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1Author:  Moore Frank 1828-1904Add
 Title:  Women of the War  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text 
 Description: NO page in the history of the bloody war which has just now come to an end is so brilliant as that illuminated by a record of the noble sacrifices and exploits of heroic women. Dear Friend: There is one of my comrades in the West Philadelphia Hospital (Ward H) by the name of Harry Griffin. I wish you would be so kind as to call and see him as you make your daily rounds. Madam: The joint resolution of the House of Representatives authorizing the secretary of the interior to grant permission to erect a building on Judiciary Square for the purpose of a library for the use of the soldiers, &c., has just passed the Senate. Kind and highly-esteemed Friends: Though two, yet I will address you as one, for you are one in every good work, and in devotion to the interests of the soldier. Dear Madam: We now hasten to express to you our thanks for the numerous luxuries and kind services we have received from you, as from the hands of our own kind mothers, for which we shall ever feel grateful to you. After I left City Point for Baltimore wish my dear son, I arrifet safe home, only wish a broken hart, on the 11th in the morning. We cept him till the 12th in the evening, and took him up to Pansilvaniae, to hes broter and sisters. The 15th, in the morning, he arrifet saf at hes stat of rest. Rev. D. Izenbury atent the funerl, and Bregt, hes text John 11th and 11th, and a great many tears has being shatt for hem. I arrifet at My home the 17th in the morning. I am so troubelt in my Mint and Week that I could not rite, and ask for barten me and excus me for not ansern zuner. My humbel dank to your Virtues and faver which you showed to me. I would ask your Kindness, if you ples. I wase so trobelt to see to every ting, namely my Son hat a very good Watch, and I would lik to have that for Membery, ples, and ask Mr. Geo. W. Low, Company F. 190th Penn. Vols. Fifth Core Hospital City Point Va. My Love and best Respect to Mrs. Hart and Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Ashe. I had not received the painful intelligence of my beloved son's death until Friday afternoon. My heart is filled with sorrow; my grief I cannot express. You have a beloved son in the army. Dear Thomas told me of you and of your son in one of his letters. He told me there was a woman in the hospital by the name of Mrs. Lee; he said you were as kind to the soldiers as a mother, and that they all loved you as a mother. He said you were an angel. I wrote to him that I was happy to hear him say that there was an angel in his tent; for I never ceased to pray to God, my heavenly Father, that he would send his holy angels into his tent, to guide him by day and guard him by night. He wrote me, the day he went into the hospital, that he had the rheumatism in his arms and legs, but thought he should be able to go back to his regiment. I did not feel much alarmed about him. He then wrote to me he had the measles very lightly, but the cough hung on, as it always does. I have read of things terrible and heartrending, but never heard anything to equal the sounds which a rebel in 15 the third story sends forth. I was sitting by my table, reading, when a sharp cry of pain startled me, followed by earnest pleadings for mercy from our divine Father. Then, in a few moments, shouts of praise, cursing, raving, shrieks, fiendish laughs, growls like an enraged animal, and every feeling it is possible to express with the voice, followed each other in quick succession. When I first went through the wards of this hospital, I found a German woman sitting by her husband in ward one. This ward contains all the worst cases, and the smell of the wounds made me sick and faint before I was half through. But I learned that this woman had been sitting in her chair there, beside her husband, for two weeks, day and night. For recreation, she would walk out into the city, and buy some crackers and cheese, upon which she subsisted. Her face was colorless, and her eyes had a sunken, sickly look. I was carrying a bottle of excellent cologne and a basket of handkerchiefs. I saturated one with the cologne, and gave her husband, and left the bottle with her. She was very grateful, and told me that she was compelled to go out and vomit three or four times every day, so great was the nausea caused by the impure air. I arranged for her to sleep at the Commission Rooms, which are near here, on Spruce Street, and we gave her her meals from the kitchen. This is against the rules of the hospital; but the surgeon says he will shut his eyes and not know we are doing it, if we will not do it again. Until to-day we have had no doubt of his recovery; but to-night she came to me in great alarm, saying her husband had a chill. I have never yet known a person with an amputated limb to recover after having a chill. This man looks so strong and well, that I hope he may be an exception. The German in ward one is dead. On Wednesday morning I went down very early to see him, and found the cot empty. I asked for his wife, and they said she had gone out in town. At the door I met her. She threw up her arms, and cried in piteous tones, "He's gone! O, he's gone! and I'm alone — alone!" She supposed he would be buried that day, and walked out to the cemetery — more than a mile — and found he was not to be buried until the next day. She asked me if I would not go with her on Thursday. I complied, and accompanied her, with a delegate of the Commission and his wife. As the coffins were taken one by one from the ambulance, it was found that her husband's was not there. The chaplain kindly proposed to wait until the ambulance could return to town; and while waiting we went to a farm-house near by, and made a bouquet for each of us. As we stood, with bowed heads, looking into the graves while the chaplain read the funeral service, she grasped my hand convulsively, whispering, "It's so shallow! O, ask them to take him out, and make it deeper!" Our nostrils had evidence of the shallowness of the graves every time the breeze swept over them. The "escort" fired their farewell over the "sleeping braves," and as the smoke cleared away, the bereaved wife dropped her flowers upon the coffin, and we wearily returned, — she to take the next train for the North, and we to our sad work. This evening, while busy preparing supper, we were startled by hearing a heavy fall on the pavement, outside of the window. We rushed to it, and found that a man had jumped from the third story porch. He was sitting up, looking about him with a bewildered look, when we reached him. The doctor says he has broken open an old wound in his side, and will not recover. He says he had been thinking all day how long he would have to suffer if he got well, and then thought he might suffer for weeks and months, and then die, and he determined to end his misery at one leap. The nurse caught him just as he was going over, but was not strong enough to hold him. He talks very quietly about it, and wishes he had not done it, or had succeeded in ending life and physical pain at once. He died two days afterwards.
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