I at once spruced up my best, and told the doctor that I was ready to start. He smiled as he looked at me, but, perceiving my great anxiety to go, allowed me to undertake the voyage.
When I reached the wharf, I saw so many there expecting to go, that I knew some must be left behind; that the boat could not take all of us. I knew the habit of prisoners, and that there would be a general rush when the hatchways of the boat were thrown open. So I placed myself as near one of the hatchways as possible, and when it was opened, and the rush made, the crowd of its own force lifted me from my feet and bore me into the boat.
After several days of foggy weather—the month was March—we arrived at Annapolis, Md. During our voyage I could see that many of my companions were eating too much, and feared the result. As for myself, I was still too sick to eat anything. Perhaps this was fortunate for me. To have been turned into our lines with the starvation appetite, I might have killed myself by over-eating, as many others undoubtedly did. At Annapolis I was carried on a stretcher from the boat to a hospital in one of the Naval School buildings. Here I remained for a couple of weeks, and was then sent with some others to Baltimore, having recovered sufficiently to be allowed to undertake the journey.
On commencing to get better at Annapolis, I found my greatest trouble was with my stomach. It seemed contracted into a space no larger than my fist, and everything I ate seemed to irritate it; and I could apparently feel the exact size of any meal I had eaten, as it lay deposited in my stomach. Everything I took into my stomach seemed to weigh like lead, and constantly bear down so hard, that it made me continually miserable and unwell.
We stayed at Baltimore a few days, when our furloughs, which had been made out at Annapolis, were handed to us, and we started for home—two months’ pay and our ration commutation money having been paid to us before we left Annapolis.
CHAPTER VI.
At Home.—Nothing but a Skeleton.—A good Imitation of Lazarus.—A Digression upon the Subject of Sleeplessness.—A well-intended Fraud on a Hospital Nurse.—Return of Sleep.—Improvement in Health.—Stomach the only Difficulty.—A Year passes.—Stomach worse.—Constant Headache.—Much Debilitated.—Awful Suffering.—Bodily Agony Debilitates the Mind.—Sufferings Intolerable.—Physicians and Remedies tried without Avail.—Forlorn Hope and Last Resort.—Better.—Doubts as to Treatment.—Suspicions Confirmed.—Uncomplimentary Remarks concerning an M. D.—Uncomfortable Discoveries and Reflections.
On getting home and taking an inventory of myself, I found that I was but a skeleton. Sores and scars soon covered me from head to foot. Decent living was driving the corruption engendered by prison life out of my system. So much of this stuff appeared on my skin, that I cannot but think it was a very fortunate thing for me that it did come out in this way; for had it lingered in me, and waited some slower process, it seems to me I surely must have died. I began to have natural sleep at night, also. This is a feature in my experience to which I should have referred before. I cannot remember that I had any sleep at Wilmington, unless when we first arrived. I could sleep none on the trip North, and when we got to Annapolis, I told the attending physician that I had not slept for a month,—for so it seemed to me,—and that I wanted him to give me some medicine that would induce sleep. To this he objected, averring, that being tired and having a clean body and clean clothing, I would now sleep soundly. But I did not sleep at all, and the day following I was almost distracted from the loss of much-needed sleep and rest. I so informed the doctor, and he had a draught prepared for me; this sent me into a very sweet sleep the succeeding night, and I awoke the next morning much refreshed indeed. The ensuing night was sleepless again, the physician refusing to prescribe anything for me. On the following night he did, however, and I enjoyed another night’s invigorating slumber and recuperative rest.