Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/242



much for us to leave—so hard it was to go away from the little tent which had brooded over me with its white wings so lovingly and long, that I scarcely believed I was glad to go home, and yet, contradictory soul, I was glad beyond measure. Whoever has felt this, let him comprehend and explain if he can this strange complexity of feelings.

I passed a sleepless night, and then all was soon over in the morning, and I on my way to Washington, on board the Daniel Webster. When we arrived we found the transports which had taken up our sick and wounded, and thus again I saw some whom I had thought never more to meet on this earth.

It was still uncertain when we were to go home—a delay of weeks might intervene,—we must wait what seemed to us in our impatience the slow action of Government in giving us full discharge. No one had proclaimed yet that the war was over, yet we accepted it as past, and every one acted in accordance. I found one man in my rounds who had suffered an amputation of an arm, close to his shoulder, and in his sleep afterward had fallen from his narrow bed on to the bare, unhealed stump, and was in great