Chapter X
LIFE IN THE HOSPITAL
That ride in the ambulance. Emory Hospital. The woman with my Mother’s name. The dreadful death rate. President Lincoln’s Second Inauguration. Booth’s Ride. Doing clerical work in Philadelphia. Discharged.
July 30, 1863, my twenty-third birthday, found me in a field hospital a little way to the rear of the 9th Army Corps, whither I had been taken the day before after being wounded.
About daybreak we heard the report caused by the mine explosion, and then the roar of the artillery that followed. Early in the forenoon a train of ambulances was loaded with wounded men, I among them, and taken to City Point to make room for the wounded they were hourly expecting to be brought from the front. The ride from the hospital to City Point was most trying. The ambulances went rolling and jolting along across trackless fields the whole way. My wound bled a good deal and pained me badly, but I bore it quietly, my companion in the ambulance being apparently so much worse off than I. He complained and moaned dreadfully until we were near City Point when he became quiet and remained so for the rest of the journey.
When we reached the hospital at City Point, a man came and helped me out of the ambulance and into the hospital. At the same time two men took out my companion. He had to be lifted bodily out, his form was rigid and cold—he was dead. Then I understood why at a certain time on the way his moaning had ceased. My wound was dressed, I had a bath, a nurse brought me a plate of soup and I felt very much refreshed.
August 1. Notice was given in the tent where I was that a boat was at the wharf down at the river to take to Washington all wounded men who could get down to the wharf and get aboard the boat. I told one of the nurses that if I had a pair of crutches I thought I could get down there. She got me the crutches and I set out. I had not gone many rods when my head began to spin around and I began to feel very strange. I stopped and stood still for a moment, then who should pass by right in front of me but Alf Rider, a Company K man. I shouted, “Alf!” He looked around, saw who it was, came back and helped me down to the boat. He then went and got a canteen of water and brought it to me. Wounded men were coming aboard all the afternoon. By seven o’clock the boat was crowded and we started for Washington where we arrived the next afternoon. On the way we had no food, but water we had. My neighbors, none of whom had any canteen, all used mine, and between us we emptied it a number of times. But one of the boat men, a fine fellow, did not allow it to remain empty long at a time. He kept us supplied with water and we got along very well.
As soon as we reached Washington I was taken in an ambulance and carried to Emory Hospital and placed in Ward 4. Doctor Ensign, a New York physician, had charge of the ward. A Mr. Gage, a medical student from Massachusetts, was wound dresser and took care of my wound. I had been in the hospital only about a week when the erysipelas developed in my wound, and August 9th I was taken to the erysipelas ward. This ward was under the charge of a Dr. Bates, of Worcester, Mass. Dr. Bates and his assistants had no trouble in quieting down that erysipelas, and on August 30th, I was taken back to Ward 4 again. What horrible care my wound received! It was dressed only once a day and then so badly. September 16, gangrene broke out in it and I was taken to the gangrene ward.