Memoranda During the War | ||
WASHINGTON Again — Summer of 1864.
— I am back again in Washington, on my regular daily and nightly rounds. Of course there are many specialties. Dotting a Ward here and there are always cases of poor fellows, long-suffering under obstinate wounds, or weak and dishearten'd from typhoid fever, or the like; mark'd cases, needing special and sympathetic nourishment. These I sit down and either talk to, or silently cheer them up. They always like it hugely, (and so
In these Wards, or on the field, as I thus continue to go round, I have come to adapt myself to each emergency, after its kind or call, however trivial, however solemn — every one justified and made real under its circumstances — not only visits and cheering talk and little gifts — not only washing and dressing wounds, (I have some cases where the patient is unwilling any one should do this but me) — but passages from the Bible, expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doctrine, &c. (I think I see my friends smiling at this confession, but I was never more in earnest in my life.)
Memoranda During the War | ||