He was a young soldier, not much if any over sixteen or eighteen years old. He was lying there, with all his heavy army clothing on, in a most pitiable condition.
There was a hospital not very far away; and leaving George, my driver, to minister to him, I went up to the hospital and called for the surgeon in charge.
“There is a soldier lying down here near the road who is nearly dead. Will you not have him brought up, and see what you can do for him?” I said.
“Why, isn’t he dead yet?” exclaimed an attendant.
I then learned that the regiment to which the young soldier belonged had been ordered out to the Big Black River, and that all the sick in their regimental hospital had been brought with them to that point—there unloaded and reported to the hospital authorities. The attendants had come down and taken all but this one man, and had left him there to die alone. I was righteously indignant, and I denounced the whole proceeding as inhuman and scandalous.
The surgeon and attendants were alarmed.
“Such carelessness on the part of the surgeon, and brutality on the part of men charged with the care of the sick and wounded, were disgraceful!” I declared.
It was not many minutes till the surgeon and attendants with a stretcher were at his side.
Everything that could possibly be done for any one was done for him.
The surgeons had hard work to save him, however.