At the gate of the boarding-house stood
one of the nurses. Again, as often before, I was summoned to a bed of
death. A soldier who had come in only two days before almost in the
last stages of pneumonia was now dying. I had left him at eight
o'clock the night before very ill, but sleeping under the influence of
an opiate. His agony was _now_ too terrible for any alleviation; but
he had sent for me; so I stood beside him, answering by every possible
expression of sympathy his imploring glances and the frantic clasp of
his burning hand. Finding that my presence was a comfort, I sent for
Dr. McAllister, and, requesting him to assign my duties to some one
else for a while, remained at my post, yielding to the restraining
grasp which to the very last arrested every movement away from the
side of the sufferer. A companion of the sick man lay near. From him I
learned the excellent record of this young soldier, who, during the
frightful "retreat," had contracted the cold which culminated in
pneumonia, but would not consent to leave his regiment until too late.
I had feared an awful struggle at the last, but the death angel was
pitiful, bringing surcease of suffering; and so, peacefully sped the
soul of John Grant, of the ---- Mississippi Regiment, happily
unconscious of the end, and murmuring with his last breath, of home
and mother.
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