318

SLEEPING THE SLEEP OF DEATH.

to send him a nurse in less than an hour, and to ac company him home to Wisconsin myself on Monday. But he begged so wildly that I would return myself and stay with him, that I consented, after I had informed my family of my return to the city. He followed me to the door with his beseeching eyes, saying, "I hate to have you go, for it seems as if I should not see you again." I assured him that I would not be absent above two hours at the furthest, and, as he wished no one to remain in the room with him, I left the door ajar, getting the promise of the chambermaid to look in upon him occasionally.

In less than two hours I was back at his bedside. "He has been sleeping quietly ever since you left," said the servant. There he lay as I had left him, with one hand under his head, his face turned towards the door, that he might see any one who entered the room. Sleeping? Yes - the sleep of death.

Mothers will not think me weak when I confess that I closed the door and locked it, and then wept long and bitterly over the dead boy - not for him, but for the mother whose youngest child he was. He had so longed for his mother, this boyish, twentyyear-old soldier! Again and again had he said to me: "I don't expect to get well-I know I must die; but if I can only see my mother once more I shall be willing to die."

On Monday she came for his coffined body. As she bent over him and wrestled with her mighty grief, she seemed to find comfort in the oft-uttered thought, that " he had given his life for his country."

66

CHAPTER XV.

I AM INSTALLED HEAD COOK IN A FIELD HOSPITAL-CHEERING UP THE "BOYS"-CAPRICIOUS APPETITES-MY RIDE WITH BLACK SOCRATES-VICKSBURG.

Large Field Hospital at Young's Point - Am put in Charge - Cater to the capricious Appetites-"Tea and Toast" for a forty-five-year-old "Boy" -"Tea! tea! tea! from the homespun Teapot "- Lemonade under Difficulties - Men transferred to Hospital Steamer City of Memphis -Visit to the Thirteenth Illinois-"Socrates" and his Six-Mule Team-"Mules is dat mean dey has ter be licked!"-Accomplishments of the Thirteenth Illinois-"The stealing Regiment" — Accompany the Engineer Corps down the Levee-Peep into Vicksburg with a powerful Glass-No sign of Home-Life-Rams Lancaster and Switzerland run the Blockade - One destroyed, the other disabled.

OST of the hospitals at Young's Point were regimental. There was one large field hospital, made by pitching tents lengthwise, one beside the other, and one opening into

the other, but it was a comfortless place. In this field hospital were one hundred and fifty or two hundred men, all sick with diseases that had assumed a chronic form, the surgeon said. A hospital steamer, the City of Memphis, was daily expected at the Point, when this hospital was to be broken up, and the patients removed to St. Louis. I received permission to do anything I pleased for them within certain specified limits; and the head surgeon seemed

320

INCONVENIENCES FOR COOKING.

much gratified that I manifested an interest in his men. He evidently lacked force and vital sympathy with his patients. He was a man of routine, a man of prescriptions; but he was kind-hearted. He indicated what patients might have toast, tea, and softboiled eggs; who could be treated to " egg nog," who to lemonade; who might have soup, and who only gruel; and he plainly marked on the diet-book, for my assistance, the food for each. There was nothing for any of the patients in the hospital but army rations.

"Moreover," said the surgeon, "if you really wish to arrange special diet for these men yourself, I will put at your service the most efficient colored help we have, and our conveniences for cooking." Conveniences! The good man must certainly have meant inconveniences; for there was no kitchen, no stove, no cooking apparatus, nothing except two or three immense portable soup-kettles, or boilers, with a little furnace and pipe attached. The cooking was performed in the open air, where rain, smoke, and ashes saturated both the cook and the food. The colored men speedily made a huge fire of cottonwood logs sufficient to roast an ox; and, having seen water put into the boilers to heat, I went into the hospital to investigate the appetites of the men.

It was a miserable place, although, at that time, and in that locality, the best probably that could be done. The cots were placed inside the tents, on the unplanked ground. The soil was so dropsical that wherever one trod, it sank under one's weight, and one immediately stood in a little pool of water. The legs of the cots stood on small square pieces of board, which alone kept them from sinking into the moist

THE MEN HAD LOST HEART AND HOPE. 321

earth. The weather was warm as July in our climate, although it was April, and the atmosphere was dense with gnats, small flies, and every other variety of winged insect. The hospital swarmed with large green flies, and their buzzing was like that of a beehive. The men were hushed to the stillness of death. They had been sick a long while, and had utterly lost heart and hope. Many of them did not even lift their hands to brush away the flies that swarmed into eyes, ears, noses, and mouths.

I walked through the oozy, muddy aisle to the end of the connected tents; but not even the rare sight of a woman among them induced a man to speak, few even to turn their heads. I wanted to break this apathy, to see a little life kindled in these disheartened fellows. I saw that I must create a little sensation among them. So, taking a stand in the centre of the tents, I called to them in a cheerful, hearty tone, "Boys! do you know you are to be got ready to go North in a day or two?" This brought up a few heads, and caused a little additional buzzing from the flies, which were brushed away that the men might hear better. "This hospital is to be broken up by day after to-morrow," I continued, "and you are to go to St. Louis, and perhaps to the Chicago hospitals. The City of Memphis is on its way down here for you. By next Saturday at this time you will be almost home. Isn't this tiptop news?"

I had roused them now. There was a general waking up at the sound of the words "almost home." They had lost mental stamina in their protracted illness, and needed the tonic of a great hope, or the influence of a stronger mind exerted upon them. After the first shock of surprise was over,

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CATERING TO CAPRICIOUS APPETITES.

the men gathered their wits, and precipitated questions upon me, in a slow, sick, drawling, semi-articulate fashion, a dozen speaking at a time: "Where'd from?" "Who

you

come

so?"

told

you

"What-you-down-here- for?" I had

aroused their curiosity, and I hastened to answer their questions as they had asked them—all at once. I had gained an advantage, and hastened to follow

it up.

"Now, boys, I expect to stay here till this hospital is broken up; and if you would like to have me, I am going to stay here with you. I have lots of good things for you. The folks at home have sent me down here, and have given me everything that you need; eggs, tea, crackers, white sugar, condensed milk, lemons, ale, everything—and your surgeon wants you to have them. He has told me what each one of you can have. Now, my boy," turning to the man nearest me, "if you could have just what you wanted, what would you ask for?" He was a married man, as old as myself, but at that time, in his miserable weakness and discouragement, a mere puling, weeping baby.

It was an effort for him to think or decide; but finally he settled on a slice of toast, a poached egg, and tea. I brought out my spirit lamp, bottle of alcohol, and teapot, and made the tea before his eyes, sweetening it with loaf sugar, and adding condensed milk. One of the negro assistants toasted the bread by the roaring, crackling fire outside, burning up half a dozen slices by way of preliminaries, and looking, when she brought the crispy cinders to me, with her characteristic "It's done done, missis!" as if she had strewn ashes on her head for her ill-luck.