Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyaltyDe Forest, John William
History
Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty
De Forest, John William
Historical fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; War stories; Women -- United States -- Fiction
A quarter of a mile further on they found a second surgeon similarly
occupied, from whom Van Zandt obtained another deep draught of his
favorite medicament, rejecting chloroform with profane politeness.
Colburne refused both, and asked for water, but could obtain none. Deep
in the profound and solemn woods, a full mile and a half from the
fighting line, they came to the field hospital of the division. It was
simply an immense collection of wounded men in every imaginable
condition of mutilation, every one stained more or less with his own
blood, every one of a ghastly yellowish pallor, all lying in the open
air on the bare ground, or on their own blankets, with no shelter except
the friendly foliage of the oaks and beeches. In the centre of this mass
of suffering stood several operating tables, each burdened by a
grievously wounded man and surrounded by surgeons and their assistants.
Underneath were great pools of clotted blood, amidst which lay amputated
fingers, hands, arms, feet and legs, only a little more ghastly in color
than the faces of those who waited their turn on the table. The
surgeons, who never ceased their awful labor, were daubed with blood to
the elbows; and a smell of blood drenched the stifling air, overpowering
even the pungent odor of chloroform. The place resounded with groans,
notwithstanding that most of the injured men who retained their senses
exhibited the heroic endurance so common on the battle-field. One man,
whose leg was amputated close to his body, uttered an inarticulate
jabber of broken screams, and rolled, or rather bounced from side to
side of a pile of loose cotton, with such violence that two hospital
attendants were fully occupied in holding him. Another, shot through the
body, lay speechless and dying, but quivering from head to foot with a
prolonged though probably unconscious agony. He continued to shudder
thus for half an hour, when he gave one superhuman throe, and then lay
quiet for ever. An Irishman, a gunner of a regular battery, showed
astonishing vitality, and a fortitude bordering on callousness. His
right leg had been knocked off above the knee by a round shot, the stump
being so deadened and seared by the shock that the mere bleeding was too
slight to be mortal. He lay on his left side, and was trying to get his
left hand into his trousers-pocket. With great difficulty and grinning
with pain, he brought forth a short clay pipe, blackened by previous
smoking, and a pinch of chopped plug tobacco. Having filled the pipe
carefully and deliberately, he beckoned a negro to bring him a coal of
fire, lighted, and commenced puffing with an air of tranquillity which
resembled comfort. Yet he was probably mortally wounded; human nature
could hardly survive such a hurt in such a season; nearly all the leg
amputations at Port Hudson proved fatal. The men whose business it is to
pick up the wounded--the musicians and quartermaster's people--were
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