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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILDEN FOUNDATION.

will take it as an inspiration.' I opened the book at the following passage:

"Go on, and search the mountain, and the gates of the city shall not be shut against you.'" All concurred in the definite statement of the passage, and the heroic explorer once more led his men into the wild country of the Indians.

INCIDENT OF ANTIETAM.-At the battle of Antietam, as one of the regiments was for the second time going into the conflict, a soldier staggered. It was from no wound, but in the group of dying and dead, through which they were passing, he saw his father, of another regiment, lying dead. There, too, was a wounded man who knew them both, who pointed to the father's corpse, and then upwards, saying only, "It is all right with him." Onward went the son, by his father's corpse, to do his duty in the line, which, with bayonets fixed, advanced upon the enemy. When the battle was over, he came back, and with other help, buried his father. From his person he took the only thing he had, a Bible, given to the father years before, when he was an apprentice.

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was apprehended that the rebels were going to make a raid on Nashville. This boy, with other convalescent soldiers, was put on duty by lying in the trenches for one night. Here was a very feeble patient, with but one healthy lung, to act as soldier. The exposure brought on pneumonia of the well lung. In this critical condition he was brought into my ward. Soon after, a most touching nostalgic delirium set in. He wanted to go home. He taxed his delirious mind in all conceivable ways, to consummate the object in view. He begged, coaxed, reasoned, and at times would wildly cry out, 'I will go home.' A short time before he died, he sprang out of his bunk, and with a sheet around him, ran through the ward, crying, 'I'll go now, and no power on earth shall stay me.' The attendants put him back in bed, and not many hours after his heavenly Father took his spirit from earth, we will humbly hope, to that pure and blissful state, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.' "On one inspection occasion, a Sergeant, who had been wounded in the head, was pointed out to the surgeon in charge, as being considered well enough for the 'convalescent camp.' 'Don't send him,' says the doctor, with noble consideration for the patient, and, with a smile, added, HOMESICK IN THE HOSPITAL. A correspond- They are in the habit there of cutting off almost ent, writing from the general hospital at Nashville, everything that is wounded; if you send the man Tenn., says: "Perhaps the greatest fault military there, they may conclude to cut his head off.' To surgeons are apt to fall into, is to be too military save the gallant soldier's head, it was decided not in their treatment of their patients. A soldier, to send him to the 'convalescent camp.' Another when he enters a hospital as a patient, is no case of homesickness I am reminded of. A poor longer a soldier, but a patient, and should be boy, from the front, was brought into this ward, treated as such, and not as a soldier. In civil with the camp dysentery. A more attenuated life, we all know how tenderly the sick are treated, living being I had never seen. Home, with him, and in the great majority of cases, how benefi- too, was the absorbing subject of his thoughts. cent to them is our medication. And, ordinarily, I want to see my mother,' was his constant uttoo, when a man is stricken down, even, with a terance. Often he wept like a child to go home. formidable disease, there are good constitutional I put him off from time to time, endeavoring to efforts in his system to carry him through his feed and stimulate him, to bring him into a condiillness. This is seldom the case with our hospi- tion fit to be sent home. One morning, coming tal patients. In their sickness we have gener- into the ward, I found his bed empty. • What! ally to contend with a broken-down or exhausted poor Jimmy dead?' I asked of the ward master. constitution, and often the babe in the cradle isNo,' he answered, 'Jimmy started for home, under not entitled to more tender and skilful treatment the care of our female nurse.' Here was a case to save its flickering life, than the now sick and broken-down soldier. Through want of a uniform understanding on the part of our military, and even some of our medical officers on this very point, many lives are sacrificed. There is in this city the convalescent camp.' I don't believe our convalescent soldiers have any fear of any more dreadful doom than to be consigned to this place. When they get well of their diseases, they beg hard for some other destination than this camp. They will cheerfully go front, or to their regiments, or any other place, than the dreaded convalescent camp.' I think the reason for the odium this place has for the convalescent soldier, is the one above stated. They are treated as soldiers, and not as convalescents.

"Soon after I got into this hospital, a very sick boy was brought into my ward from the convalescent camp. He had been prematurely sent to that place when recovering from pneumonia. It

where a resolute and conscientious woman voluntarily took charge of a helpless boy, to take him to his home, a thousand miles away, solely because she felt that she could thereby save his life. She succeeded in getting him home alive, and wa have heard he is now getting along well.

"Homesickness is one of the most frequent, difficult, and annoying complications we have in the treatment of hospital patients. When a soldier gets sick, he wishes himself at home. It is well for the surgeon to gratify this feeling, when the patient is in a fit condition to go. And when the case is such that it is not for the patient's benefit to leave the hospital, and he cannot control himself to submit to circumstances, he is, in a medical point of view, exceedingly difficult to manage. It is thus that nostalgia has helped to send many a lamented soldier to his grave.

