My Experience as a Sick Man--Jim Thinks I Have Yellow Fever--
What I Suffered--A Rebel Angel--I am Sent to the Hospital.
Up to this time I had never been sick a day in my life, that is, sick
enough to ache and groan and grunt, and lay in bed. At home I had
occasionally had a cold, and I was put to bed at night, after drinking a
quart of ginger tea, and covered up with blankets in a warm room, and I
was fussed over by loving hands until I got to sleep, and in the morning
I would wake up as fresh as a daisy, with my cold all gone. Once or
twice at home I had a bilious attack that lasted me almost twenty-four
hours; but the old family doctor fired blue pills down me, and I came
under the wire an easy winner. I did have the mumps and the measles, of
course before enlisting, but the loving care I was given brought me
out all right, and I looked upon those little sicknesses as a sort of
luxury. The people at home would do everything to make sick experiences
far from bitter memories. It was getting along towards Christmas of my
first year in the army, and though it was the Sunny South we were in, I
noticed that it was pretty all-fired cold. The night rides were full
of fog and malaria; and one morning I came in from an all-night ride
through the woods and swamps, feeling pretty blue. The mud around my
tent was frozen, and there was a little snow around in spots. As I laid
down in my bunk to take a snooze before breakfast, I noticed how awfully
thin an army blanket was. It was good enough for summer, but when winter
came the blanket seemed to have lost its cunning. I was again doing duty
as a private soldier, having learned that my promotion to the position
of corporal was only temporary. I had been what is called a “lance
corpora,” or a brevet corporal. It seemed hard, after tasting of the
sweets of official position, to be returned to the ranks, but I had to
take the bitter with the sweet, and a soldier must not kick. I had never
laid down to sleep before without dropping off into the land of dreams
right away, but now, though I was tired enough, my eyes were wide open
and I felt strange. At times I would be so hot that I would throw the
blanket off, and then I would be so cold that it seemed as though I
would freeze. I had taken a severe cold which had settled everywhere,
and there was not a bone in my body but what ached; my lungs seemed of
no use; I could not take a long breath without a hacking cough, and
I felt as though I should die. It was then that I thought of the warm
little room at home and the ginger tea, and the soaking of my feet in
mustard water and wrapping my body in a soft flannel blanket, and the
kindly faces of my parents, my sister, my wife--everybody that had been
kind to me. I would close my eyes and imagine I could see them all,
and open my eyes and see my cold little tent and shiver as I thought of
being sick away from home. I laid for an hour wishing I was home again;
and while alone there I made up my mind I would write home and warn all
the boys I knew against enlisting. The thought that I should die there
alone was too much, and I was about to yell for help when my tent mate,
who had been on a scout, came in. He was a big green Yankee, who had a
heart in him as big as a water pail, but he wasn't much, of a nurse.
He came in nearly frozen, threw his saddle down in a corner, took out a
hard tack and began to chew it, occasionally taking a drink of water out
of a canteen. That was his breakfast.
“Well, I've got just about enough of war,” said he, as he picked his
teeth with a splinter off his bunk, and filled his pipe and lit it.
“They can't wind up this business any too soon to suit the old man. War
in the summer is a picnic, but in winter it is wearin on the soldier.”
Heretofore I had enjoyed tobacco smoke very much, both from my own pipe
and Jim's, but when he blew out the first whiff of smoke it went to
my head and stomach and all up and down me, and I yelled, in a hoarse,
pneumonia sort of voice:
“Jim, for God's sake don't smoke. I am at death's door, and I don't want
to smell of tobacco smoke when St. Peter opens the gate.”
“What, pard, you ain't sick,” said Jim, putting his pipe outside of the
tent, and coming to me and putting his great big hand on my forehead, as
tender as a woman.
“Great heavens! you have got the yellow fever. You won't live an hour.”
