I find many
rebel wounded here, and have been extra busy to-day 'tending to the
worst cases of them with the rest.
_Oct., Nov. and Dec., '65--Sundays_--Every Sunday of these months
visited Harewood hospital out in the woods, pleasant and recluse, some
two and a half or three miles north of the capitol. The situation is
healthy, with broken ground, grassy slopes and patches of oak woods,
the trees large and fine. It was one of the most extensive of the
hospitals, now reduced to four or five partially occupied wards,
the numerous others being vacant. In November, this became the last
military hospital kept up by the government, all the others being
closed. Cases of the worst and most incurable wounds, obstinate
illness, and of poor fellows who have no homes to go to, are found
here.
_Dec. 10--Sunday_--Again spending a good part of the day at Harewood.
I write this about an hour before sundown. I have walk'd out for a few
minutes to the edge of the woods to soothe myself with the hour and
scene. It is a glorious, warm, golden-sunny, still afternoon. The only
noise is from a crowd of cawing crows, on some trees three hundred
yards distant. Clusters of gnats swimming and dancing in the air in
all directions. The oak leaves are thick under the bare trees, and
give a strong and delicious perfume. Inside the wards everything is
gloomy. Death is there. As I enter'd, I was confronted by it the first
thing; a corpse of a poor soldier, just dead, of typhoid fever.
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