---- and his wife. All around, as far as one could see, amid the white
snow and with lofty pine-trees towering above them, extended the
hospital-tents, and in these lay the sick, the wounded, the dying.
Hospital-supplies were scarce, our rations of the plainest articles,
which, during the first years of the war, were considered absolute
necessaries, had become priceless luxuries. Eggs, butter, chickens
came in such small quantities that they must be reserved for the very
sick. The cheerfulness, self-denial, and fellow-feeling shown by those
who were even partly convalescent, seemed to me to be scarcely less
admirable than the bravery which had distinguished them on the
battle-field. But this is a digression: let me hasten to relate how I
was helped to a decision as to Christmas "goodies." One morning, going
early to visit some wounded soldiers who had come in during the night,
I found in one tent a newcomer, lying in one of the bunks, his head
and face bandaged and bloody. By his side sat his comrade,--wounded
also, but less severely,--trying to soften for the other some
corn-bread, which he was soaking and beating with a stick in a tin cup
of cold water.
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