November 3.—A very warm day, and our patients are suffering very much. If the weather was cool it would be better for them. One of the wards, called the carriage ward (as it had been a carriage house), has about fifty patients, and it is heart-breaking to hear them groan. I think it is even worse than Corinth, as the men here seem to suffer much more. There they either died or were taken to another hospital. Fresh wounds are scarcely ever as painful as old ones.
This ward is a large, low-roofed, whitewashed room, roughly boarded, so that there are not a few openings where the daylight peeps through.
On entering, the first man to the right is Mr. Robbins, about fifty years of age. The doctors say he is one of the worst wounded men we have. His appearance is weak and languid, and there is very little hope of his recovery. Near him is Mr. McVay, an Irishman, much emaciated. One of his legs has been amputated above the knee, and the bone is protruding about an inch, which is very painful.
To the left is Mr. Groover, wounded in both knees. While marching, a cannonball took off the cap of one, and the under part of the other, and his back is one solid bed-sore. We have tried to relieve his suffering in every way. The very sight of his face is distressing, and makes me feel as if I would sacrifice almost any thing to palliate his pain. The effluvia from his wounds is sickening.
Further on are a dozen or so badly wounded: one without a leg; another without an arm, and some with wounds which are awful to look at, but their faces denote all they need is plenty to eat. I passed on, telling them that they are beneath my notice.
At the head of this group is Mr. Conda, an Irishman, with his leg in a sling. His wound, though not a bad looking one, is very painful, and he sleeps but little day or night. The clammy sweat constantly on his forehead tells how acutely he suffers; so that there is no need of asking him how he is.
Opposite him is Mr. Horton, another great sufferer. Just beyond is a man who has about two inches of his shin-bone cut out, and it is growing up.
Along side of him is Mr. Sparks, who came here with apparently a slight wound in the leg. It is now so painful that he not only groans day and night, but many a time his plaint can be heard in the street. His nose is pinched, and all his features have the appearance of a great sufferer. A little ways from him is Mr. Robinson, a lad about seventeen. The calf of his leg is a solid sore. He wails most dolefully, and we find it impossible to assuage his pain.
He and many of the others might have their limbs amputated, but the doctors say that their systems are not in a fit state, and that they would not stand the shock. There are many other badly wounded men in the ward, but they do not seem to suffer so acutely.
In looking over letters received from a friend in Mobile, I was a little astonished at an assertion in one about the planters. It seems they will not sell produce unless at an exorbitant price, and many will take nothing in return but gold and silver. If this is really the case, which I have no reason to doubt, I am at a loss to understand how they can be so blinded. Are they not aware that we are blockaded, and can only procure food from them; and do they not also know, if the enemy succeed— which they assuredly will, if the planters and others act as they are now doing— that they will be ruined, as well as every body else? Heaven help the country! I am getting sick at heart with seeing men from whom we expected so much acting as they are now doing. I wonder if they expect men to fight for them and their property, if they leave their wives and children to starve? The men will be more than mortal if they do it.
It is too bad that President Davis can not devise some way of making these Esaus, who would not only sell their own birthright, but ours, for a mess of pottage, give up their stores. They are ours by right. God did not shower his blessing on the land, as he has done this summer, for them alone.
It is said the planters were to blame for the fall of Vicksburg, and that after its fall the enemy came and took all their cotton, corn, and every thing else they had. If this report be true, it is a just judgment on them. And will they not all suffer the same?
“Men of the South! look up, behold
The deep and sullen gloom
Which darkens o’er your sunny land,
With thunder in its womb!
Are ye so blind ye can not see
The omens in the sky?
Are ye so deaf ye can not hear
The tramp of foemen nigh?
Look north, look west, the ominous sky
Is moonless, starless, black,
And from the east comes hurrying up
A sweeping thunder rack!”
When I think of these wretches, and of the men who are lying here, having suffered so much to save them and their wealth, I can scarcely keep from crying out on them. What is every bushel of corn and acre of land these planters have compared with the sacrifice these men have made? A mere cipher. Why, such comparisons are odious!
I noticed a very good article in a Mobile paper, signed “Gray Hairs.” The writer is calling on the people to try and improve the currency, and denouncing the grand jury for not doing something about the matter.
The papers are filled with good advice, if the people would only take it, and be warned before it is too late.
Many are placing their hopes of peace on the peace party in the North. I do think we have had enough of that. The North always seems to get as many men as they want in spite of “peace parties” and every thing else.
