About seventy colored men, many Indians, and scores of others were brought into the hospital. I think that no one regiment sent more patients than the First Michigan Sharpshooters, who had come from Chicago in a violent storm in partially open cars. Their lieutenant-colonel lay in a critical state for several days with typhoid pneumonia. The officers and men of the regiment were continually coming in to inquire for him, and their words of interest and esteem bore witness to the beauty of a character of which his noble face was alone sufficient assurance. The disease of which he was apparently dying needs, perhaps more than any other, the closest watchfulness and good judgment. The doctors were indefatigable in their consultations. Ice held constantly in the mouth was the only nourishment he could take. When medicine had done its utmost, Dr. Vanderkeift sadly said, he feared that he must die. During five days and nights sleep had not at all calmed his delirious ravings, and nature seemed exhausted. "But you are determined that he shall not die," said one of the doctors to the lady in charge of the ward. "Not if good care can save his life," she answered. (And here let me record the uniform courtesy and respect with which suggestions from the ladies were received by the doctors. Their wishes were always acceded to, if possible, with a gentlemanly deference which showed they were not considered intrusive.) Life, however, seemed almost gone, and hope at an end for our patient, when at nightfall a group of doctors whispered together that there was no use in doing anything more,—that he could not live till morning. Then, with a pertinacity which could not yield, the lady in charge requested that a blister might be applied to the back of his neck. "It will do no harm, and, if it will be the slightest gratification to you, it shall be put on; but," added the doctors, "you had better make up your mind to lose him, for he must die." With what intense satisfaction, at five o'clock the next morning, was the doctor welcomed in the ward, and told that four hours of refreshing sleep had followed the application of the blister! He was surprised even to find the patient alive, and with joy pronounced him much better. He ordered the strongest beef essence, with a fresh egg lightly beaten mixed with it, to be given by the teaspoonful every twenty minutes, alternating it with brandy and water. There was a wonderful improvement that day, and before his friends arrived on the next, the sick man was quite out of danger.
One of the most highly prized of all the various gifts which were offered in grateful remembrance to the ladies in the hospital was a volume of Autograph Leaves of American Authors from this patient. On the blank page was written:—
"—— —— ——:—I owe you a better memento, but here is one that I know your good taste will appreciate.
"I met you first in my delirium; and knew you only in the purest and sweetest character a woman can exhibit,—a true and faithful Florence Nightingale, supporting and encouraging the weary, bathing the feverish brow of the brave soldier dying far from other friends.
"I never can forget, and I trust you never will, how you night and day kept watch over me when wife and father were yet far away, when fever and delirium were racking my brain and sapping life from my lungs,—how you bore with every impatience of mine, or kindly answered every severe word.
"Please accept this book from
"Your devoted friend,
"—— —— —— ——."
There was a general commotion and eager haste in the hospital the day before the Ninth Army Corps left. The convalescents assured the doctors of their ability to go, but the doctors, differing in opinion, made many a brave man unhappy. One old soldier, John Paul, chief saddler of the Third Division of the Corps, insisted stoutly on the necessity of his joining his command. If the whole success of the undertaking had rested upon his shoulders, he could not have felt the responsibility more. At the last moment he was allowed to go.
All were ambitious to share the glory of the coming triumph, little dreaming of the terrible cost of life and limb with which it was to be achieved. Of those who went from the hospital, numbers were stricken down, never to need care again. How sadly the words "Shot through the head" looked opposite the name of Frank Wagner, in the first lists which came from the front! He was a spirited boy of seventeen, who by great care had been raised from a dangerous illness. But almost sadder than the death-lists were the names of those taken prisoners. We had learned but too well that it would be death in the end to most; to very few life worth having.