Not caring for society, or mere sentiment, I soon resolved to ask for a ward of private soldiers, who did not presume upon equality, though many of them were as truly gentlemen as were their officers.
Meanwhile the three nurses, though untrained, like most nurses of that time, did good work in the wards of the regular soldiers.
CHAPTER IX
SOME PATIENTS
Point of Rocks Hospital consisted of about a dozen tents, each perhaps fifty feet long, pinned as usual to the ground with wooden pegs. These contained bunks and cots on either side, for about forty or more patients to each tent, and sometimes, when crowded, patients had only straw or hay bags with a blanket on the bare ground, all of which the men nurses were expected to keep in perfect order and cleanliness.
To enter at one end of these tents and see the rows of sick and suffering, despondent men, at once aroused an earnest desire to help them to a little comfort and cheer.
One day, passing through a long ward, I was startled by the sight of a little pinched face with great dark eyes, that looked as if its owner might be about ten or twelve years old. Stepping quickly to the cot I said, “Why, who are you, and where did you come from?”
A feeble voice replied, “I’m Willie, I was here yesterday when you passed, but you didn’t look at me.”
“But where did you come from?”
“I belong to the 37th New Jersey Infantry, in camp a few miles off, and I got sick and they brought me here.”