Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

  CHAPTER XXI.

  CAPTAIN COLBURNE HAS OCCASION TO SEE LIFE IN A HOSPITAL.

  When Colburne came to himself he was lying on the ground in rear of thepieces. Beside him, in the shadow of the same tuft of withering bushes,lay a wounded lieutenant of the battery and four wounded artillerists. Adozen steps away, rapidly blackening in the scorching sun and swelteringair, were two more artillerists, stark dead, one with his brains bulgingfrom a bullet-hole in his forehead, while a dark claret-colored streakcrossed his face, the other's light-blue trousers soaked with a dirtycarnation stain of life-blood drawn from the femoral artery. None of thewounded men writhed, or groaned, or pleaded for succor, although a sweatof suffering stood in great drops on their faces. Each had cried outwhen he was hit, uttering either an oath, or the simple exclamation"Oh!" in a tone of dolorous surprise; one had shrieked spasmodically,physically crazed by the shock administered to some important nervouscentre; but all, sooner or later, had settled into the calm, sublimepatience of the wounded of the battle-field.

  The brass Napoleons were still spanging sonorously, and there was aceaseless spitting of irregular musketry in the distance.

  "Didn't the assault succeed?" asked Colburne as soon as he had got hiswits about him.

  "No sir--it was beat off," said one of the wounded artillerists.

  "You've had a faint, sir," he added with a smile. "That was a smarttumble you got. We saw you go over, and brought you back here."

  "I am very much obliged," replied Colburne. His arm pained him now, hishead ached frightfully, his whole frame was feverish, and he thought ofNew England brooks of cool water. In a few minutes Lieutenant Van Zandtappeared, his dark face a little paler than usual, and the rightshoulder of his blouse pierced with a ragged and bloody bullet-hole.

  "Well, Captain," said he, "we have got, by Jove! our allowance ofto-day's rations. Hadn't we better look up a doctor's shop? I feel, bythe everlasting Jove!--excuse me--that I stand in need of a sup ofwhiskey. Lieutenant--I beg your pardon--I see you are wounded--I hopeyou're not much hurt, sir--but have you a drop of the article about thebattery? No! By Jupiter! You go into action mighty short of ammunition.I beg your pardon for troubling you. This is, by Jove! the dryestfighting that I ever saw. I wish I was in Mexico, and had a gourd ofaguardiente."

  By the way, I wish the reader to understand that, when I introduce a "ByJove!" into Van Zandt's conversation, it is to be understood that thatvery remarkably profane officer and gentleman used the great Name of theTrue Divinity.

  "Where is the company, Lieutenant?" asked Colburne.

  "Relieved, sir. Both companies were relieved and ordered back to theregiment fifteen or twenty minutes ago. I got this welt in the shoulderjust as I was coming out of that damned hollow. We may as well go along,sir. Our day's fight is over."

  "So the attack failed," said Colburne, as they took up their slow marchto the rear in search of a field hospital.

  "Broken up by the ground, sir; beaten off by the musketry. Couldn't putmore than a man or two on the ramparts. Played out before it got anywhere, just like a wave coming up a sandy beach. It was only a regiment.It ought to have been a brigade. But a regiment might have done it, ifit had been shoved in earlier. That was the time, sir, when you went offfor reinforcements. If we had had the bully old Tenth there then, wecould have taken Port Hudson alone. Just after you left, the Rebs raisedthe white flag, and a whole battalion of them came out on our right andstacked arms. Some of our men spoke to them, and asked what they wereafter. They said--by Jove! it's so, sir!--they said they hadsurrendered. Then down came some Rebel General or other, in a tearingrage, and marched them back behind the works. The charge came too late.They beat it off easy. They took the starch out of that Twelfth Maine,sir. I have seen to-day, by Jove! the value of minutes."

  Before they had got out of range of the Rebel musketry they came upon asurgeon attending some wounded men in a little sheltered hollow. Heoffered to examine their hurts, and proposed to give them chloroform.

  "No, thank you," said Colburne. "You have your hands full, and we canwalk farther."

