LETTER XVII.
Benton Barracks Hospital,
May-day, 1863.
I am better than I have been; my cough is very
slight and I am stronger. For some time I had
coughed very badly with a sort of intermittent fever
every other day, I did not give up work for it, but
am very glad to feel more comfortable, and more able
to work. Our hospital is in fine condition. The new
nurses take hold well and are interested in their work;
in the colored wards the nurses are teaching their men
to read, write, and, in some instances, to cipher. The
poor colored men are very grateful and so anxious to
learn it is very touching. There is one colored man
dying of consumption. His great longing is for
cake.
I take him some every day. I was a little late yesterday;
he asked the nurse where that woman was who
brought the cake? She told him I was coming, and
said, "Which do you like the best, the lady or the
cake?" Well, he said, he liked the cake the best. We
were quite amused by his honesty. I have been busy
to-day in all sorts of ways, and to-night am tired, as I
always am; but then I sleep well. Two of my nurses
are sick, one with measles, so I have that on my mind
in addition to my other cares. Think of coming eight
hundred miles to have the measles in a hospital! I
dreamed last night of being at home and laying my
head on your lap. It was
nice.
I think my poor men care for me, and perhaps I
shall not be obliged to live to a lonely old age; I may
be allowed to pass into another life when my work in
this way is done. One of my nurses told me, the
other day, that she had a young brother in the army.
He was at the taking of Fort Donelson, in the thickest
of the fight, his comrades falling all around him amidst
a perfect hail of shot, and he escaped without a
scratch. He told them he thought then that it was
his mother's prayers that were saving him, and he
believed now that they had saved him all through.
Was it not a beautiful thought?
Going through the wards the other evening, I saw a
man who appeared to be in trouble. I went to him.
He was weeping like a child over the picture of his
wife and babies. Poor fellow! he will have many a
homesick feeling before he gets through. I comforted
him as well as I could, and when, I left him he appeared
to feel a good deal better. Pome-sickness is
the worst sort of sickness.
