TWO FREDERICKSBURG PATIENTS.
Some months after leaving Fredericksburg, I was walking on Pennsylvania
avenue, when the setting sun shone in my face, and a man in uniform
stopped me, saying:
"Excuse me! you do not know me, but I know you!"
I turned, looked at him carefully, and said:
"I do not know you!"
"Oh, no! but the last time you saw me, you cut off my beard with your
scissors and fed me with a teaspoon. When you left me you did not think
you would ever see me again."
"Oh!" I exclaimed joyfully, "you are Dutton."
He laughed, and replied, "That's me. I have just got a furlough and am
going home."
He was very pale and thin, but I was so glad to see him and shake hands,
and wish him safely home with his friends.
During the great review after the war, I had a seat near the President's
stand. There was a jam, and a man behind me called my attention to a
captain, at a short distance, who had something to say to me, and passed
along the words:
"You took care of me on the boat coming from Fredericksburg."
Looking across, I could see him quite well, but even when his hat was
off could not recognize him; and this is all I have ever heard from or
of the men with whose lives mine was so knit during that terrible time.
I fear that not many survived, and doubt if a dozen of them ever knew me
by any other name than that of "Mother."