Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/84



sights never before haunted my waking vision. You, afar off from the scenes amidst which we worked through those May days, can have but little conception of the horrors which filled the hospitals of Fredericksburg.

You shudder when a child mutilates its tender fingers, and the wound is carefully cleansed and dressed; then what emotions would have thrilled through every nerve of your body could you have seen those shattered frames, with limbs wrenched from the trunk by exploding shells, with gaping fissures, through which the soul had nearly escaped. Oh! it was horrible, and still the long trains poured in their hundreds a day.

They bore their sufferings with heroic fortitude, closing their white lips to repress the groans which every breath brought up, and clenching their strong hands in the intensity of mortal pain.

At nine o'clock I was called to hard tack and coffee, feeling the need of it to strengthen me for the work in hand.

We had a patient who occupied a small bed-room alone, whose wound was through the lungs, and