I do
not like to be so beholden to others; I need a pretty free supply of
money, and the work grows upon me, and fascinates me. It is the most
magnetic as well as terrible sight: the lots of poor wounded and
helpless men depending so much, in one ward or another, upon my
soothing or talking to them, or rousing them up a little, or perhaps
petting, or feeding them their dinner or supper (here is a patient,
for instance, wounded in both arms,) or giving some trifle for a
novelty or change--anything, however trivial, to break the monotony of
those hospital hours.
It is curious: when I am present at the most appalling scenes, deaths,
operations, sickening wounds (perhaps full of maggots,) I keep cool
and do not give out or budge, although my sympathies are very much
excited; but often, hours afterward, perhaps when I am home, or out
walking alone, I feel sick, and actually tremble, when I recall the
case again before me.
_Sunday afternoon, opening of 1865_.--Pass'd this afternoon among
a collection of unusually bad cases, wounded and sick secession
soldiers, left upon our hands. I spent the previous Sunday afternoon
there also. At that time two were dying. Two others have died during
the week. Several of them are partly deranged. I went around among
them elaborately. Poor boys, they all needed to be cheer'd up. As
I sat down by any particular one, the eyes of all the rest in the
neighboring cots would fix upon me, and remain steadily riveted as
long as I sat within their sight.
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