"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP."
The Sanitary Commission soon got a supply of clothing, and sent two men
to wash and dress my patients. These, with the one sweeping floors with
branches, were an incalculable help and comfort; but these two did their
work and passed on to other places. One of the men they had dressed grew
weak, and I was at a loss to account for his symptoms, until by close
questioning, I drew from him the answer,
"It is my other wound!"
These words sounded like a death-knell, but I insisted on seeing the
other wound, and found four bullet holes under his new clothes. From the
one wound, for which I had been caring, he might easily recover; but
with four more so distributed that he must lie on one, and no surgeon to
make trap doors, no bed--there was no hope. He was so bright, so good,
so intelligent, so courageous, it was hard to give him up. Ah, if I had
him in Campbell, with Dr. Kelly to use the knife! How my heart clung to
him!
He lay near the center of the room, with his head close to a column; and
one night as I knelt giving him drink, and arranging his knapsack and
brick pillow, making the most of his two blankets, and thinking of his
mother at home, I was suddenly impressed by the beauty and grandeur of
his face;--his broad, white brow shaded by bushy, chestnut hair, half
curling; the delicate oval of his cheeks; the large, expressive grey
eyes; the straight nose and firm chin and lips!--he could not have been
more than twenty-two, almost six feet high, with a frame full of vigor.
How many such men were there in this land? How many could we afford to
sacrifice in order to preserve a country for the use of cowards and
traitors, and other inferior types of the race?
The feeble light of my candle threw this picture into strong relief
against the surrounding gloom, and it was harder than ever to give him
up, but this must be done; and I wanted to extract from that bitter cup
one drop of sweetness for his mother; so I said to him:
"Now, George, do you think you can sleep?" He said he could, and I
added:
"Will you pray before you sleep?" He said he would.
"Do you always pray before going to sleep?" He nodded, and I continued:
"Let us pray together, to-night, just the little prayer your mother
taught you first."
He clasped his hands, and together we repeated "Now I lay me down to
sleep," to the end; when I said:
"Do you mean that, George? Do you mean to ask God to keep your soul, for
Christ's sake, while you are here; and, for His sake, to take it to
Himself when you go hence, whenever that may be?"
The tears were running over his cheeks, and he said, solemnly:
"I do."
"Then it is all well with you, and you can rest in Him who giveth his
beloved sleep."
There was no time for long prayers, and I must go to another sufferer.
A kind, strong man, from the Michigan Aid Society, came and worked two
days among my men, and said:
"If I only had them in a tent, on the ground; but this floor is
dreadful!"
Up stairs were some wounds I must dress, while a corpse lay close beside
one of the men, so that I must kneel touching it, while I worked. It lay
twelve hours before I could get it taken to its shallow, coffinless
grave; and while I knelt there, the man whose wound I was dressing,
said:
"Never mind; we'll make you up a good purse for this!"
He had no sooner spoken than a murmur of contemptuous disapproval came
from the other men, and one said:
"A purse for her! She's got more money than all of us, I bet!"
Another called out: "No, we won't! Won't do anything of the kind!
We're your boys; ain't we, mother? You're not working for money!"
"Why," persisted the generous man, "we made up a purse of eighty dollars
for a woman t' other time I was hurt, and she hadn't done half as much
for us!"
"Eighty dollars!" called out the man who thought me rich; "eighty
dollars for her! why I tell you she could give every one of us eighty
dollars, and would not miss it!"
Another said:
"She isn't one of the sort that are 'round after purses!"
Why any of them should have thought me rich I cannot imagine except for
the respect with which officers treated me. To veil the iron hand I held
over my nurses, I made a jest of my authority, pinned a bit of bandage
on my shoulder, and played commander-in-chief. Officers and guards would
salute when we passed, as an innocent joke, but the men came to regard
me as a person of rank.
Citizens of Fredericksburg, who at first insulted me on the street, as
they did other Yankee nurses, heard that I was a person of great
influence, and began to solicit my good offices on behalf of friends
arrested by order of Secretary Stanton, and held as hostages, for our
sixty wounded who were made prisoners while trying to pass through the
city, before we took possession.
So I was decked in plumes of fictitious greatness, and might have played
princess in disguise if I had had time; but I had only two deaths in the
old theater--this man up stairs, and the man without clothes, who lay
alone in that back room, and after the amputation of his thigh, had no
covering until government gave him one of Virginia clay.