Men and women seem to have gone into the service with good-will and
hearty love and buoyant spirits. It refreshes and strengthens us like a
tonic to read of their taking the wounded, festering, filthy, miserable
men, washing and dressing them, pouring in lemonade and beef-tea, and
putting them abed and asleep. There is not a word about "devotion" or
"ministering angels," (we could wish there were not quite so much about
"ladies,") but honest, refined, energetic, able women, with quick brains
and quick hands, now bathing a poor crazy head with ice-water, to be
rewarded with one grateful smile from the parting soul,--now standing in
the way of a procession of the slightly wounded, to pour a little brandy
down their throats, or put an orange into their hands, just to keep them
up till they reach food and rest,--now running up the river in a
steam-tug, scrambling eggs in a wash-basin over a spirit-lamp as they
go,--now groping their way, at all hours of the night, through torrents
of rain, into dreadful places crammed with sick and dying men, "calling
back to life those in despair from utter exhaustion, or again and again
catching for mother or wife the last faint whispers of the dying,"--now
leaving their compliments to serve a disappointed colonel instead of his
dinner, which they had nipped in the bud by dragging away the stove with
its four fascinating and not-to-be-withstood pot-holes;--and let the
sutler's name be wreathed with laurel who not only permitted this, but
offered his cart and mule to drag the stove to the boat, and would take
no pay!
The blessings of thousands who were ready to perish, and of tens of
thousands who love their country and their kind, rest upon those who
originated, and those who sustain, this noble work.
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