_February 23._--I must not let the great hospital at the Patent-office
pass away without some mention. A few weeks ago the vast area of the
second story of that noblest of Washington buildings was crowded close
with rows of sick, badly wounded and dying soldiers. They were placed in
three very large apartments. I went there many times. It was a strange,
solemn, and, with all its features of suffering and death, a sort
of fascinating sight. I go sometimes at night to soothe and relieve
particular cases. Two of the immense apartments are fill'd with high and
ponderous glass cases, crowded with models in miniature of every kind of
utensil, machine or invention, it ever enter'd into the mind of man to
conceive; and with curiosities and foreign presents. Between these cases
are lateral openings, perhaps eight feet wide and quite deep, and in
these were placed the sick, besides a great long double row of them
up and down through the middle of the hall. Many of them were very bad
cases, wounds and amputations. Then there was a gallery running above
the hall in which there were beds also. It was, indeed, a curious scene,
especially at night when lit up. The glass cases, the beds, the forms
lying there, the gallery above, and the marble pavement under
foot--the suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in various
degrees--occasionally, from some, the groan that could not be
repress'd--sometimes a poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy
eye, the nurse by his side, the doctor also there, but no friend, no
relative--such were the sights but lately in the Patent-office. (The
wounded have since been removed from there, and it is now vacant again.)