July 3.—We have just received news that Bragg and his whole army will be here in a day or two, and that there is a race between him and Rosecrans as to who will get here first.
We had an Englishman die to-day, by the name of Head, in Dr. Hopping’s ward. He was fully seventy years of age; was a prisoner, and said to be a bushwhacker. He denied it to the last. I did feel so sorry to see so old a man die in such a place.
Mrs. W. talked a great deal to him, and is confident he was innocent. He seemed to be religious, and prayed to the last; he was a large, fine-looking man; lived in Tennessee at the time of his arrest. He had been ten years in this country.
We have had a room filled with that class of men. One who had killed his captain looked as if he was crazy, and was manacled, hands and feet. It was heartbreaking to look at him when he died. Poor fellow! perhaps his captain provoked him to commit the deed.
We have another (I think he is a Frenchman), who was General Bragg’s orderly. They say he stole the general’s uniform. The poor fellow is deranged, or acts as if he was.
There is a Mr. Bears, who is under arrest for desertion, who seems to be one of the nicest kind of men, and a good Christian. He says when he left his regiment he had no idea of deserting—only went to see his wife. I do not think that is any excuse for his crime; still, we can not help feeling sorry for him. It is bad enough to see men suffer who are under no ban, but when they are here as those men are, it is distressing indeed.
Mrs. McFarland, a very nice lady from Mobile, has come to assist us. She will take charge of the convalescents, and see that their diet is properly prepared. This is a very important department in a hospital, but few persons seem to think so. All that this class of men require is good diet and a change from camp life. We get plenty of all kinds of vegetables, much more than we are able to cook in the utensils we have.
One day I called on the quartermaster, and asked him to give me a very nice stove he had. He refused, saying we had stoves enough. The next time I saw Dr. Stout I told him, so he gave me an order to get it right away.
Dr. S. says he wishes the hospitals under his care to be better supplied than any hotel in the Confederacy, and every dollar we receive from the government spent. Dr. Hunter has one great fault; he is loth to spend the money, and seems to think he is saving for the government. I do not think so, as the men are sent here from the army to recruit, and a change of diet is the main thing they need.
The assistant surgeons do all in their power to have the men well cared for, and they could not be more attentive than they are. There is not a day passes that I do not hear the patients speak in their praise. We have six; Dr. Hopping, a Georgian, is one of the kindest and best of men; he is a gentleman in the full sense of the term, and is much beloved by all.
Dr. Soles is one of those men who have no enemies. He takes the world easy; and, as the old saying, like master like man, all of his nurses take after him. We have more scolding to do in his ward than any of the others. When we tell the nurses about keeping their ward clean, they seem to think it is nonsense. But Dr. S.’s patients are all well cared for.
Dr. Burt is always in a good humor, and leads one to believe that there is such a thing in the world as constant sunshine. His patients have many a time told me, that the sight of him almost makes them well. His ward is his hobby; I call him “my ward;” it is always in perfect order. His ward has two bath-rooms, in which is a bathing-tub and shower-bath.
The other three surgeons I do not know much about, as the largest part of their wards are across the street; but I know they are most attentive to the patients. One of them, Dr. Nichol, is Dr. B.’s rival in the “ward” line, but there is a good deal of rivalry between all in that respect. Dr. N. was very cross one day, and found fault with Mrs. W. and myself, and said we did not visit his ward enough. We both make it a rule not to visit the wards when the surgeons are in them, and Dr. N. took it for granted we did not visit his at all, and told me one day he thought his patients would fare badly if he did not have good nurses, as Mrs. W. and myself did not attend them. I answered him, that I thought they would, if they waited for us to nurse them, as it is as much as we can do to see that the nurses do their duty. It is too bad to accuse Mrs. W. of neglect, when she has actually starved herself many a time to give food to the soldiers. There is no doctor who need feel at all flattered if we pay more attention to his sick than the others, as we have made a compact that where we see the surgeon at all neglectful we will devote the most care on that ward.
I have already mentioned Dr. Hunter very frequently. His hobby is, that he was the first to solve a problem, which was finding out that ladies are of service in the hospitals; this he prides himself on.
I see by a Mobile paper that General Pemberton has issued an order to his men, telling them that he has heard that he is called a traitor, and that he is determined to die in the trenches rather than surrender Vicksburg. It is also said that the garrison is well supplied with provisions, and can hold out many a day yet. The enemy seem to have put forth all their energy to take it. God grant that they never may.
