“I cannot sleep; there is such an odor of death about this apartment.”
Nevertheless they composed themselves as best as they could. In the morning the secret of the strong odor was revealed. A pair of human limbs amputated the week before had been carelessly thrown in the adjoining room. It was a great trial for the Sister to visit that room. She covered her nose and mouth with her handkerchief and threw open the windows. Under her directions the limbs were at once interred. One of the Sisters writing in her diary at his time says: “Yesterday a man was buried with three legs.”
On Sunday morning an addition of eleven Union officers was received to the number of wounded. They were given accommodations in the garret. In the officers’ quarters were found captains, majors, lieutenants and sergeants, all wounded. One fellow blessed with a fine voice had a guitar loaned him, and he could always be seen in a corner whiling away the dull hours. Sometimes these invalid officers were annoyed by visitors who were untiring in their questions.
“Where were you shot at?” asked one inquisitive individual, meaning in what part of the body.
“Shot at Manassas,” was the laconic reply.
As one of the Sisters was crossing the porch a tall, brawny soldier cried out: “You ladies have a sight of work to do, but I tell you what, you get high pay.”
“None at all,” was the quiet answer.
“What!” said he, starting back with surprise; “you don’t tell me you do all this work for nothing?”
“Precisely,” was the quiet response.
One of the nurses or hands about the place being sadly put out about something that went wrong exclaimed that he was “neither an angel nor a Sister of Charity,” and that he would not put up with it at all. Sister Mary Ann, in speaking of the varied dispositions of the men, said that the Sisters “first got a puff and then a buff.”