That was where Jim failed as a nurse. He made things out worse than they
were. He, poor old fellow, thought it was sympathy, and if I had let
him go on he would have had me dead before night. I told him I was all
right. All I had was a severe cold, on my lungs, and pneumonia, and
rheumatism, and chills and fever, and a few such things, but I would be
all right in a day or two. I wanted to encourage Jim to think I was not
very bad off, but he wouldn't have it. He insisted that I had typhoid
fever, and glanders, and cholera. He went right out of the tent and
called in the first man he met, who proved to be the horse doctor. The
horse doctor was a friend of mine, and a mighty good fellow, but I had
never meditated having him called in to doctor me. However, he felt
of my fore leg, looked at my eyes, rubbed the hair the wrong way on my
head, and told Jim to bleed me in the mouth, and blanket me, and give
me a bran mash, and rub some mustang liniment on my chest and back.
I didn't want to hurt the horse doctor's feelings by going back on his
directions, but I told him I only wanted to soak my feet in mustard
water, and take some ginger tea. He said all right, if I knew more
about it than he did, and that he said he would skirmish around for some
ginger, while Jim raised the mustard, and they both went out and left me
alone. It seemed an age before anybody come, and I thought of home all
the time, and of the folks who would know just what to do if I was
there. Pretty soon Jim came in with a camp kettle half full of hot
water, and a bottle of French mixed mustard which he had bought of the
sutler. I told him I wanted plain ground mustard, but he said there
wasn't any to be found, and French mustard was the best he could do. We
tried to dissolve it in the water, but it wouldn't work, and finally Jim
suggested that he take a mustard spoon and plaster the French mustard
all over my feet, and then put them to soak that way. He said that
prepared mustard was the finest kind for pigs feet and sausage, and he
didn't know why it was not all right to soak feet in. So he plastered
it on and I proceeded to soak my feet. I presume it was the most
unsuccessful case of soaking feet on record. The old camp kettle was
greasy, and when the hot water and French mustard began to get in their
work on the kettle, the odor was sickening, and I do not think I was
improved at all in my condition. I told Jim I guessed I would lay down
and wait for the ginger tea. Pretty soon the horse doctor came in with a
tin cup full of hot ginger tea. I took one swallow of it and I thought I
had swallowed a blacksmith's forge, with a coal fire in it. I gasped and
tried to yell murder. The horse doctor explained that he couldn't get
any ginger, so he had taken cayenne pepper, which, he added, could knock
the socks off of ginger any day in the week. I felt like murdering the
horse doctor, and I felt a little hard at Jim for playing French mustard
on me, but when I come to reflect, I could see that they had done the
best they could, and I thanked them, and told them to leave me alone
and I would go to sleep. They went out of the tent and I could hear them
speculating on my case. Jim said he knew I had diabetis, and lung fever
combined, with sciatic rheumatism, and brain fever, and if I lived
till morning the horse doctor could take it out of his wages. The horse
doctor admitted that my case had a hopeless look, but he once had a
patient, a bay horse, sixteen hands high, and as fine a saddle horse
as a man ever threw a leg over, that was troubled exactly the same as
I was. He blistered his chest, gave him a table-spoonful of condition
powders three times a day in a bran mash, took off his shoes and turned
him out to grass, and in a week he sold him for two hundred and fifty
dollar. I laid there and tried to go to sleep listening to that talk.
Then, some of the boys who had heard that I was sick, came along and
inquired how I was, and I listened to the remarks they made. One of them
wanted to go and get some burdock leaves, and pound them into a pulp,
and bind them on me for a poultice. He said he had an aunt in Wisconsin
who had a milk sickness, and her left leg swelled up as big as a post,
and the doctors tried everything, and charged her over two hundred
dollars, and never did her any good, and one day an Indian doctor came
along and picked some burdock leaves and fixed a poultice for her,
and in a week she went to a hop-picker's dance, and was as kitteny as
anybody, and the Indian doctor only charged her a quarter. Jim was for
going out for burdock leaves at once, for me, but the horse doctor told
him I didn't have no milk sickness. He said all the milk soldiers got
was condensed milk, and mighty little of that, and he would defy the
world to show that a man could get milk sickness on condensed milk. That
seemed to settle the burdock remedy, and they went to inquiring of Jim
if he knew where my folks lived, so he could notify them, in case I was
not there in the morning. Jim couldn't remember whether it was Atchison,
Kan., or Fort Atkinson, Wis., but he said he would go and ask me, while
I was alive, so there would be no mistake, and the poor fellow, meaning
as well as any man ever did, came in and asked for the address of my
father, saying it was of no account, particularly, only he wanted to
know. I gave him the address, and then he asked me if he shouldn't get
me something to eat. I told him I couldn't eat anything to save me.
