g, and in short every
conceivable and inconceivable noise.

After the first blast, utter stillness; the startled officers,
meanwhile, listening to discover the source of the unearthly noise,
then, as if Bedlam had broken loose, the concert began once more. It
was concentrated around the cabin of the surgeon so disliked. As the
quarters of the officers were somewhat removed from the hospital
proper, and very near my own, I got the full benefit of the noise. I
cannot now say why the racket was not put a stop to. Perhaps because
the serenaders numbered over one hundred and the surgeons despaired of
restoring order. At all events, during the whole night we were allowed
to sink into slumber, to be aroused again and again by the same
hideous burst of sound. I only remember that the next day the horns,
etc., were collected and carried away from camp, while the offenders
were refused permission to leave their quarters for a while.

In the sick camp there lay over two hundred sick and wounded men,
faithfully attended and prescribed for by the physicians, but lacking
every comfort. Dr. Beatty was worried about the sick, but under the
circumstances what could he do? Soon after occurred the terrible
battle of Franklin, when our tents were again filled with wounded men.
These men were unlike any I have ever nursed. Their shattered forms
sufficiently attested courage and devotion to duty, but the enthusiasm
and pride which had hitherto seemed to me so grand and noble when
lighting up the tortured faces of wounded soldiers, appearing like a
reflection of great glory, I now missed. It seemed as if they were yet
revengeful and unsatisfied; their countenances not yet relaxed from
the tension of the fierce struggle, their eyes yet gleaming with the
fires of battle. The tales they told made me shudder: Of men, maddened
by the horrible butchery going on around them, mounting the horrible
barricade (trampling out in many instances the little sparks of life
which might have been rekindled), only to add their own bodies to the
horrid pile, and to be trampled in their turn by comrades who sought
to avenge them; of soldiers on both sides, grappling hand to hand,
tearing open each other's wound, drenched with each other's blood,
_dying_ locked in a fierce embrace. It turns me sick even now when I
remember the terrible things I then heard, the awful wounds I then
saw. During the whole period of my service, I never had a harder task
than when str