Memories

CHAPTER IV.

Some of the poor fellows who were wounded at the battle of Murfreesboro' now began to suffer from gangrene. Tents were pitched outside the hospital for such cases, and it was often my fate to stand beside these sufferers while the surgeon removed unhealthy granulation with instruments or eating acids, or in other ways tortured the poor fellows to save life.

CHAPTER IV.

The establishment of an officers' ward added to my cares. As in most cases they were waited upon by their own servants, I could do a great deal by proxy. If any were very ill, however, as often was the case, I attended them myself. Among those whom I nursed in Ringgold was Captain E. John Ellis, of Louisiana. If I am not mistaken, he had been slightly wounded at the battle of Murfreesboro'. At any rate, he was for a time very ill of pneumonia, and received all his nourishment from my hand. Often since the war, as I have seen him standing with majestic mien and face aglow with grand and lofty thoughts, or have listened spellbound to the thrilling utterances of "the silver-tongued orator," memory, bidding me follow, has led me back to a lowly room where, bending over a couch of pain, I saw the same lips, fevered and wan, open feebly to receive a few spoonfuls of nourishment. "Aye! and that tongue of his which now bids nation mark him and write his speeches in their books" cried faintly, "Give me some drink."

CHAPTER IV.

I have said that Charlie Gazzan was a special patient and friend; perhaps the expression needs explanation. A few weeks before, he had been brought to me one night from the ambulance-train, a living skeleton, and seemingly at the point of death from dysentery. His family and that of my husband were residents of Mobile, Alabama, and intimate friends. He seemed almost in the agony of death, but had asked to be brought to me. There was not, after the battle of Murfreesboro', a single vacant bed. He begged hard not to be put in a crowded ward, so, until I could do better, he was placed upon the lounge in my office. One small room in the officers' ward being vacant, I asked and obtained next day the privilege of placing him there. He recovered very slowly, but surely, and during his convalescence made himself useful in a hundred ways. My sick boys owed many a comfort to his wonderful powers of invention; even the surgeons availed themselves of his skill. He often relieved me of a task I had sometimes found very wearisome, because so constantly recurring,--that of writing letters for the sick. He made his own pens and his own ink, of a deep green color, and seemingly indelible. A more gentle, kindly, generous nature never existed, and yet his soldierly instincts were strong, and almost before he could walk about well he "reported for duty," but was soon relegated to his room and to special diet.

CHAPTER IX.

"December 6. Fenner's Battery was ordered to join General Forrest's command at Murfreesboro'; participated in the battle of Murfreesboro' on the 8th, and was still with Forrest when the battles of Nashville were fought, on the 15th and 16th, and the great retreat commenced.

CHAPTER VI.

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 striving to pour oil upon these troubled waters, to soothe and reconcile these men who talked incessantly of "sacrifice" and useless butchery. This was particularly the case with General Clebourne's men, who so loved their gallant leader that, at his death, revenge had almost replaced patriotism in their hearts.

CHAPTER VI.

While yielding to none in my appreciation of the gallant General Hood, there is one page in his book which always arouses my indignation and which I can never reconcile with what I know of the history of the Army of Tennessee, from the time General Hood took command to the surrender. Truly, they were far from being like "dumb driven cattle," for _every man_ was "_a hero_ in the strife." It seems to me that the memory of the battle of Franklin alone should have returned to General Hood to "give him pause" before he gave to the public the page referred to:

CHAPTER VI.

But these struggles and hardships were nothing in comparison to what was now to befall us. The constant fighting and daily-increasing number of wounded at the front required the presence of experienced surgeons. After the battle of Franklin some of ours were sent up. In one or two instances those who replaced them were young and inexperienced. They were permitted to attend the convalescents and light cases. One morning, I was aroused very early by a nurse who begged me to go to one of the convalescents who had been calling for me all night.

CHAPTER VII.

He was, as I afterwards learned, killed at the battle of Franklin. I thought almost with pleasure of the happy reunion which I felt sure must have followed.