He offered to fry me some bacon, and make me a cup of coffee, but the
thought of bacon and coffee made me wild. I told him if he could make
me a nice cup of green tea, and some milk toast, or poach me an egg and
place it on a piece of nice buttered toast, and give me a little currant
jelly, I thought I could swallow a mouthful. Jim's eyes stuck out when
I gave my order, which I had done while thinking of home, and a tear
rolled down his cheek, and he went out of the tent, saying, “All right,
pard.” I saw him tap his forehead with his finger, point his thumb
toward the tent, and say to the boys outside:
“He's got 'em! Head all wrong! Wants me to make him milk toast, poached
eggs, green tea, and currant jelly. And I offered him _bacon_. Sow belly
for a sick man! There isn't a loaf of bread in camp. Not an egg within
five miles. And milk! currant jelly! Why, he might as well ask for
Delmonico's bill of fare, but we have got to get 'em. I told him he
should have em, and, by mighty! he shall. Here, Mr. Horse-doctor, you
stay and watch him, and I and Company D here will saddle up and go out
on the road to a plantation, and raid it for delicacies.
“You bet your life,” says the Company “D” man, and pretty soon I heard a
couple of saddles thrown on two horses, and then there was a clatter of
horses feet on the frozen ground. I have thought of it since a good many
times, and have concluded that I must have dropped asleep. Any way, it
didn't seem more than five minutes before the tent nap opened and Jim
came in.
“Come, straighten out here, now, you red-headed corpse, and try that
toast,” said he, as he came in with a piece of hard-tack box for a tray,
and on it was a nice china plate, and a cup and saucer, an egg on toast,
and a little pitcher of milk, and some jelly.
“Jim,” I said, tasting of the tea, which was not much like army tea,
“you never made this tea. A woman made that tea, or I'm a goat. And that
toast was toasted by a woman, and that egg was poached by a woman. Where
am I?” I asked, imagining that I was home again.
“You guessed it the first time, pard,” said Jim, as he threw the blanket
over my shoulders, as I sat up on the bunk to try and eat. “The whole
thing was done by the rebel angel.”
“Rebel angel, Jim; what are you talking about? There ain't any rebel
angels,” and I became weak and laid down again.
“Yes, there is a rebel angel, and she is a dandy,” said Jim, as he
covered me up. “She is out by the fire making milk toast for you. You
see, I went out to the Brown plantation, to try and steal an egg, and
some bread, and milk, but I thought, on the way out, as it was a case
of life and death, the stealing of it might rest heavy on your soul when
you come to pass in your chips, so I concluded to go to the house and
ask for it. There was a young woman there, and I told her the red-headed
corporal that captured the female smuggler, was dying, and couldn't eat
any hard-tack and bacon, and I wanted to fill him up on white folks food
before he died, so he could go to heaven or elsewhere, as the case might
be, on a full stomach, and she flew around like a kernel of pop-corn
on a hot griddle, and picked up a basket of stuff, and had the nigger
saddle a mule for her, and she came right to the camp with me, and said
she would attend to everything. She's a thoroughbred, and don't you make
no mistake about it.”
