punch drunkard, and the soup and the punch
must be prepared in the South.

Well, my experience after that, in the hospital, was about the same as a
hundred thousand other boys in blue, only few of the boys had such care,
and such food. The girl kept me supplied with gumbo soup and milk punch
until I could eat heartier food, and in a couple of days I got so I
could walk around the hospital. At home I had never been much of a hand
to be around with the sick, but experience had been a good teacher, and
I found that going around among the boys, and talking cheerfully did
them good and me too. I found men from my own regiment, that I did not
know had been sick. The custom was to make just as little show about
sending sick men to the hospital, as possible, hence they were often
packed off in the night, and the first their comrades would know of
their illness would be a detail to bury them, or a boy would suddenly
appear in his company, looking pale and sick, having been discharged
from the hospital. If the men had known how many of their comrades were
sent to the hospital, it would have demoralized the well ones. For ten
days I visited around among the sick men, telling a funny story to
a group here and and cheering them up, and writing letters home for
fellows that were too weak to write. I learned to lie a little bit in
writing letters for the boys. One young fellow who had his leg taken
off, wanted me to write to his intended, and tell her all about it, how
the leg was taken off, and how he was sick and discouraged, and would
always be a cripple and a burden on his friends, etc. I wrote the letter
entirely different from the way he told me. I spoke of his being wounded
in the leg but that the care he received had made him all right, and
that he would probably soon have a discharge, and be home, and make them
all happy. I thought to myself that if she loved him as a girl ought to,
that a leg or two short wouldn't make any difference to her, and there
was no use of harrowing up her feelings in advance, and that he could
buy a cork leg before he got home, and may be she would never find it
out. I might have been wrong, but when he got an answer from that letter
he was the happiest fellow I ever saw in this world, and he arranged
at my suggestion, to stop over in New York and get a cork leg before he
went home. I have never learned whether the girl ever found out that he
had a cork leg, but if she did, and blames anybody, she c