  "Doctor, I don't mind taking a little stimulant," observed Van Zandt,picking up a small flask and draining it nearly to the bottom. "Yourgood health, sir; my best respects."

  A quarter of a mile further on they found a second surgeon similarlyoccupied, from whom Van Zandt obtained another deep draught of hisfavorite medicament, rejecting chloroform with profane politeness.Colburne refused both, and asked for water, but could obtain none. Deepin the profound and solemn woods, a full mile and a half from thefighting line, they came to the field hospital of the division. It wassimply an immense collection of wounded men in every imaginablecondition of mutilation, every one stained more or less with his ownblood, every one of a ghastly yellowish pallor, all lying in the openair on the bare ground, or on their own blankets, with no shelter exceptthe friendly foliage of the oaks and beeches. In the centre of this massof suffering stood several operating tables, each burdened by agrievously wounded man and surrounded by surgeons and their assistants.Underneath were great pools of clotted blood, amidst which lay amputatedfingers, hands, arms, feet and legs, only a little more ghastly in colorthan the faces of those who waited their turn on the table. Thesurgeons, who never ceased their awful labor, were daubed with blood tothe elbows; and a smell of blood drenched the stifling air, overpoweringeven the pungent odor of chloroform. The place resounded with groans,notwithstanding that most of the injured men who retained their sensesexhibited the heroic endurance so common on the battle-field. One man,whose leg was amputated close to his body, uttered an inarticulatejabber of broken screams, and rolled, or rather bounced from side toside of a pile of loose cotton, with such violence that two hospitalattendants were fully occupied in holding him. Another, shot through thebody, lay speechless and dying, but quivering from head to foot with aprolonged though probably unconscious agony. He continued to shudderthus for half an hour, when he gave one superhuman throe, and then layquiet for ever. An Irishman, a gunner of a regular battery, showedastonishing vitality, and a fortitude bordering on callousness. Hisright leg had been knocked off above the knee by a round shot, the stumpbeing so deadened and seared by the shock that the mere bleeding was tooslight to be mortal. He lay on his left side, and was trying to get hisleft hand into his trousers-pocket. With great difficulty and grinningwith pain, he brought forth a short clay pipe, blackened by previoussmoking, and a pinch of chopped plug tobacco. Having filled the pipecarefully and deliberately, he beckoned a negro to bring him a coal offire, lighted, and commenced puffing with an air of tranquillity whichresembled comfort. Yet he was probably mortally wounded; human naturecould hardly survive such a hurt in such a season; nearly all the legamputations at Port Hudson proved fatal. The men whose business it is topick up the wounded--the musicians and quartermaster's people--wereconstantly bringing in fresh sufferers, laying them on the ground,putting a blanket-roll or havresack under their heads, and then hurryingaway for other burdens of misery. They, as well as the surgeons andhospital attendants, already looked worn out with the fatigue of theirterrible industry.

  "Come up and see them butcher, Captain," said the iron-nerved Van Zandt,striding over prostrate and shrinking forms to the side of one of thetables, and glaring at the process of an amputation with an eager smileof interest much like the grin of a bull-dog who watches the cutting upof a piece of beef. Presently he espied the assistant surgeon of theTenth, and made an immediate rush at him for whiskey. Bringing the flaskwhich he obtained to Colburne, he gave him a sip, and then swallowed therest himself. By this time he began to show signs of intoxication; helaughed, told stories, and bellowed humorous comments on the horridscene. Colburne left him, moved out of the circle of anguish, seatedhimself on the ground with his back against a tree, filled his pipe, andtried to while away the time in smoking. He was weak with want of foodas well as loss of blood, but he could not eat a bit of cracker which awounded soldier gave him. Once he tried to soothe the agony of h
isLieutenant-Colonel, whom he discovered lying on a pile of loose cotton,with a bullet-wound in his thigh which the surgeon whispered was mortal,the missile having glanced up into his body.

