Never before in the history of wars, so full of untold agonies, did the timbers of a steamer bear up such a burden of pain, despair, and death, as did the City of Memphis as she steamed away from Sherman’s army. Wherever there was room for a sick or wounded soldier, on the cabin floor without mattress or pillow, in the staterooms, under the stateroom berths, out on the guards, on the top, or hurricane deck, on the lower deck, every space was filled with sore, weary, aching human bodies, mangled or fever-smitten. Of the seven hundred and fifty sick and wounded on board, about twenty-five were delirious; and their pitiful cries mingled with the whirr of the wheels, and the splash of the waters, as the monster boat, with its heart of fire and its breath of steam, pulled heavily against the mighty tides of the Mississippi River, were heart-breaking. No one who was on that boat can ever forget that first night out. Nor can I be charged with over-drawing the picture. No pencil can paint it black enough.
Nothing has ever haunted my waking and sleeping dreams, not even the ghastly scenes of the battle-field, as the memory of the concentrated horrors of that journey. The groans and cries of the wounded and dying still ring through my soul; and from feelings of compassion I draw the curtain over the darkest scenes, that even at this distance make me shudder, and give to my readers only the more pleasant incidents of the journey, which was in truth a funeral march.
One man lying on the floor of the ladies’ cabin on his blanket, with his fever-racked head on his knapsack, gave me such an appealing look that I went to him.
“What can I do for you?” I inquired.
“You can write to my wife if you get through alive, and tell her I died on the City of Memphis.”
“While there is life there is hope. You are not dead yet, and may not die.”
“Oh, yes, I will! there is no chance for me. Now take down her name,” and he gave me the name and address of his wife.
“Now I must do something to help you,” I said. “Could you drink a cup of tea?”
“No, nothing—it’s too late.”
“Could you drink a glass of lemonade?”