Everyone was sponged from blood and frozen mire of the battlefield, as far as his condition allowed. His blood-stiffened, and sometimes horribly filthy uniform, was exchanged for soft and clean hospital garments. And to every man she turned with a heavenly tenderness, as if he were indeed her son. Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I noticed a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc., a full load for one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each covered with its brown woolen blanket.
Hundreds die every day, in the camp, brigade and division hospitals.
These are merely tents, and sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if the blankets are spread on layers of pine or hemlock twigs, or small leaves. In one of the hospitals I find Thomas Haley, company M, 4th New York cavalry. A regular Irish boy, a fine specimen of youthful physical manliness, shot through the legs, inevitably dying. Came over to this country from Ireland to enlist. Has a bullet-hole through the lung.