United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
I had had my own wounds washed and cared for. They were numerous enough
and painful--an ugly slash in the side, a broken rib, the crease of a
bullet across the temple, and a shoulder crushed by a terrific blow,
together with minor bruises from head to heels--and yet none to be
considered serious. They had carried me up the shattered stairs to her
room, and I lay there bolstered up by soft pillows, and between clean
sheets, my eyes, feverish and wide-awake, seeking out the many little
things belonging to her scattered about, ever reminded of what had
occurred, and why I was there, by my own ragged, stained uniform left
lying upon a chair. I could look far away out of the northern window
from where I rested, could see the black specks of moving columns of
troops beyond the orchard, the vista extending as far as the log church,
including a glimpse of the white pike. The faint odor of near-by
camp-fires reached my nostrils, and the murmur of voices was wafted to
me on the slight breeze. Some lad was singing not far away, although the
words could not be distinguished, and from the farther distance sounded
clearly a cavalry bugle. I could hardly realize, hardly comprehend what
it all meant. It hurt me to move, and the fever made me half delirious.
I fingered the soft, white sheets almost with awe, and the pillows
seemed hot and smothering. Every apartment in the house held its quota
of wounded, and down below the busy surgeons had transformed the parlor
into an operating room. In spite of my closed door I could overhear
occasionally a cry of pain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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