LETTER XIX.
Benton Barracks Hospital,
May 10, 1863.
The bandages are in use, some of them. The flannel
shirts are more useful than one can imagine who has
not seen them used; so many of the men have chest
and side pains, leading to consumption. I think if the
ladies could see the good their work does, it would be
more than return for all they have done. It did my
heart good to take out the nice clean articles one by
one, and think of the poor suffering forms they would
render more comfortable! "Oh! I feel better!" they
say, after putting on a good flannel shirt. The men
who have come to-night are quite sick; some bad cases,
I fear. I have been round among them. . . . I went
after their arrival, and again to-night. They got here
about one or two o'clock. They were refreshed by
their supper, but weak and weary. You have no idea
how our soldiers live. I am so accustomed to living
among them, that I do not know what I shall do when
I return to civil life, if ever I do. I am inclined to
think I shall follow the army for a profession.
Tuesday.—I am afraid the preceding letter was
rather broken up, but I was dead tired, and could
hardly write at all. It is very warm here, and the
heat tires one. I see its effects on the men. We have
about nine hundred sick, and a number of convalescents
besides, whom we are sending away. We are
expecting to fill up every day or any day. This place is
better for the sick than the city; I wish you could see it
at night. It is a curious place,—this great Coliseum
building lit up, and all the smaller ones, as I go about
the grounds at night, all alone with my lantern. It has
a curious effect; I can hardly realize it all, or that I am
at the West. I shall never love any place as I do the
East. I wonder how Cambridge is looking. I must
not think much about it, there grows up such a longing
if I do, and I could not enjoy it if I left my duty to
do so. . . .
My dresses were very acceptable, I am so hot. The
two new dresses are lovely; I cut one out this afternoon.
I have to rest a little sometimes, for my feet
pathetically represent that they are made of flesh and
blood. The ginger I can testify to from personal experience.
I was delighted with everything; I kissed
the handiwork of my friends. When I looked at the
hat, it looked so like sister Sabra that I kissed the
bows she had made.
Tuesday.—I have come in from my night patrol
tired and wet, so I have put on a dry wrapper,
and am ensconced in my rocking-chair. A new nurse
came to-day, a lady about forty. Her husband is off
engineering, or something like it, and she wanted
to do something for the soldiers; so she has turned
nurse. . . .
The window shade you sent me is going to one of
the dining-rooms, to do duty as table-cloth! I made
myself a short cotton shade.
