As I have said, there were no comforts. The
patients looked as if they did not expect any, and seemed sullen and
discontented. The tents were not new, nor were they all good. They
seemed to me without number. Passing in and out among them, I felt
bewildered and doubtful whether I should ever learn to know one from
another, or to find my patients. Part of the camp was set apart for
convalescents. Here were dozens of Irishmen. They were so maimed and
shattered that every one should have been entitled to a discharge, but
the poor fellows had no homes to go to, and were quite unable to
provide for themselves. There were the remnants of companies,
regiments, and brigades, many of them Louisianians, and from other
States outside the Confederate lines. Had there been any fighting to
do, they would still have "taken a hand," maimed as they were. The
monotony of hospital camp-life made them restless; the rules they
found irksome, and constantly evaded; they growled, complained, were
always "in hot water," and almost unmanageable.
The first time I passed among them they eyed me askance, seeming, I
feared, to resent the presence of a woman.
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