  "It's a lie!" exclaimed the sufferer. "It's all nonsense, Doctor. Youdon't know your business. I won't die. I sha'n't die. It's all nonsenseto say that a little hole in the leg like that can kill a great strongman like me. I tell you I sha'n't and won't die."

  Under the influence of the shock or of chloroform his mind soon began towander.

  "I have fought well," he muttered. "I am not a coward. I am not aGazaway. I have never disgraced myself. I call all my regiment towitness that I have fought like a man. Summon the Tenth here, officersand men; summon them here to say what they like. I will leave it to anyofficer--any soldier--in my regiment."

  In an hour more he was a corpse, and before night he was black withputrefaction, so rapid was that shocking change under the heat of aLouisiana May.

  Amid these horrible scenes Van Zandt grew momentarily more intoxicated.The surgeons could hardly keep him quiet long enough to dress his wound,so anxious was he to stroll about and search for more whiskey. Hetalked, laughed and swore without intermission, every now and thenbellowing like a bull for strong liquors. From table to table, fromsufferer to sufferer he followed the surgeon of the Tenth, slapping himon the back violently and shouting, "Doctor, give me some whiskey. I'llgive you a rise, Doctor. I'll give you a rise higher than a balloon.Hand over your whiskey, damn you!"

  If he had not been so horrible he would have been ludicrous. HisHerculean form was in incessant stumbling motion, and his dark face wasbeaded with perspiration. A perpetual silly leer played about his widemouth, and his eyes stood out so with eagerness that the white showed aclear circle around the black iris. He offered his assistance to thesurgeons; boasted of his education as a graduate of Columbia College;declared that he was a better Doctor than any other infernal foolpresent; made himself a torment to the helplessly wounded. Upon a Majorof a Louisiana regiment who had been disabled by a severe contusion hepoured contempt and imprecations.

  "What are you lying whimpering there for?" he shouted. "It's nothing buta little bruise. A child, by Jove! wouldn't stop playing for it. Youought to be ashamed of yourself. Get up and join your regiment."

  The Major simply laughed, being a hard drinker himself, and having abrotherly patience with drunkards.

  "That's the style of Majors," pursued Van Zandt. "_We_ are blessed, byJove! with a Major. He is, by Jove! a dam incur--dam--able darn coward."(When Van Zandt was informed the next day of this feat of profanity heseemed quite gratified, and remarked, "That, by Jove! is giving a word afull battery,--bow-chaser, stern-chaser and long-tom amidships.")"Where's Gazaway? (in a roar). Where's the heroic Major of the Tenth? Iam going, by Jove! to look him up. I am going, by Jove! to find thesafest place in the whole country. Where Gazaway is, there is peace!"

  Colburne refused one or two offers to dress his wound, saying thatothers needed more instant care than himself. When at last he submittedto an examination, it was found that the ball had passed between thebones of the fore-arm, not breaking them indeed, but scaling off someexterior splinters and making an ugly rent in the muscles.

  "I don't think you'll lose your arm," said the Surgeon. "But you'll havea nasty sore for a month or two. I'll dress it now that I'm about it.You'd better take the chloroform; it will make it easier for both ofus."

  Under the combined influence of weakness, whiskey and chloroform,Colburne fell asleep after the operation. About sundown he awoke, histhroat so parched that he could hardly speak, his skin fiery with fever,and his whole body sore. Nevertheless he joined a procession ofslightly wounded men, and marched a mile to a general hospital whichhad been set up in and around a planter's house in rear of the forest.The proprietor and his son were in the garrison of Port Hudson. But thewife and two grown-up daughters were there, full of scorn and hatred; sounwomanly, so unimaginably savage in conversation and soul that nonovelist would dare to invent such characters; nothing but real lifecould justify him in painting them. They seemed to be actuallyintoxicated with the malignant strength of a malice, passionate enoughto dethrone the reason of any being not aboriginally brutal. Theylaughed like demons to see the wounds and hear the groans of thesufferers. They jeered them because the assault had failed. The Yankeesnever could take Port Hudson; they were the meanest, the most dastardlypeople on earth. Joe Johnson would soon kill the rest of them, and haveBanks a prisoner, and shut him up in a cage.

