February 23rd, 1864.—There were ten men instead of nine, but we were ready for them. Eight of them are wounded in the head, the face, or in the shoulder. One was shot in the palm of the hand, while the tenth was shot in the foot. One of his comrades, who is not hurt much, laughs at him and says he knows that fellow was standing on his head.
The one, whose hand was hurt, is just a child. He says he cannot remember his mother. His father was killed at Gettysburg and, when he heard of it and saw his father’s body brought back to Macon and buried, he could stay there no longer but ran away and came to Florida, where his uncle, whom he loved next to his father, was keeping the Yankees away from Tallahassee. He will not be twelve years old until August and he is small for his age, we call him High Private Watson. We do this because he expresses a great desire to be an officer, and he will not tell his Christian name.
Only two of our patients are dangerously hurt; one, a tall man about thirty, who has a very bad wound in his head and the other is the man whose foot is shot to pieces. Both of these have fever. The others say their chief ailment was hunger and now that they have had a good breakfast they will soon be all right and ready to take a pop at the Yankees again.
We will go in tomorrow to Lieut. Holland’s funeral; we have beautiful flowers to carry.
