Complete Prose Works: Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My FancyWhitman, Walt
History
Complete Prose Works: Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy
Whitman, Walt
American literature
FALMOUTH, VA., _opposite Fredericksburgh, December 21, 1862_.--Begin my
visits among the camp hospitals in the army of the Potomac. Spend a
good part of the day in a large brick mansion on the banks of the
Rappahannock, used as a hospital since the battle--seems to have
receiv'd only the worst cases. Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within
ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated feet,
legs, arms, hands, &c., a full load for a one-horse cart. Several dead
bodies lie near, each cover'd with its brown woolen blanket. In the
door-yard, towards the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers,
their names on pieces of arrel-staves or broken boards, stuck in the
dirt. (Most of these bodies were subsequently taken up and transported
north to their friends.) The large mansion is quite crowded upstairs
and down, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have
no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some
frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody. Some of
the wounded are rebel soldiers and officers, prisoners. One, a
Mississippian, a captain, hit badly in leg, I talk'd with some time; he
ask'd me for papers, which I gave him. (I saw him three months afterward
in Washington, with his leg amputated, doing well.) I went through the
rooms, downstairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to
give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, &c.
Also talk'd to three or four, who seem'd most susceptible to it, and
needing it.
AFTER FIRST FREDERICKSBURG
_December 23 to 31_.--The results of the late battle are exhibited
everywhere about here in thousands of cases, (hundreds die every day,)
in the camp, brigade, and division hospitals. These are merely tents,
and sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if
their blankets are spread on layers of pine or hemlock twigs, or small
leaves. No cots; seldom even a mattress. It is pretty cold. The ground
is frozen hard, and there is occasional snow. I go around from one case
to another. I do not see that I do much good to these wounded and dying;
but I cannot leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me
convulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate, stop with him
and sit near him for hours, if he wishes it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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