April 12.
Should one inquire
for my health tonight, I might adopt the reply of a soldier yesterday:
"Not superior, thank God." A good night's sleep will restore all that
was lost under the tramp of couriers and rattle of sabres on the piazza during
the whole of last night. Why couriers should carry sabres except to be in
harmony with the general spirit of the War Department, I cannot conceive. There
would be precisely as much sense in my being tripped up by mine at the bedside
of the sick or at the operating table. Ample preparations were made for the
repulse of a large invading force and no force invaded. I guess we are all a
little sorry, since it seems like flying in the face of Providence to leave
unused for skirmishing these wonderful pine barrens. I thought General Saxton
looked a little disappointed about it when he came out this morning. General
Hunter, who ought to be holding Charleston today, was with him. Were I not so
sleepy I would crowd in a few curses here on the mismanagement which has
resulted in the withdrawal of our forces from before Charleston.
SOURCE: Proceedings
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June,
1910: February 1910. p. 387-8
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