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
_May 28-9_.--I staid to-night a long time by the bedside of a new
patient, a young Baltimorean, aged about 19 years, W. S. P., (2d
Maryland, southern,) very feeble, right leg amputated, can't sleep
hardly at all--has taken a great deal of morphine, which, as usual,
is costing more than it comes to. Evidently very intelligent and well
bred--very affectionate--held on to my hand, and put it by his face, not
willing to let me leave. As I was lingering, soothing him in his pain,
he says to me suddenly, "I hardly think you know who I am--I don't wish
to impose upon you--I am a rebel soldier." I said I did not know that,
but it made no difference. Visiting him daily for about two weeks after
that, while he lived, (death had mark'd him, and he was quite alone,) I
loved him much, always kiss'd him, and he did me. In an adjoining ward
I found his brother, an officer of rank, a Union soldier, a brave and
religious man, (Col. Clifton K. Prentiss, sixth Maryland infantry,
Sixth corps, wounded in one of the engagements at Petersburgh, April
2--linger'd, suffer'd much, died in Brooklyn, Aug. 20, '65). It was
in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong Unionist, the other
Secesh; both fought on their respective sides, both badly wounded, and
both brought together here after a separation of four years. Each died
for his cause.
SOME SAD CASES YET
_May 31_.--James H. Williams, aged 21, 3d Virginia cavalry.-About as
mark'd a case of a strong man brought low by a complication of diseases,
(laryngitis, fever, debility and diarrhoea,) as I have ever seen--has
superb physique, remains swarthy yet, and flushed and red with fever-is
altogether flighty--flesh of his great breast and arms tremulous, and
pulse pounding away with treble quickness--lies a good deal of the time
in a partial sleep, but with low muttering and groans--a sleep in which
there is no rest. Powerful as he is, and so young, he will not be able
to stand many more days of the strain and sapping heat of yesterday and
to-day. His throat is in a bad way, tongue and lips parch'd. When I ask
him how he feels, he is able just to articulate, "I feel pretty bad
yet, old man," and looks at me with his great bright eyes. Father, John
Williams, Millensport, Ohio.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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