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.
_______________
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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