Five or six nights since,
it hung close by the moon, then a little past its first quarter. The
star was wonderful, the moon like a young mother. The sky, dark blue,
the transparent night, the planets, the moderate west wind, the
elastic temperature, the miracle of that great star, and the young and
swelling moon swimming in the west, suffused the soul. Then I heard,
slow and clear, the deliberate notes of a bugle come up out of the
silence, sounding so good through the night's mystery, no hurry, but
firm and faithful, floating along, rising, falling leisurely, with
here and there a long-drawn note; the bugle, well play'd, sounding
tattoo, in one of the army hospitals near here, where the wounded
(some of them personally so dear to me,) are lying in their cots,
and many a sick boy come down to the war from Illinois, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Iowa, and the rest.
INAUGURATION BALL
_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.
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