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
_June 23, Sundown._--As I sit writing this paragraph I see a train of
about thirty huge four-horse wagons, used as ambulances, fill'd with
wounded, passing up Fourteenth street, on their way, probably, to
Columbian, Carver, and Mount Pleasant hospitals. This is the way the men
come in now, seldom in small numbers, but almost always in these long,
sad processions. Through the past winter, while our army lay opposite
Fredericksburg, the like strings of ambulances were of frequent
occurrence along Seventh street, passing slowly up from the steamboat
wharf, with loads from Aquia creek.
BAD WOUNDS--THE YOUNG
The soldiers are nearly all young men, and far more American than is
generally supposed--I should say nine-tenths are native-born. Among
the arrivals from Chancellorsville I find a large proportion of Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois men. As usual, there are all sorts of wounds. Some
of the men fearfully burnt from the explosions of artillery caissons.
One ward has a long row of officers, some with ugly hurts. Yesterday was
perhaps worse than usual. Amputations are going on--the attendants are
dressing wounds. As you pass by, you must be on your guard where
you look. I saw the other day a gentlemen, a visitor apparently from
curiosity, in one of the wards, stop and turn a moment to look at an
awful wound they were probing. He turn'd pale, and in a moment more he
had fainted away and fallen to the floor.
THE MOST INSPIRITING OF ALL WAR'S SHOWS
_June 29._--Just before sundown this evening a very large cavalry force
went by--a fine sight. The men evidently had seen service. First came a
mounted band of sixteen bugles, drums and cymbals, playing wild martial
tunes--made my heart jump. Then the principal officers, then company
after company, with their officers at their heads, making of course the
main part of the cavalcade; then a long train of men with led horses,
lots of mounted negroes with special horses--and a long string of
baggage-wagons, each drawn by four horses--and then a motley rear guard.
It was a pronouncedly warlike and gay show; the sabres clank'd, the men
look'd young and healthy and strong; the electric tramping of so many
horses on the hard road, and the gallant bearing, fine seat, and bright
faced appearance of a thousand and more handsome young American men,
were so good to see. An hour later another troop went by, smaller in
numbers, perhaps three hundred men. They too look'd like serviceable
men, campaigners used to field and fight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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