(There are more Southerners,
especially border State men, in the Union army than is generally
supposed. [A]) I now doubt whether one can get a fair idea of
what this war practically is, or what genuine America is, and her
character, without some such experience as this I am having.
DEATH OF A WISCONSIN OFFICER
Another characteristic scene of that dark and bloody 1863, from notes
of my visit to Armory-square hospital, one hot but pleasant summer
day. In ward H we approach the cot of a young lieutenant of one of the
Wisconsin regiments. Tread the bare board floor lightly here, for the
pain and panting of death are in this cot. I saw the lieutenant when
he was first brought here from Chancellorsville, and have been with
him occasionally from day to day and night to night. He had been
getting along pretty well till night before last, when a sudden
hemorrhage that could not be stopt came upon him, and to-day it still
continues at intervals. Notice that water-pail by the side of the bed,
with a quantity of blood and bloody pieces of muslin, nearly full;
that tells the story. The poor young man is struggling painfully for
breath, his great dark eyes with a glaze already upon them, and the
choking faint but audible in his throat. An attendant sits by him, and
will not leave him till the last; yet little or nothing can be done.
He will die here in an hour or two, without the presence of kith or
kin. Meantime the ordinary chat and business of[6] the ward a little
way off goes on indifferently.
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