Sometimes I took up
my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch'd there several nights
in succession. Those three years I consider the greatest privilege
and satisfaction, (with all their feverish excitements and physical
deprivations and lamentable sights,) and, of course, the most profound
lesson of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I comprehended
all, whoever came in my way, northern or southern, and slighted none.
It arous'd and brought out and decided undream'd-of depths of emotion.
It has given me my most fervent views of the true _ensemble_ and
extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands
of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all
the States, North and South, without exception. I was with many from
the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found,
during those lurid years 1862-63, far more Union southerners,
especially Tennesseans, than is supposed. I was with many rebel
officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I
had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I was among the army
teamsters considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to
them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband
camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what
I could for them.
THE MILLION DEAD, TOO, SUMM'D UP
The dead in this war--there they lie, strewing the fields and
woods and valleys and battle-fields of the south--Virginia,
the Peninsula--Malvern hill and Fair Oaks--the banks of the
Chickahominy--the terraces of Fredericksburgh--Antietam
bridge--the grisly ravines of Manassas--the bloody promenade of the
Wilderness--the varieties of the _strayed_ dead, (the estimate of the
War department is 25,000 national soldiers kill'd in battle and never
buried at all, 5,000 drown'd--15,000 inhumed by strangers, or on the
march in haste, in hitherto unfound localities--2,000 graves cover'd
by sand and mud by Mississippi freshets, 3,000 carried away
by caving-in of banks, &c.
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