The hospital continued crowded, and we occupied the room with the
officers several weeks. They were Captain Hensler, of Peoria. Ill.;
Captain Armstrong, Lieut. Watt and several others whose names I can not
recall. My mother cooked by a large, open fireplace, and shared all she
had with these sick men. There was plenty of raw material, but it was so
poorly prepared by the negroes about the place that the men could not
eat it with any relish. A colored woman, who had been a slave, brought
provisions to our room each morning, and her one theme was, “It’s mighty
good.” Captain Hensler convalesced rapidly, and with tears in his eyes,
he told my mother he owed it all to the nourishing food she prepared for
him.
Lieut. Watt and I became great chums. While in this room I wrote a
letter to my teacher at home, which he addressed for me, and upon
learning that the teacher was a young lady, he laughingly asked me if I
thought there would be any chance for him. This letter was read to the
school, and for a few days I was quite famous in my native town.
My baby sister and I soon became great favorites in camp and hospital.
On the night of our arrival the baby cried, and the word went around
from room to room: “There’s a baby in the house. Where did it come from?
Bring it in.” And in due time she was taken into the rooms where there
were no contagious diseases. The men were much cheered by her presence,
and one of the doctors said it was “quite a treat to hear a baby cry.”
Dr. Robins, the surgeon in charge of our ward, would carry her about the
room at each visit he made, sometimes taking her down stairs into the
hall and out into the grounds about the building, I following wherever
he went. The doctor called her his “little rosebud.” One day she
scratched his face until the blood came, and he bore the marks several
days. I can see him now, a slight, fair-haired young fellow, and,
strange as it may seem, after the lapse of all these years, I can hear
the very sound of his voice, as, upon entering the room, he would throw
back his head and laughingly call out “Where is my Little Rosebud?” He
told us of the friends he left at home, but alas! for them, he died the
following summer of smallpox, in Memphis, Tennessee.
IN CAMP
OVER the roadway leading from hospital to camp, I have doubtless
traveled many miles. The large space was thickly dotted with white
tents, temporary homes of the brave defenders of our country. Here I
became familiar with martial music. I returned with “taps” and arose
with “revielle,” and to this day the sound of fife and drum stirs every
drop of patriotic blood in my veins and takes me back to the days of
camp life at Corinth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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