  "I hope to see you all dead," laughed one of these female hyenas. "Iwill dance with joy on your graves. My brother makes beautiful rings outof Yankee bones."

  No harm was done to them, nor any stress of silence laid upon them. Whentheir own food gave out they were fed from the public stores; and at theend of the siege they were left unmolested, to gloat in their jackalfashion over patriot graves.

  There was a lack of hospital accommodation near Port Hudson, so bare isthe land of dwellings; there was a lack of surgeons, nurses, stores, andespecially of ice, that absolute necessity of surgery in our southernclimate; and therefore the wounded were sent as rapidly as possible toNew Orleans. Ambulances were few at that time in the Department of theGulf, and Colburne found the heavy, springless army-wagon which conveyedhim to Springfield Landing a chariot of torture. His arm was swollen totwice its natural size from the knuckles to the elbow. Nature had set towork with her tormenting remedies of inflammation and suppuration toextract the sharp slivers of bone which still hid in the woundnotwithstanding the searching finger and probe of the Surgeon. Duringthe night previous to this journey neither whiskey nor opium couldenable him to sleep, and he could only escape from his painfulself-consciousness by drenching himself with chloroform. But thismorning he almost forgot his own sensations in pity and awe of themultitudinous agony which bore him company. So nearly supernatural inits horror was the burden of anguish which filled that long train ofjolting wagons that it seemed at times to his fevered imagination as ifhe were out of the world, and journeying in the realms of eternaltorment. The sluggish current of suffering groaned and wailed its way onboard the steam transport, spreading out there into a great surface oftorture which could be taken in by a single sweep of the eye. Woundedmen and dying men filled the state-rooms and covered the cabin floor andeven the open deck. There was a perpetual murmur of moans, athwart whichpassed frequent shrieks from sufferers racked to madness, likelightnings darting across a gloomy sky. More than one poor fellow drewhis last breath in the wagons and on board the transport. All these men,thought Colburne, are dying and agonizing for their country and forhuman freedom. He prayed, and, without arguing the matter, he wearilyyet calmly trusted, that God would grant them His infinite mercy in thisworld and the other.

  It was a tiresome voyage from Springfield Landing to New Orleans.Colburne had no place to lie down, and if he had had one he could nothave slept. During most of the trip he sat on a pile of baggage, holdingin his right hand a tin quart cup filled with ice and punctured with asmall hole, through which the chilled water, dripped upon his woundedarm. Great was the excitement in the city when the ghastly travellerslanded. It was already known there that an assault had been delivered,and that Port Hudson had not been taken; but no particulars had beenpublished which might indicate that the Union army had suffered asevere repulse. Now, when several steamboats discharged a giganticfreight of mutilated men, the facts of defeat and slaughter weresanguinarily apparent. Secessionists of both sexes and all ages swarmedin the streets, and filled them with a buzz of inhuman delight.Creatures in the guise of womanhood laughed and told their littlechildren to laugh at the pallid faces which showed from the ambulancesas they went and returned in frequent journeys between the levee and thehospitals. The officers and men of the garrison were sad, stern andthreatening in aspect. The few citizens who had declared for the Unioncowered by themselves and exchanged whispers of gloomy foreboding.

