Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/122

88 a bountiful meal, consisting of coffee, crackers, and Bologna sausage—the first clean meal for five days, and again at ten o'clock we took up our line of march, on the same dusty road, twice travelled before. We found the boys busy putting up the hospital tents, and at two o'clock they came—the long ghastly train of wounded, five hundred strong.

Some were near death, and amongst them I found men from our own regiment. Passing along I was accosted by name, but failed to recognize the dirty, begrimed soldiers, with torn and bloody uniforms, who looked so beseechingly into my face for help. They made themselves known as Sergeants Havland and Avery, both wounded in the hand.

They were as hungry as wolves, and I procured soup from the Sanitary Commission, and fed them, then washed their faces, and dressed their wounds. I kept at such work till many a poor fellow was made as comfortable as they could be on the ground, for our beds had not arrived, and we must have time.

I found George Reed wounded in the foot, so low-spirited and nervous that no efforts could cheer him up; thinking constantly of home, and bearing the pain of his wound with the silence of despair. How my heart ached for him, and when I learned that he was dead, I thought how the black shadow of dissolution had clouded those June days in the hospital, and plunged his soul into the depths of its darkness.

Dr. Snow was relieved at this time, to go to his regiment, and Dr. Wheeler put in charge. We had kind and faithful nurses and doctors, who did all they