Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/186



1em just come in from a visit to the poor wounded men. O how they suffer, yet few groans or cries issue from their lips, as they endure amputation, and dressing of wounds—only the close shutting of the mouth, and the contortion of a muscle, shows how keen is the pain which brings the beaded sweat to their foreheads.

Oftimes the amputated limb seems to lie distorted in the great festering heap, and they beg that it may be laid straight. Strange this sympathy which the member gone seems to have with the frame-work left. How many have told me that fingers or toes were cramped, and even thought if the limb which was gone could be placed aright in the grave, with its mutilated companions, the uneasy feeling would vanish at once.

It is very muddy, and the wind blows a perfect gale, and although the sun shines overhead, I feel a gloom like night stealing over me. I hear the groans of the wounded, and the sound fires me with ten thousand feelings which I cannot express—so many perish, and the end still in the far distance.