Began my regular attendance on the Wayside Hospital. To-day
we gave wounded men, as they stopped for an hour at the station, their
breakfast. Those who are able to come to the table do so. The badly wounded
remain in wards prepared for them, where their wounds are dressed by nurses and
surgeons, and we take bread and butter, beef, ham, and hot coffee to them.
One man had hair as long as a woman's, the result of a vow,
he said. He had pledged himself not to cut his hair until peace was declared
and our Southern country free. Four made this vow together. All were dead but
himself. One was killed in Missouri, one in Virginia, and he left one at
Kennesaw Mountain. This poor creature had had one arm taken off at the socket.
When I remarked that he was utterly disabled and ought not to remain in the
army, he answered quietly, “I am of the First Texas. If old Hood can go with
one foot, I can go with one arm, eh?”
How they quarreled and wrangled among themselves — Alabama
and Mississippi, all were loud for Joe Johnston, save and except the
long-haired, one-armed hero, who cried at the top of his voice: “Oh! you all
want to be kept in trenches and to go on retreating, eh?” “Oh, if we had had a
leader, such as Stonewall, this war would have been over long ago! What we want
is a leader!” shouted a cripple.
They were awfully smashed-up, objects of misery, wounded,
maimed, diseased. I was really upset, and came home ill. This kind of thing
unnerves me quite.
Letters from the army. Grant's dogged stay about Richmond is
very disgusting and depressing to the spirits. Wade Hampton has been put in
command of the Southern cavalry.
A Wayside incident. A pine box, covered with flowers, was
carefully put upon the train by some gentlemen. Isabella asked whose remains
were in the box. Dr. Gibbes replied: “In that box lies the body of a young man
whose family antedates the Bourbons of France. He was the last Count de
Choiseul, and he has died for the South.” Let his memory be held in perpetual
remembrance by all who love the South!
SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin
and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 321-2
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