emember, the day after the battle of Perryville, visiting the
hospital of which Dr. Muscroft was surgeon. I had assisted all day in
bringing in the wounded from the field-hospital, in the rear of the
battle-ground. The boys of the 10th and 3d Ohio were crowded into a
little church, each pew answering for a private apartment for a
wounded man. One of the surgeons in attendance requested me to assist
in holding a patient while his leg was being amputated. This was my
first trial, but the sight of the crowd of wounded had rendered my
otherwise sensitive nerves adamant, and as the knife was hastily
plunged, the circle-scribe and the saw put to its use, the limb off,
scarce a groan escaped the noble fellow's lips. Another boy of the
10th had his entire right cheek cut off by a piece of a shell,
lacerating his tongue in the most horrible manner: this wound had to
be dressed, and again my assistance was required, and I could but
notice the exhilarating effect a few words of praise that I bestowed
upon his powers of endurance had. This was invariably the case with
all those whom it was my painful duty to assist. The effect of a few
words of praise seemed quite magical.

Men frequently fight on, though severely wounded, so great is the
excitement of battle, and I am cognizant of several instances of men
fainting from loss of blood, who did not know they were wounded,
until, several minutes afterward, they were brought to a realization
of the fact through a peculiar dizzy, sickening feeling.
Brigadier-General (then Colonel) Lytle, who commanded a brigade during
that battle, it is said, by boys who were near him, after the severe
wound he received, fought on several minutes. A field-officer, whose
name I have forgotten, being shot from his horse, requested to be
lifted back into the saddle, and died shortly afterward. Captain
McDougal, of Newark, Ohio, commanding a company in the 3d Ohio, who,
with sword upraised, and cheering on his noble boys, received a fatal
shot, actually stepped some eight or ten paces before falling. Colonel
Loomis, of the celebrated Loomis Battery, who did such service in that
engagement, says he saw no dead about him; yet there they lay, within
a few feet of his battery. Loomis at one time sighted one of his
favorite pieces, taking what he called a "fair, square, deliberate
aim," and, sure enough, he knocked over the rebel gun, throwing it
some feet in the air; at the sight of which he was so elated that