Hot
moist cloths were applied, and reliev'd him somewhat. Poor Mahay, a
mere boy in age, but old in misfortune. He never knew the love of
parents, was placed in infancy in one of the New York charitable
institutions, and subsequently bound out to a tyrannical master in
Sullivan county, (the scars of whose cowhide and club remain'd yet on
his back.) His wound here was a most disagreeable one, for he was
a gentle, cleanly, and affectionate boy. He found friends in his
hospital life, and, indeed, was a universal favorite. He had quite a
funeral ceremony.
ARMY SURGEONS--AID DEFICIENCIES
I must bear my most emphatic testimony to the zeal, manliness, and
professional spirit and capacity, generally prevailing among the
surgeons, many of them young men, in the hospitals and the army. I
will not say much about the exceptions, for they are few; (but I have
met some of those few, and very incompetent and airish they were.)
I never ceas'd to find the best men, and the hardest and most
disinterested workers, among the surgeons in the hospitals. They are
full of genius, too. I have seen many hundreds of them and this is my
testimony. There are, however, serious deficiencies, wastes, sad
want of system, in the commissions, contributions, and in all the
voluntary, and a great part of the governmental nursing, edibles,
medicines, stores, &c. (I do not say surgical attendance, because
the surgeons cannot do more than human endurance permits.) Whatever
puffing accounts there may be in the papers of the North, this is
the actual fact.
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