Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Diary of Major Rutherford B. Hayes: Sunday August 4, 1861

Visited the hospital. It is airy and comfortable — the court-house of the county, a large good building. The judge's bench was full of invalids, convalescent, busily writing letters to friends at home. Within the bar and on the benches provided for the public were laid straw bedticks in some confusion, but comfortable. A side room contained the very sick, seven or eight in number. The total inmates about seventy-five. Most of them are able to walk about and are improving; very few are likely to die there. One poor fellow, uncomplaining and serene, with a good American face, is a German tailor, Fifth Street, Cincinnati; speaks little English, was reading a history of the Reformation in German. I inquired his difficulty. He had been shot by the accidental discharge of a musket falling from a stack; a ball and several buckshot pierced his body. He will recover probably. My sympathies were touched for a handsome young Canadian, Scotch or English. He had measles and caught cold. A hacking cough was perhaps taking his life. Nobody from the village calls to see them!

A hot day but some breeze. We hear that Colonel Matthews with the right wing was, on the morning of the third day from here, near Bulltown, twenty-seven miles distant. Governor Wise is somewhere near Lewisburg in Greenbrier County. Cox1 is in no condition to engage him and I hope will not do it. I rather hope we shall raise a large force and push on towards Lynchburg and east Tennessee. Jewettt is doing well.
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1 General Jacob D. Cox.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 54-5

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