FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   >>  
here was a vacancy. I was carried there on a stretcher, and was so sick that I had to be fed. Soon after my entrance into the hospital Caleb Rector was brought in. His home was on the turnpike between Middleburg and Upperville. He had a scorching fever, and was soon delirious. I put my hand on him, and the heat almost burned me. One day a nurse took a wet towel and put it on his forehead. Although he was unconscious, I saw a smile play over his face, and as the nurse was bending over him he reached up one hand and caught the nurse by the hair; then pulling his head down, and lifting the wet towel with his other hand, tried to put it on the nurse's forehead. That act revealed the character of the man. He was open-hearted and generous, and the cool towel on his forehead was so pleasant to him that he wanted the nurse to share it with him. [Illustration: GEN. A.P. HILL, Commanding a corps of Lee's army. Killed just before the final surrender.] The nurses were all men, chosen from among the prisoners. I never saw a woman the whole time I was in prison. The hospitals were long tents, each holding about 30 cots. As soon as a patient died, he was taken out to the dead-house, the sheets changed, and another brought in. When I was first taken there I remarked to my neighbor that I did not think that was very healthy (meaning the placing of a new patient at once on a bed that was still warm from the body that had just been removed). He replied that the bed that I was on had been occupied by a smallpox patient, and I was put on it a few minutes after the patient was taken out. However, there was a separate hospital for contagious diseases, and the patient was removed as soon as the disease developed. Most of those who went into the hospital died. The dead were all carried at once to the dead-house on stretchers, and once a day a two-horse wagon came in, and their bodies were laid in it like so much cord wood, uncoffined, taken out and buried in long trenches. The trenches were seven feet wide and three feet deep, and the bodies were laid across the trench side by side and covered with earth. I had been in prison about four months when news came that the two Governments had agreed upon an exchange of prisoners; it only included the sick in the hospitals. Of course, every patient in the hospital was on the anxious bench and wondering whether he would be included among the fortunate ones. Some days afterward a cor
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   >>  



Top keywords:
patient
 

hospital

 

forehead

 
prisoners
 
bodies
 
trenches
 

removed

 

prison

 

brought

 

carried


included
 
hospitals
 

diseases

 

minutes

 

disease

 

However

 

contagious

 

separate

 

neighbor

 

healthy


meaning
 

developed

 

replied

 
placing
 

smallpox

 
occupied
 
exchange
 

Governments

 

agreed

 

anxious


afterward

 

fortunate

 
wondering
 
months
 

stretchers

 
uncoffined
 

trench

 

covered

 

buried

 

remarked


bending

 

reached

 
unconscious
 

Although

 
lifting
 
pulling
 

caught

 

burned

 
entrance
 

Rector