I must have gone to sleep when Jim was talking about the girl, for I
dreamed that there was a million angels in rebel uniforms, poaching eggs
for me. Pretty soon I heard a rustle of female clothes, and a soft, cool
hand was placed on my forehead, my hair was brushed back, a perfumed
handkerchief wiped the cold perspiration from my face, and I heard the
rebel angel ask Jim what the doctor said about me. Jim told her what the
horse doctor had said about curing a horse that had been sick the
same as I was, and then she asked if we had not sent for the regular
doc-doctor. Jim said we had not thought of that. She asked what had been
done for me, and Jim told her about the French mustard episode, and the
cayenne pepper tea. I thought she laughed, but it had become dark in
the tent, and I couldn't see her face, but she told Jim to go after the
regimental surgeon at once, and Jim went out. The angel asked me how I
felt, and I told her I was all right, but she said I was all wrong. I
thanked her for the trouble she had taken to come so far, and she said
not to mention it. She said she had a brother who was a prisoner at
the-North, and if somebody would only be kind to him if he was sick,
she would be well repaid. She said the last she heard of him he was a
prisoner of war at Madison, Wis., and she wondered what kind of people
lived there, away off on the frontier, and if they could be kind to
their enemies. That touched me where I lived, and I raised up on my
elbow, and said:
“Why bless your heart, Miss, if your brother is a prisoner in old Camp
Randlll, in Madison, he has got a pic nic. That town was my home before
I came down here on this fool job. The people there are the finest in
the world. All of them, from old Grovernor Lewis, to the poorest man in
town, would set up nights with a sick person, whether he was a rebel or
not. Your brother couldn't be better fixed if he was at home. The idea
of a man suffering for food, clothing, or human sympathy in Madison,
would be ridiculous. There is not a family in that town,” I said,
becoming excited from the feeling that any one doubted the humanity of
the people of Wisconsin, “but would divide their breakfast, and their
clothes, and their money, with your brother, egad, I wish I was there
myself. I will be responsible for your brother, Miss.”
She told me to lay down and be quiet, and not talk any more, as I was
becoming wild. She said she was glad to know what kind of people lived
there, as she had supposed it was a wilderness. In a few minutes
Jim came back and said the doctor was playing poker with some other
officers, in a captain's tent, and he didn't dare go in and break up the
game, but he spoke to the doctor's orderly, and he said I ought to take
castor oil. That didn't please the little woman at all, and she told
Jim to go to the poker tent and tell the doctor to come at once, or she
would come after him. It was not long before the doctor came stooping in
to my pup tent. His idea was to have all sick men attend surgeon's call
in the morning, and not go around visiting the sick in tents. He asked
me what was the matter, and I told him nothing much. Then he asked me
why I wasn't at surgeon's call in the morning. I told him the reason was
that I was wading in a swamp, after the rebels that ambushed some of
our boys the day before. “Then you've got malaria,” said he. “Take some
quinine tonight, and come to surgeon's call in the morning.”
[Illustration: She gave him a piece of her mind 229]
The little woman, the rebel angel, got her back up at the coolness of
the doctor; and she gave him a piece of her mind, and then he called for
a candle, and he examined me carefully. When he got through, he said:
“He is going to have a run of fever. He must be sent to the hospital.
Jim, go tell the driver to send the ambulance here at once, and you,
Jim, go along and see that this fellow gets to the hospital all right.
He can't live here in a tent, and I doubt if he will in the hospital.”
That settled it. In a short time the ambulance came, and I got in and
sat on a seat, and the rebel angel got in with me, and we rode seven
miles to the hospital, over the roughest road a sick man ever jolted
over, and I would have died, if I could have had my own way about it,
but the little woman talked so cheerfully that when we arrived at the
great building, I should have considered myself well, only that my mind
was wandering. All I remember of my entrance to the hospital was that
when we got out of the ambulance Jim was there on his horse, leading the
mule belonging to the angel. Some attendants helped me up stairs, and
down a corridor, where we met two stretchers being carried out to the
dead house with bodies on them, and I had to sit in a chair and wait
till clean sheets could be put on one of the cots where a man had just
died. The little woman told me to keep up my courage, and she would come
and see me often, Jim cried and said he would come everyday, a man said,
“your bed is ready, No. 197,” and I laid down as No. 197, and didn't care
whether I ever got up again or not. I just had breath enough left to bid
the angel good bye, and tell Jim to see her safe home. Jim said, “You
bet your life I will,” and the world seemed blotted out, and for all I
cared, I was dead.