The White House

January 12, 1865

Behind a hospital, the other day, I saw a wheelbarrow filled with amputated hands, arms, and legs.

I walked up close to the barrow, uncertain what I saw there. A hand reached out for my hand.

I held that hand. The stiff fingers were those of a farmer—a man from Ten­nessee or Illinois, a corn-husker’s hand.

I saw a boy’s hand next to the farmer’s.

I wanted to put those amputated pieces back in their proper world. All those pieces, the hands, legs, feet, wanted to return to the woods, the prairie, the barns, the canoes, the plantations.

As I write down these words my hands are not steady.