I went to the room where the men lay smoking on the blankets; but one of them wearing a surgeon's shoulderstraps, and speaking in a German accent, claimed them as his private property, and positively refused to yield one. The other man was his orderly, and words were useless--they kept their blankets. Going into a room behind that, I found a man slightly wounded sitting on the floor, supporting another who had been shot across the face, and was totally blind. He called, and when I came and talked with them, said: "Won't you stay with us?" "Stay with you?" I replied, "Well, I rather think I will, indeed; I came to stay, and am one of the folks it is hard to drive away!" "Oh! thank God; everybody leaves us; they come and promise, and then go off, but I know you will stay; you will do something for us!" It was so pitiful, that for an instant my courage failed, and I said: "I will certainly stay with you; but fear it is little I can do for you." "Oh, you can speak to us; you do not know how good your voice sounds. I have not seen a woman in three months; what is your name?" "My name is mother." "Mother; oh my God! I have not seen my mother for two years. Let me feel your hand?" I took between both of mine his hand, covered with mud and blood and smoke of battle, and told him I was not only going to stay with them, but was going to send him back to his regiment, with a lot more who were lying around here doing nothing, when there was so much fighting to be done; I had come on purpose to make them well, and they might make up their minds to it. My own courage had revived, and I must revive theirs; I could surely keep them alive until help should come. By softening the torturing bandages on his face, I made him more comfortable; and in an adjoining room found another man with a thigh stump, who had been served by field-surgeons, as the thieves served the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho: i.e., "stripped him, left him naked and half dead." Those men surely did not go into battle without clothes; and why they should have been sent out of the surgeon's hands without enough of even underclothing to cover them, is the question I have never yet had answered. Common decency led to his being placed in the back room alone, but I shall never blush for going to him and doing the little I could for his comfort. After I returned to the large room, I took notice about clothing, and found that most of the men had on their ordinary uniform; some had two blankets, more had one; but full one-third were without any. There was no shadow or pretense of a bed or pillow, not even a handful of straw or hay! There was no broom, no hoe, or shovel, or spade to sweep or scrape the floor; and the horrors were falling upon me when the man of the blankets came, and said: "Mattam, iv you are goin' to do any ding for tese men, you petter git dem someding to eat." "Something to eat?"