The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-02-07

| thought hospital No. 10 at Richmond
the most wretched and hope destroying
place had ever been in, and it certainly
was up to that time, but it was as a palace
to q morgue compared with the workhouse
in Charleston. The hospital ward must
have been the tilthiest, most sitting and
malodorous apartment in the building, for
it would tax the Imagination of Dante him
self to conceive of anything worse. There
were iron bars 10 the windows, but had
they been thrown wide open and the sick
prisoners told that they were free to de-
part, | doubt If five men out of ABOUT
hundred that were lying and dying along
the grimy floor would have had strength
enough TO crawl through.
Outside the air was intensely hot; there
was not breath moving. A live oak in
the distance. with its gray festoou of Span
ish moss, looked particularly funereal and
as still as death. The guards about the
building moved in heavy, listless way
and "toted' their pieces as if they were
burdens. Through the windows there was
not all inspiring thing in sight but the blue
expanse of sky, on which white cloud
rested like an anchored ship. In the ward,
everything animate but the flies appeared
to be nearing dissolution. Beelzebub, the
god of flies, might have made his head
quarters in the ward of that workhouse
and felt entirely at home. They darkened
the air, and their vicious buzzing and more
vicious bites were torturing to the nerves.
But what impressed me most forcibly was
the fact that the men lying on the floor,
except in q few cases where some energy
remained, did not seem to heed this insect
plague. 1t was not that they had become
apatEetic through habit. Familiarity
with suffering does not Geaden pain: in
deed, where sensation remains it is moro
apt to intensity 1t, but these men were
either powerless to resist or the greater
agony Of disease and hunger had made them
Indifferent. The flies swarmed about some
of the gaunt faces and rose in little clouds
when the head was moved, but only to set
tie down again.
Here, as at Richmond the nurses in the
prison hospitals were our own men. and
the most robust looked little stronger than
the poor patients on the floor. One of these
men, young German, with sad blue eyes
and an expression of indescrbable melap-
cnoly on his pincheo and rather handsome
face, touched me on the shoulder after the
hospital steward had gone out and asked:
Are you an officer, sir, or private?"
well, my friend replied, eff l was
back in our lines l should say an officer
put here there is no rank. We are ali sold
lers, and good ones, | hope, though bit
poor and helpless at present"
An, sir, II 1t was only being treated like
soldiers" he said with a sigh. that would
not be so bad; that's whatwe enlisted for;
but to be treated like dogs TO die like dogs
and be buried like dogs''
Don't lose heart comrade. Keep q stiff
upper lip. Better times coming. If we
can't manage to escape to our people, de-
pend on 1t they will come tor US after bit.
But don't give up. If swearing comforts
you at ALL know it has been a great sat-
lsfactlon TO me at times-why swear in all
the languages you are master Of; or II YOU
thlnk praying is better hol1, and n doub
1t Is, pray for all you are worth, but don't
ask God to forgive your enemies-that
would be little too II uch-till this war is
over, and then we won't have any enc
miles,"
laid my hands on young Muth's should
ers as l spoke and to my great delight
smile lit up his face, and he shot out an
oath and said:
II guess your right; Pill try it;,
we became chummy at once, and he led
me down to the farthest end of the ward.
and after some care selected two army
blankets, and rolling them up, laid them In
an unoccupled corner. He told me that
every blanket In the place was in all indie
scrlbable state of filth, but this did not
shock me- 1t certainly would have sur
prlsed me II they were in any other condi-
tioo. The nurse introduced me TO a tall
young man, Lieutenant Bell. who silent
near u here my blankets were placed, but
who though evidently very sick man. had
strenetn enough to stand up, for he was
looking dlsconsolalely out of the window
when we approached him.
AS Lieutenant Bell and myself were init
mately associated from this time on. and
particularly in the escape which | shall
presently describe, | may be pardoned for
giving more than passing notice to one of