,” (and then the large tears rolled down his weather-beaten cheeks,) and overcome he could only add, “Oh, God! oh, God!-how will-they endure it?” She bent her head and wept in sympathy. The tall man’s frame was shaking with agony. She placed to his fevered lips a cooling draught, and whispered: “Think of yourself just now; God may raise you up to them, and if not, He will provide for and comfort them.” He feebly grasped her hand once more, and a look of gratitude stole over his manly face, and he whispered, “God bless you! God bless you! God bless you! kind stranger!”