“This is true, doctor,” I said, for I had four who had been assigned to me by the doctor that they might have special care, “and not one of them can stand alone for one hour.”
“Well, you may have him, and I wish you success.”
I then asked Willie if he would like to be my orderly, and he seemed quite delighted. I directed the nurse to dress him early next morning, and to let him lie down till I came for him. The poor boy staggered to his feet, but we almost carried him to my tent, where I removed his army shoes and put a pair of my slippers on his poor, little thin feet. I then laid him on my cot, bathed his hot head, neck and hands, gave him nourishment, and told him to try to sleep while I was away caring for other patients. All this was repeated for several days, and thus he escaped the sight of dying and suffering men. Each night I took him back to his tent, where he slept soundly until morning. He improved slowly.
One day, while taking my dinner alone in my little mess tent, I was surprised to see him standing at “attention” beside me. “Miss Smith,” he said, while the fever burned his cheeks and brightened his dark eyes, “I’ve been here five days, and it’s time I did something for you.” The fever had burned out for the time, and, turning quickly I caught his falling, emaciated form. Realizing his own helplessness, the poor child wept bitterly.
Meanwhile his youthful officers had come to see him, which greatly pleased the poor boy. He improved very slowly, but evidently would not quite recover in these surroundings. I decided to make an effort to send him home as soon as possible. With permission of Surgeon Porter, and with his ambulance and an orderly, I rode a few miles to a camp of the 37th New Jersey Infantry, in the woods, which was composed entirely of boys and officers of not more than twenty or twenty-four years of age.
The little “dog” or A tents allowed only one to crawl in on either side of the tent pole, and lie on his blankets on the bare ground with knapsacks for pillows. No wonder malaria made havoc in their ranks!
While I was there, an order came to send forward a small detachment of men for picket duty. All clamored to go, shouting in a most informal manner, quite regardless of discipline. “Say, Cap, let me go.” “I say, Maj, you know me.” “Cap, let me go, won’t you?” etc., etc. A dozen men were selected, not one fully grown, and these boys staggered off in high spirits, each carrying a knapsack weighing sixty pounds, a gun and an overcoat.
The colonel and captain of this regiment very cheerfully made the necessary application for a sick furlough, and on my return to camp Surgeon Porter at once endorsed it. Then, having waited a few days for some one to take charge of Willie, I had the satisfaction of seeing him start in an ambulance for the boat at City Point, supplied with brandy and nourishment. His head lay on the knee of an officer who was going to Fortress Monroe, and there was a happy boyish smile on his face as they drove away.
In a few weeks came the good news that he had reached home and mother and was fast recovering.
In the same ward with Willie were a number of Ohio “ninety days selected men,” chiefly farmers, nearly every man six feet or more in height. They were typhoid cases, who were really suffering more from nostalgia than from fever. They had already served half their term, yet nothing could arouse them from despair and homesickness, from which many of them actually died, while the wiry, irrepressible city boys generally recovered.