“No matter, six are just as good as seven, and seven are just as good as fifty. All you need do is to take what I give you, and it will touch your liver all the same.”
Much enlightened by this mode of distributing doses, and re-assuring patients, I went to sleep, and slept till one A.M., when the first watch called me, and I took my turn. It was rather dreary, sitting in the dark and cold, occasionally giving a man his medicine or a drink, and wishing for daylight. There was one poor fellow, also a lieutenant of the 175th, fast going in consumption. His constant cough, his restless sleep, his attenuated form, bright eye and hectic cheek, all told of the coming end. Yet with him there was nothing to be done but wait and watch.
Now this, of itself, was not such a bad sort of day; but there was a month of such days; and then another month, and then a third, and then many more. What wonder that the strongest resolutions failed!
Then death came in among our little company, and came again and again. Then sickness increased under the August sun. The long moss that hung down from the trees and waved so gracefully on the breeze, had betokened it long before it came, and the uncleaned camp and listless life made the prediction sure. It went on until all but one had felt it in some shape or other, and there were not enough well to watch the sick. It never left us, and down to our last day at Camp Groce the chief part of our company were frail and feeble and dispirited.
Near to the barracks stood a little shanty of rough boards, divided by a plank partition into two rooms. One of these had been assigned to Mr. Stratford and his wife, and the other after several weeks came into the possession of Col. Burrell of the 42d Mass., Dr. Sherfy, Capt. Dillingham and myself. After living amid the sickness, the discord, and the misery of the barracks, this room measuring ten feet by twelve, promised to four of us a quiet and retirement that amounted almost to happiness. We went to work upon our little house with all the zeal of school-boys, and positively look back upon it with affection. It boasted doors, but neither windows nor chimney. Its walls were without lath and plaster, and through innumerable chinks let in the wind. The Captain and I also messed with Mr. and Mrs. Stratford; so we had a double interest in the shanty, and when we had built ourselves bunks and swung a shelf or two, we went to work on our other half.
“What shall I do for a blanket line?” was one of the first questions I had asked after our arrival.
“Let me lend you mine,” said an officer of the “Morning Light,” “we sailors always hang on to our ropes.”
“I will take it this morning, with thanks; but I want something of my own. If there is anything I despise, it’s a soldier’s blanket in his tent after reveille.”
“We are not so particular here, I’m sorry to say,” said my friend; “and unless you can find a line among the sailors, you won’t find one in Texas.”
“I am going out in the woods this afternoon, with Mr. Fowler,” I answered, “and will try to get one there.”