Then, after the washing and clothing process is gone through with, the nice wine or Boston crackers are brought forward, preserved fruits, wines, jellies, etc., and distributed as the different cases may require.
I have spent whole days in this blessed employment without realizing weariness or fatigue, so completely absorbed would I become in my work, and so rejoiced in having those comforts provided for our brave, suffering soldiers.
Time and again, since I have been engaged in writing this little narrative, I have thrown down my pen, closed my eyes, and lived over again those hours which I spent in ministering to the wants of those noble men, and have longed to go back and engage in the same duties once more.
I look back now upon my hospital labors as being the most important and interesting in my life’s history. The many touching incidents which come to my mind as I recall those thrilling scenes make me feel as if I should never be satisfied until I had recorded them all, so that they might never be forgotten. One occurs to my mind now which I must not omit:
“In one of the fierce engagements with the rebels near Mechanicsville, a young lieutenant of a Rhode Island battery had his right foot so shattered by a fragment of shell that on reaching Washington, after one of those horrible ambulance rides, and a journey of a week’s duration, he was obliged to undergo amputation.
“He telegraphed home, hundreds of miles away, that all was going on well, and with a soldier’s fortitude composed his mind and determined to bear his sufferings alone. Unknown to him, however, his mother—one of those dear reserves of the army—hastened up to join the main force. She reached the city at midnight, and hastened to the hospital, but her son being in such a critical condition, the nurses would have kept her from him until morning. One sat by his side fanning him as he slept, her hand on the feeble, fluctuating pulsations which foreboded sad results. But what woman’s heart could resist the pleading of a mother at such a moment? In the darkness she was finally allowed to glide in and take the nurse’s place at his side. She touched his pulse as the nurse had done. Not a word had been spoken; but the sleeping boy opened his eyes and said: ‘That feels like my mother’s hand! Who is this beside me? It is my mother; turn up the gas and let me see mother!’ The two loving faces met in one long, joyful, sobbing embrace, and the fondness pent up in each heart wept forth its own language.
“The gallant fellow underwent operation after operation, and at last, when death drew near, and he was told by tearful friends that it only remained to make him comfortable, he said he ‘had looked death in the face too many times to be afraid now,’ and died as gallantly as did the men of the Cumberland.”
When a hero goes
Unto his last repose,
When earth’s trump of fame shall wake him no more;
When in the heavenly land
Another soul doth stand,
Who perished for a Nation ere he reached the shore;
Whose eyes should sorrow dim?
Say, who should mourn for him?
Mourn for the traitor—mourn
When honor is forsworn;
When the base wretch sells his land for gold,
Stands up unblushingly
And boasts his perfidy,
Then, then, O patriots! let your grief be told
But when God’s soldier yieldeth up his breath,
O mourn ye not for him! it is not death!
Another question is frequently asked me—“Are not the private soldiers cruelly treated by the officers?” I never knew but a very few instances of it, and then it was invariably by mean, cowardly officers, who were not fit to be in command of so many mules. I have always noticed that the bravest and best fighting officers are the kindest and most forbearing toward their men.
An interesting anecdote is told of the late brave General Sedgwick, which illustrates this fact: