The Autobiography of a Quack, and The Case of George DedlowMitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
General
The Autobiography of a Quack, and The Case of George Dedlow
Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
I need not describe the operation. The pain felt was severe, but it was
insignificant as compared with that of any other minute of the past
six weeks. The limb was removed very near to the shoulder-joint. As the
second incision was made, I felt a strange flash of pain play through
the limb, as if it were in every minutest fibril of nerve. This was
followed by instant, unspeakable relief, and before the flaps were
brought together I was sound asleep. I dimly remember saying, as I
pointed to the arm which lay on the floor: “There is the pain, and here
am I. How queer!” Then I slept--slept the sleep of the just, or, better,
of the painless. From this time forward I was free from neuralgia. At a
subsequent period I saw a number of cases similar to mine in a hospital
in Philadelphia.
It is no part of my plan to detail my weary months of monotonous prison
life in the South. In the early part of April, 1863, I was exchanged,
and after the usual thirty days’ furlough returned to my regiment a
captain.
On the 19th of September, 1863, occurred the battle of Chickamauga, in
which my regiment took a conspicuous part. The close of our own share
in this contest is, as it were, burned into my memory with every least
detail. It was about 6 P. M., when we found ourselves in line, under
cover of a long, thin row of scrubby trees, beyond which lay a gentle
slope, from which, again, rose a hill rather more abrupt, and crowned
with an earthwork. We received orders to cross this space and take the
fort in front, while a brigade on our right was to make a like movement
on its flank.
Just before we emerged into the open ground, we noticed what, I think,
was common in many fights--that the enemy had begun to bowl round shot
at us, probably from failure of shell. We passed across the valley in
good order, although the men fell rapidly all along the line. As we
climbed the hill, our pace slackened, and the fire grew heavier. At
this moment a battery opened on our left, the shots crossing our heads
obliquely. It is this moment which is so printed on my recollection.
I can see now, as if through a window, the gray smoke, lit with red
flashes, the long, wavering line, the sky blue above, the trodden
furrows, blotted with blue blouses. Then it was as if the window closed,
and I knew and saw no more. No other scene in my life is thus scarred,
if I may say so, into my memory. I have a fancy that the horrible shock
which suddenly fell upon me must have had something to do with thus
intensifying the momentary image then before my eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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