; and
who repented, after their first misfortune, with the salt rheum in their
eyes. I think that all "great uprisings" resolve to this complexion.
With due reverence for my own ancestry, I think that they sometimes
stooped from greatness to littleness. I must confess that certain
admissions in my revolutionary textbook are much clearer, now that I
have followed a campaign. And if, as I had proposed, I could have
witnessed the further fortunes of the illustrious Garibaldi, I think
that some of his compatriots would have been found equally inconsistent.
Let no man believe that the noblest cause is fought out alone by the
unerring motives of duty and devotion. The masses are never so constant.
They cannot appreciate an abstraction, however divine. Any of the
gentlemen in question would have preferred their biscuit and fat pork
before the political enfranchisement of the whole world!

I rode across the fields to the Hogan, Curtis, and Gaines mansions; for
some of the wounded had meantime been deposited in each of them. All the
cow-houses, wagon-sheds, hay-barracks, hen-coops, negro cabins, and
barns were turned into hospitals. The floors were littered with
"corn-shucks" and fodder; and the maimed, gashed, and dying lay
confusedly together. A few, slightly wounded, stood at windows, relating
incidents of the battle; but at the doors sentries stood with crossed
muskets, to keep out idlers and gossips. The mention of my vocation was
an "open sesame," and I went unrestrained, into all the largest
hospitals. In the first of these an amputation was being performed, and
at the door lay a little heap of human fingers, feet, legs, and arms. I
shall not soon forget the bare-armed surgeons, with bloody instruments,
that leaned over the rigid and insensible figure, while the comrades of
the subject looked horrifiedly at the scene. The grating of the
murderous saw drove me into the open air, but in the second hospital
which I visited, a wounded man had just expired, and I encountered his
body at the threshold. Within, the sickening smell of mortality was
almost insupportable, but by degrees I became accustomed to it. The
lanterns hanging around the room streamed fitfully upon the red eyes,
and half-naked figures. All were looking up, and saying, in pleading
monotone: "Is that you, doctor?" Men with their arms in slings went
restlessly up and down, smarting with fever. Those who were wounded in
the lower extremities, body, or head, lay