O——, May 1st.
The expected battle has not yet come off, and I am still awaiting the result; busying myself about many things, visiting and returning visits from my old friends; dividing my time between the world and the hospital, the lights and shades of life. Ah, the shades! My dear J——, you can little imagine how much suffering I have witnessed in the last few weeks—how much, that acts or kind words have no power to mitigate. There have been many wounded brought in from Corinth, many who have died since their arrival, many who will die; but, saddest of all, a young boy, too young to be a soldier, yet possessing all a soldier’s spirit. I walked into a ward, one morning, that I had visited the evening before—a ward of very sick patients—and saw an old man sitting by a new cot, fanning a young boy, who lay with flushed face, and burning eyes fixed on the ceiling. As I advanced toward them, the weather-bronzed man stood stiffly erect, making me a quaint, half-awkward, military salute, saying, as he did so, “My boy, ma’am!” “Is he wounded?” I asked. He threw back the sheet that covered him, pointed to the stump of a limb amputated near the thigh: “He has gained the cross,” he said, while his head grew more erect, as he held back the sheet with the fan, and his eye shot out the grim ghost of a smile.
A proud, iron soldier the man was, I could see. The boy was delirious; so I shall tell you of the man. Refusing to be seated as long as a lady remained standing in the room, he stood stiffly upright at the head of the cot, keeping each fly from the face of the boy with the tenderness of a mother. A limp brown hat was on the side of his head, shading his eyes, that followed me in all parts of the room. A red cord and tassel hung from one side of his hat, and gave him a jaunty air that was quite out of keeping with the quaint stiffness of his manner. After speaking to the sick and wounded soldiers around, asking after their wounds and wants, I returned to the young boy’s cot, and heard the old man’s story. Don’t be weary if I give it to you; he had so much pride in his boy, let that be my extenuation.
“We belong to the Texas Rangers, ma’am, the boy and me; he could ride as well as the rest of them, ma’am, a year ago. When the war broke out, and we practised regularly like, he was the best rider in the company—could pick anything he wanted off the ground as he was going. He’s only fourteen, ma’am—a fine-grown lad, indeed. His mother was the likeliest woman I ever seed,” with a deprecating bow to me; “he’s got her eyes—the finest eyes God ever made, she had, ma’am. She died when quite young like, leaving him to me, a little shaver, and he’s been by me ever since. The boys and me tried to overpersuade him out of the army; ’peared like he was too young for such business; but he wouldn’t hear to it, not he, ma’am, and here he is,” passing his sleeve across his eyes.
“Well, ma’am, so he staid with us; and when we got to Corinth, General Beauregard offered a cross of honor to the ones that showed themselves the best soldiers. So our boys talked a heap about who’d get it; but this boy says nothing. Well, one day we were ordered out to scout, and we came up with the Yankees, and we fit ’em a half hour or so, when I seed this youngster by my side kind adrooping by a tree, but standing his ground. Well, we routed them at last, when I found the boy’s leg was all shattered, and he’d kept up like nothing wan’t the matter. So when we went back to Corinth, it got noised about like from the soldiers to the officers—how he’d held out. And, more’n all, the time when his leg was being cut off, we couldn’t get any chloroform, morphine, or the like: he just sit up like a brave lad, and off it went, without a word out of him. So the doctors they talked of that; and he’s been notified that he’ll get the first cross, and the boys’ll be monstrous fond of him, and feel most like they’d got it themselves. If he’d get rid of his fever and pick up like, I’d be a happy man,” he said anxiously.
Pardon me do I tire you; but let me take you to visit the sick prisoners. The old man that we pass in the hall, with his arm and leg in a frame, will never recover; yet he does not know it, and frequently asks me if I think he will get a pension when he is well, if he loses his leg and arm. He persists in keeping his face covered with a handkerchief, raising it up and peeping out, if he hears my voice, each day, with his usual salutation: “You’ve come, have ye?” If I bring any little article of food that I think the patients will relish, this old man must be fed by me, and I am frequently amused at the directions he gives me, for he is extremely practical and particular: “Now, if you will turn the spoon a little to one side, I will turn my mouth in this direction, and the custard will pass safely in.” Poor man, without a friend, both arms badly wounded, and leg shattered, dying by degrees, yet to the last the handkerchief would be raised, and the cheery welcome greet me, “Ye’re come, have ye?”
I think I can see you looking around in this ward to learn which are the prisoners, for all seem cheerful and talkative. In this cot by the door, with a wounded limb in a frame—like a huge lion—lies a man, large whiskered, large bodied, and long limbed, yet with a pleasant smile of greeting as we enter and make our inquiries after his wound. He is “better this morning, thank you,” or, “I am obliged to you, not quite so well.” A little picture on the table by his side, of a child three years of age, is never closed. A little child, blue eyed, with bare white neck, and plump round arms, showing the mother’s wish that the picture should be fair and lovely to the father’s eye. The Federal flag is on the cover. The man, a captain, is of an Illinois company. The child and mother, with tearful eyes and wistful hearts, look over the wide expanse of land and water that separates, over the cruel bounds that man has set—still faithful in their love. Still watching, and hoping, for the time when liberty will be his, and he, constant and true, will return to them. He tells me the name of the little one, with a sorrowful look at me with his dark eye. If he is free, if he ever sees these words, he will remember how the little one was gazed on by a lady in deep mourning, to whose heart a child of three years brought a sad and tearful memory.
Come to the next cot with me; do not shrink from this blackened brow. Yesterday this was a noble-faced, gray-haired, old Confederate soldier, with the plaintive, lovely smile of perfect resignation. He suffers much from a wound in his body; seldom talks, yet always smiles gratefully for the slightest attention. This morning I find the erysipelas has broken out, spreading over his forehead and a part of his face. He cautions me, with the same pleasant, resigned smile, about coming near him, lest I take the disease. The blackened skin is from the effect of iodine to stay its progress. He will not live: dear, patient old man, my heart aches for him, yet I can give him nothing but kind words.
This morning I brought the men in this ward toast. The old man slept, and I gave to each his portion. Engaged in talking to a prisoner in another part of the room, I heard the Illinoisian say: “Let me divide this toast with you; I do not need it all.” I turned, and heard the old man reply: “Oh, no; you keep it.” I procured his toast and brought it to him, laughingly telling the prisoner I believed I saw the dawn of the millennium.
Do you not wish, dear J——, that the dawning was indeed with us; that brave and noble men should no more suffer, bleed, and die, but live; and in their lives grow more thankful and worthy of the Divine blood that has been shed for the removal of the fearful suffering and warfare that is all around us?