  In St. Stephen's Hospital Colburne found something of tha
t comfort whicha wounded man needs. His arm was dressed for the second time; his raggeduniform, stiff with blood and dirt, was removed; he was sponged fromhead to foot and laid in the first sheets which he had seen for months.There were three other wounded officers in the room, each on his owncot, each stripped stark naked and covered only by a sheet. A Major of aConnecticut regiment, who had received a grapeshot through the lungs,smiled at Colburne's arm and whispered, "Flea-bite." Then he pointed tothe horrible orifice in his own breast, through which the blood andbreath could be seen to bubble whenever the dressings were removed, andnodded with another feeble but heroic smile which seemed to say, "Thisis no flea-bite." Iced water appeared to be the only exterior medicamentin use, and the hospital nurses were constantly drenching the dressingswith this simple panacea of wise old Mother Nature. But in this earlystage of the great agony, before the citizens had found it in theirhearts to act the part of the Good Samaritan, there was a lack ofattendance. Happy were those officers who had their servants with them,like the Connecticut Major, or who, like Colburne, had strength andmembers left to take care of their own hurts. He soon hit upon a deviceto lessen his self-healing labors. He got a nurse to drive a hook intothe ceiling and suspend his quart cup of ice to it by a triangle ofstrings, so that it might hang about six inches above his wounded arm,and shed its dew of consolation and health without trouble to himself.In his fever he was childishly anxious about his quart cup; he wasafraid that the surgeon, the nurse, the visitors, would hit it and makeit swing. That arm was a little world of pain; it radiated pain as thesun radiates light.

  For the first time in his life he drank freely of strong liquors.Whiskey was the internal panacea of the hospital, as iced water was theoutward one. Every time that the Surgeon visited the four officers hesent a nurse for four milk punches, and if they wanted other stimulants,such as claret or porter, they could have them for the asking. Thegenerosity of the Government, and the sublime beneficence of theSanitary Commission supplied every necessary and many luxuries. Colburnewas on his feet in forty-eight hours after his arrival, ashamed to liein bed under the eyes of that mangled and heroic Major. He was promotedto the milk-toast table, and then to the apple-sauce table. Holding histin cup over his arm, he made frequent rounds of the hospital, cheeringup the wounded, and finding not a little pleasure in watching theprogress of individual cases. He never acquired a taste, as many did,for frequenting the operating-room, and (as Van Zandt phrased it) seeingthem butcher. This _chevalier sans peur_, who on the battle-field couldface death and look upon ranks of slain unblenchingly, was at heart assoft as a woman, and never saw a surgeon's knife touch living fleshwithout a sensation of faintness.

  He often accompanied the Chief Surgeon in his tours of inspection. Awonder of practical philanthropy was this queer, cheerful, indefatigableDoctor Jackson, as brisk and inspiriting as a mountain breeze, tirelessin body, fervent in spirit, a benediction with the rank of Major. Icedwater, whiskey, nourishment and encouragement were his cure-alls. Therewere surgeons who themselves drank the claret and brandy of the SanitaryCommission, and gave the remnant to their friends; who poured theconsolidated milk of the Sanitary Commission on the canned peaches ofthe Sanitary Commission and put the grateful mess into their personalstomachs; and who, having thus comforted themselves, went out with apleasant smile to see their patients eat bread without peaches and drinkcoffee without milk. But Dr. Jackson was not one of these self-centredindividuals; he had fibres of sympathy which reached into the lives ofothers, especially of the wretched. As he passed through the crowdedwards all those sick eyes turned to him as to a sun of strength andhope. He never left a wounded man, however near to death, but the poorfellow brightened up with a confidence of speedy recovery.

  "Must cheer 'em--must cheer 'em," he muttered to Colburne. "Courage is agreat medicine--best in the world. Works miracles--yes, miracles."

  "Why! how _are_ you, my old boy?" he said aloud, stopping before apatient with a ball in the breast. "You look as hearty as a buck thismorning. Getting on wonderfully."

  He gave him an easy slap on the shoulder, as if he considered him a wellman already. He knew just where to administer these slaps, and just howto graduate them to the invalid's weakness. After counting the man'spulse he smiled in his face with an air of astonishment and admiration,and proceeded, "Beautiful! Couldn't do it better if you had never gothit. Nurse, bring this man a milk-punch. That's all the medicine _he_wants."

  When they had got a few yards from the bed he sighed, jerked his thumbbackward significantly, and whispered to Colburne, "No use. Can't savehim. No vitality. Bone-yard to-morrow."

  They stopped to examine another man who had been shot through the headfrom temple to temple, but without unseating life from its throne. Hishead, especially about the face, was swollen to an amazing magnitude;his eyes were as red as blood, and projected from their sockets, twoawful lumps of inflammation. He was blind and deaf, but able to drinkmilk-punches, and still full of vital force.

