Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/158

122 work. Major Dunn, Captains Gordon and Mont, were ill also, and the duties were arduous which devolved upon me, more because I had taken every man of that brave regiment into my heart as a brother, and wished to watch over them as such.

We had some cases of gangrene which proved fatal to all who were attacked. So suddenly, while we thought the wound was healing, the poison infused itself into the festering sore, and death came, a speedy release from the agony of pain.

So sad it made my heart as one after another dropped away, and others came in with bloody wounds, some from the beloved regiment, of whose welfare my whole being was so solicitous. The rebel lines seemed impregnable, and the dire casualties of such frequent occurrence, that I grew sick with apprehension, and wondered if the bloody carnage was to fill up the measure of our material existence.

Captain Knettles came in with his right eye shot out—a painful wound, and a brave man to endure the pain. Then came the terrible news of Sergeant Jerome Woodbury's death, killed August 19th, and there were many sad hearts in our regiment, for he had a host of friends to mourn his death. And Capt. Mitchel wounded also, of Co. K., his sister with him.

Well, I just began to think that Miss Mitchel will have a proposal soon, for there is a certain doctor from the Second Corps that visits my tent rather often, and I do not think he comes to see me; for it would be so funny if a shoulder-strap should take so much notice of Aunt Becky.