From Petersburg front sick and wounded were daily sent to the hospital, often on rough flat sand cars, over badly laid shaking tracks, being brought as hastily as possible that they might receive proper care and help. The sight of these cars, loaded with sufferers as they lay piled like logs, waiting their turn to be carried to the wards,—powder-stained, dust-begrimed, in ragged torn and blood-stained uniforms, with here and there a half-severed limb dangling from a mutilated body,—was a gruesome, sickening one, never to be forgotten, and one which I tried not to see when unable to render assistance.
Not only were the sick and wounded from near by brought there, but large numbers came from more southerly points of the army of the Potomac. Many seriously or permanently injured were sent here to wait until able to be forwarded to Washington. Some came en route on sick furloughs, or to be discharged, or when fit returned to their regiments in the field. Every grade of suffering or weariness found temporary shelter and care here. All incurable cases were hurried forward as soon as possible to make room for the multitude still coming.
One day while I was passing through a large ward, a number of sick and wounded men were brought in. Suddenly one of them,—a boy of about eighteen,—stood before me at “attention.” Signs of typhoid were only too evident, as quite wildly, he struggled to express himself, much like the following:
“Oh, Miss, won’t you just take my name? It’s John C. Guffin; and write to my parents and tell them about me?” Controlling himself with an effort he continued: “And Oh, do write to my employer, Mr. Gibson, in Albany, and now, now be quick, won’t you?”—always prepared for such emergencies, I quickly took down these addresses,—“for in a minute I won’t know anything, just like I was when they brought me in.”
JOHN C. GUFFIN
With a painful struggle he controlled his mind, saying: “Just take these” (small articles) “and this little watch and wear it until I get well.” This intense strain exhausted the last gleam of intelligence, and he fell unconscious on a cot near by. Many weeks he lay, raving and incoherent, till the fever had spent its malign power. During these weeks I had many times stopped to glance at the poor fellow, with burning fever and his eyes rolling wildly; but I could do little for him. The soldier nurses, always kind to their sick comrades, did all that was necessary or possible.
At this crisis Dr. O’Maugher came to me in the Maine State Agency saying, “Do you remember the boy Guffin? Well the fever has spent itself, and he is now lying in a critical state of exhaustion, refusing all nourishment. I know you are over-worked, but he is at a point when only a woman’s care can pull him through. Can you make a place for him on your list?”
I went as soon as possible to the emaciated patient, whose mind was not yet quite clear, though he seemed at once to have confidence in me and wished me to stay by his side. Losing no time, I said: “Why, John, I hear you will not eat anything, and now if you will not eat you will certainly relapse and die.”
“I can’t eat, I can’t eat,” he continued to repeat.