_March 6_.--I have been up to look at the dance and supper-rooms,
for the inauguration ball at the Patent office; and I could not help
thinking, what a different scene they presented to my view a while
since, fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war,
brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburgh.
To-night, beautiful women, perfumes, the violin's sweetness, the polka
and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy
eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds and blood, and
many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for
the crowd of the badly hurt was great, and much for nurse to do, and
much for surgeon.)