Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

Post image for Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

June 1, 2012

Kate Cumming: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

June 1.—Mr. Miller called early this morning, and informed me that Mrs. Ogden and the ladies were in a car at the depot. I went down immediately. They were not there, but the sick and wounded were, whom I had seen taken off the cars last night. I asked if there were none to care for them. I was informed that there was no one, and that they had not even had a drink of water. The sun was shining directly upon some of them. An immense train of cars was on the road. I went further down, with the hope of finding Mrs. O., and at almost every step I saw sick and wounded men lying all over the ground. I came up to a group of officers who were having their breakfast cooked. I asked them if they could tell me what this meant. They replied that they had left Corinth in such a hurry that it could not be avoided. I told them that I thought it could, and that the doctors were to blame. To this they made no reply. Perhaps they were doctors, and I do not care if they were.

I at last came up with Mrs. O. and her party. They were almost starving; they had been three days on the cars. Mrs. Woodall sent them some coffee. They were on the way to some place in Alabama. I was introduced to Dr. Childs from Mobile, and several others, but do not recollect their names.

Dr. Hughes has brought his wounded friends up here. Both are very young men, named Curly and Oliver. Mr. C. is badly wounded in the foot, and Mr. O. has lost one of his. Both were wounded by the same shell, while sitting talking to each other, the day before Corinth was evacuated. They are members of Lucas’s Battery, Price’s army.

Mrs. T. was busy last night until 12 o’clock, cooking for the starving soldiers who come begging her for food. This morning she sent her two little boys around the country, requesting the citizens to send in food to the car-loads of men who were at the depot. She then made soup and other things, which she carried to them herself.

I went to church this morning. Service was held in a warehouse belonging to Judge T., as every church in the place has been taken for hospitals. I heard a very good sermon from a Baptist preacher.

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