 | Memoranda During the War |  |
Wednesday, Feb. 4th.
— Visited Armory Square Hospital, went pretty thoroughly through Wards E and D. Supplied paper and envelopes to all who wish'd — as usual, found plenty of the men who needed those articles. Wrote letters. Saw and talk'd with two or three members of the Brooklyn Fourteenth.........A poor fellow in Ward D, with a fearful wound in a fearful condition, was having some loose splinters of bone taken from the neighborhood of the wound. The operation was long, and one of great pain — yet, after it was well commenced, the soldier bore it in silence. He sat up, propp'd — was much wasted — had lain a long time quiet in one position, (not for days only, but weeks,) — a bloodless, brown-skinn'd face, with eyes full of determination — belong'd to a New York regiment. There was an unusual cluster of surgeons, medical cadets, nurses, &c., around his bed — I
In one case, the wife sat by the side of her husband, his sickness, typhoid fever, pretty bad. In another, by the side of her son — a mother — she told me she had seven children, and this was the youngest. (A fine, kind, healthy, gentle mother, good-looking, not very old, with a cap on her head, and dress'd like home — what a charm it gave to the whole Ward.) I liked the woman nurse Ward E — I noticed how she sat a long time by a poor fellow who just had, that morning, in addition to his other sickness, bad hemmorhage — she gently assisted him, reliev'd him of the blood, holding a cloth to his mouth, as he cough'd it up — he was so weak he could only just turn his head over on the pillow.
One young New York man, with a bright, handsome face, had been lying several months from a most disagreeable wound, receiv'd at Bull Run. A bullet had shot him right through the bladder, hitting him front, low in the belly, and coming out back. He had suffer'd much — the water came out of the wound, by slow but steady quantities, for many weeks — so that he lay almost constantly in a sort of puddle — and there were other disagreeable circumstances. He was of good heart, however. At present comparatively comfortable; had a bad throat, was delighted with a stick of horehound candy I gave him, with one or two other trifles.
| Memoranda During the War | |