"Great is the variety of wounds in a military hospital. One remarkable fact connected with

wounds is, that a man's life is not alway jeopar-bureaus. The clerk was momentarily nonplused, dized in proportion to the number of wounds he but instantly recovering his gravity, blandly remay have received. One from a slight wound plied in the affirmative. Dinah, with an air of may die. Another may be fearfully mutilated, mystery, and speaking in a confidential whisper, and yet get well. After the battle of Chicka- said: "I have come for my bureau; now give me mauga, we received two patients in this hospital, a pretty large one, with a glass top; I have a who afforded a striking illustration of this. I wash-stand at home, but it is too small to put my asked one of them where he was wounded. All fixins' in." over,' he answered. I directed the nurse to divest him of his clothes, and found his word pretty much verified. This warrior was perforated by more than half a dozen balls, and yet he got well. Another one had a slight wound on the left knee, caused by a buckshot. The little missile was extracted, and after he had suffered most severely for two months he died."

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A WONDERFUL OLD SOLDIER. -The Thirtyseventh regiment of Iowa, doing duty in St. Louis, in 1862, was a regiment of exempts few, if any, of its members being under forty-five years of age, and many of them over eighty. "Take them all together," says a correspondent," they are a band of hardy veterans, whom the exigencies of the situation have fired with a zealous patriotism well worthy of imitation by younger men. A FAITHFUL DOG. The widow of Lieut. But the most remarkable member of this regiPheff, of Illinois, was enabled to find her hus-ment is a private of company H, named Curtis band's grave, at Pittsburg Landing, by seeing a King, whose history and description are truly dog which had accompanied the Lieutenant to curious. He is over eighty-one years of age, six the war. The dog approached her with the most feet two inches in height, of brawny and stalwart intense manifestations of joy, and immediately frame, baring his bosom to the cold winds of winindicated to her, as well as he was able, his de- ter without endangering his health, and moving sire that she should follow him. She did so, and in his round of duties with the celerity of a youth he led the way to a distant part of the field, and of eighteen. Owing to his great age, and the stopped before a single grave. She caused it to fact of his being blind of an eye, he found great be opened, and there found the body of her dead difficulty, when the regiment was forming, in husband. It appears from the statements of getting permission to enlist, two or three comsome of the soldiers, that when Lieut. Pheff fell, panies refusing to take him; but he was at length his dog was by his side, and thus remained, lick- successful, and since the regiment has been on ing his wounds, until he was taken from the field duty he has proved one of the most efficient men and buried. He then took his station by the in it. He is, and has been from his youth, a grave, and nothing could induce him to abandon Democrat of the old Jackson school, and even now it, but for a sufficient length of time cach day indulges industrious invective against the Aboto satisfy his hunger, until, by some means, he litionists. He was born in Culpepper County, was made aware of the presence of his mistress. Va., and claims to be a lineal descendant of PoThus he watched for twelve days by the grave of cahontas; and this statement is verified by his his slain master. physiognomy, which betrays the characteristics of an Indian. He has been twice married, (first when only nineteen years of age,) and is the father of twenty-one children, one of which was, two weeks since, only fifteen months old when it died. He claims to be able to repeat every word of the Bible from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, and can neither read nor writea daughter having read the book to him, his wonderful memory allowing him to retain it after committing it to memory. The daughter commenced her reading to him at five years of age, he being then twenty-six. In 1815 he emigrated to Ohio, resided there some twenty-five years, and then removed to Wapello County, Iowa, where his home now is, and where he enlisted. Mr. King's family is somewhat celebrated for longevity, his mother having lived to the age of 103, and one grandfather to 105 years.

DECEMBER IN VIRGINIA.
CONTRABAND loquitur.

DE leaves hab blown away,
De trees am black an bare,
De day am cold an damp,

De rain am in de air.
De wailin win's hab struck

De strings ob Nature's lyre;
De brooks am swollen deep,

De roads am mud an mire.
De horses yank de team,

De wheels am stickin thar;
De Yankee massa yell

-

De Lord! how he do swar!
De oafs dat he do take,

De nigger disremember;
De Dutch, De Deuce, De Debbil,
De-all tings dat am ebil—

DE-CEMBER!

FREEDMEN'S BUREAUS.- An ancient colored woman appeared at the office of the Freedmen's Bureau, at Chattanooga, Tenn., and asked if that was the place where they kept the freedmen's

The history of this country is familiar to him, and his citations of historical points and the connection with them of great men who flourished during the latter part of the last century, are wonderfully accurate-remembering, as he does, Washington, Jefferson, Randolph, and the Adamses, &c. He has often seen Washington, and remarked as a characteristic of the "Father of his

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