  "Fetch him round, I _guess_," whispered the Doctor with a smile ofgratification. "Holds out beautiful."

  "But he will always be blind, and probably idiotic."

  "No. Not idiotic. Brain as sound as a nut. As for blindness, can't say.Shouldn't wonder if he could use his peepers yet. Great doctor, oldNature--if you won't get in her way. Works miracles--miracles! Why, inthe Peninsular campaign I sent off one man well, with a rifle-ball inhis heart. _Must_ have been in his heart. There's your room-mate, theMajor. Put a walking cane through him, and _he_ won't die. Could, butwon't. Too good pluck to let go. Reg'lar bull terrier."

  "How is my boy Jerry? The little Irish fellow with a shot in the groin."

  "Ah, I remember. Empty bed to-morrow."

  "You don't mean that there's no hope for him?"

  "No, no. All right. I mean he'll get his legs and be about. No fear forthat sort. Pluck enough to pull half a dozen men through. Thosedevil-may-care boys make capital soldiers, they get well so quick. Thisfellow will be stealing chickens in three weeks. I wouldn't bet that I_could_ kill him."

  Thus in the very tolerable comfort of St. Stephen's Colburne escaped thesix weeks of trying siege duty which his regiment had to perform beforePort Hudson. The Tenth occupied a little hollow about one hundred andfifty yards from the rebel fortifications, protected in front by a highknoll, but exposed on the left to a fire which hit one or more everyday. The men cut a terrace on their own side of the knoll, and thentopped the crest with a double line of logs pierced for musketry, thusforming a solid and convenient breastwork. On both sides thesharpshooting began at daybreak and lasted till nightfall. On bothsides the marksmanship grew to be fatally accurate. Men were shot deadthrough the loopholes as they took aim. If the crown of a hat or capshowed above the breast-work, it was pierced by a bullet. After thesiege was over, a rebel officer, who had been stationed on this front,stated that most of his killed and wounded men had been hit just abovethe line of the forehead. Every morning at dawn, Carter, who had hisquarters in the midst of the Tenth, was awakened by a spattering ofmusketry and the singing of Minie-balls through the branches above hishead, and even through the dry foliage of his own sylvan shanty. Now andthen a shriek or oath indicated that a bullet had done its brutal workon some human frame. No crowd collected; the men were hardened to suchtragedies; four or five bore the victim away; the rest asked, "Who isit?" One death which Carter witnessed was of so remarkable a characterthat he wrote an account of it to his wife, although not given to notingwith much interest the minor and personal incidents of war.

  "I had just finished breakfast, and was lying on my back smoking. Abullet whistled so unusually low as to attract my attention and struckwith a loud smash in a tree about twenty feet from me. Between me andthe tree a soldier, with his great coat rolled under his head for apillow, lay on his back reading a newspaper which he held in both hands.I remember smiling to myself to see this man start as the bullet passed.Some of his comrades left off playing cards and looked for it. The manwho was reading remain
ed perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the paperwith a steadiness which I thought curious, considering the bustle aroundhim. Presently I noticed that there were a few drops of blood on hisneck, and that his face was paling. Calling to the card-players, who hadresumed their game, I said, 'See to that man with the paper.' They wentto him, spoke to him, touched him, and found him perfectly dead. Theball had struck him under the chin, traversed the neck, and cut thespinal column where it joins the brain, making a fearful hole throughwhich the blood had already soaked his great-coat. It was this man'shead, and not the tree, which had been struck with such a report. Therehe lay, still holding the New York Independent, with his eyes fixed on asermon by Henry Ward Beecher. It was really quite a remarkablecircumstance.

  "By the way, you must not suppose, my dear little girl, that bulletsoften come so near me. I am as careful of myself as you exhort me tobe."

  Not quite true, this soothing story; and the Colonel knew it to be falseas he wrote it. He knew that he was in danger of death at any moment,but he had not the heart to tell his wife so, and make her unhappy.