'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital, Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps, And by-one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke, by these, crowds, groups of form vaguely I seen on the floor, some in the pews laid down, At my feet more distinctly a soldier a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (He is shot in the abdomen,) I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily,) Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all, Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead, surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odor of blood, The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating, An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted order or calls, The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches,
the daybreak gray and dim, three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying, Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket, Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the groan, Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, to the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, An attendant follows holding a tray, He carries a refuse, pail, Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again. Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard, From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood, I dress the perforatd shoulder, the foot with the bulet-wound, cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive, While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.
Squads gather everywhere by common consent and arm, The new recruits, even boys, the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements, they buckle the straps carefully, Outdoors, arming, indoors arming the flash of the musket-barrels, The white tents cluster in camps, the arm'd sentries around, the sunrise cannon and again at sunset, Arm'd regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves, (How good they look as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders! How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces and their clothes and knapsacks cover'd with dust!)
I hear the great drums pounding, The small drums steady whirring, and every glow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me through and through.
(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers? Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? Nay, nor the works, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)
the vacant midnight passes The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the irregular snap! snap! I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the rifle-balls, I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass, the grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees,(tumultuous now the contest rages,) The crashing and smoking, the pride f the men in their pieces, The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse of the right tied, After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect; Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel leads himself this time with brandish'd sword,) I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no delay,) I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low concealing all; Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side, then resumed the chaos louder then ever, with eager calls and orders of officers, While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a shout of applause, (some special success,) And ever the sound of the cannon far nor near, (rousing even n dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the depths of my soul,) And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions, batteries, cavalry, moving hither and thither, (The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dipping and red I heed not, some to the reaar are hobbling,) Grime heat, rush, aides-de-camp galloping by or on a full run, with the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of rifles, (these in my vision I hear or see,) And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets.
. . .owning no law but the law of itself . . .
. . .forests of bayonets; . . .beat and beat the drum . . .the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders, As I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders, As those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them appearing in the distance, approach and pass on, returning. homeward, Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro to the right and left, Evenly, lightly rising and falling while the steps keep time;
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
. . .bleeding drops of red,. . .
. . .the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields. . . . . .(As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd),. . .
. . .When as order'd forward, after a long, march, Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night, some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks, Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle, Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark, and a word provided for countersign, caraeful for safety, till to the call of the drummers ad daybreak loudly beating the drums, We rise up refresh'd, the night and sleep pass'd over, and resume our journey, Or proceed to battle.
. . .O hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men!. . . . . .Flag like the eyes of women.
. . .a large brick mansion, on the banks of the Rappahannock, used as a Hospital since the battle--Seems to have receiv'd only the worst cases. Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated, feet, legs, arms, hamns, &c., a full load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each cover'd with its bown woolen blanketl In the door-yard, towrds the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel-staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt.
. . .Probably the earth never shook by artificial means, nor the air reverberated, more than on that winder daybreak of eight or nine days since, when gen. burnside order'd all the batteries of the army to combine for the bombardment of Fredericksburgh.
.. .I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, &c. Also talk'd to three or four, who seem'd most susceptible to it, and needing it.
. . .The large mansion is quite crowded, upstairs and down, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody. some of the wounded are rebel soldiers and officers, prisoners.
. . .The perfect hush of just-ending night was suddenly broken by the first gun, and in an instant all the thunderers, big and little, were in full chorus, which they kept up without intermission for several hours.)
. . .(hundreds die every day,) in the Camp, Brigade, and Division Hospitals. these are merely tents, and sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blankets are spread on layers of pine or hemlock twigs or small leaves. No cots; seldom even a mattress. It is pretty cold. the ground is frozen hard, and there is occasional snow. I go around from one case to another.
As to rations, the army here at present seems to be tolerably well supplied, and the men have enough, such as it is, mainly salt port and hard tack. Most of the regiments lodge in the flimsy little shelter-tents. A few have built themselves huts of logs and mud, with fireplaces.
He lay the succeeding two days and nights helpless on the field, between the city and those grim terraces of batteries; his company and regiment had been compell'd to leave him to his fate. To make matters worse, it happen'd He lay with his head slightly down hill, and could not help himself. At the end of some fifty hours He was brought off, with other wounded, under a flag of truce…
. . .several of the rebels, soldiers and others, came to him, at one time and another. A couple of the, who were together, spoke roughly and sarcastically, but nothing worse. One middle-aged man, however, who seem'd to be moving around the field, among the dead and wounded, for benevolent purposes, came to him in a way He will never forget; treated our soldier kindly, bound up his wounds, cheer'd him, gave him a couple of biscuits, and a drink of whiskey and water; ask'd him if He could eat some beef. This good Secesh, however, did not change our soldier's position, for it might have caused the blood to burst from the wounds, clotted and stagnated.
In one case, the wife sat by the side of her husband, his sickness, typhoid fever, pretty bad. In another, by the side of her son--a mother--she told me she had seven children, and this was the youngest.
. . .A poor fellow in Ward D, with a fearful wound in a fearful condition, was having some loose splinters of bone taken from the neighborhood of the wound. the operation was long, and one of great pain--yet, after it wall well commenced, the soldier bore it in silence. He sat up, propp'd--was much wasted--had lain a long time quiet in one position, (not for days only, but weeks,)--a bloodless, brown-skinn'd face, with eyes full of determination--belong'd to a New York regiment. There was an unusual cluster of surgeons, medical cadets, nurses, &c around his bed.. .
I like the woman nurse in Ward E--I noticed how she sat a long time by a poor fellow who just had, that morning, in addition to his other sickness, bad hemmorhage--she gently assisted him, reliev'd him of thedblood, holding a cloth to his mouth, as He cough's it up--He was so weak He could only just turn his head over on the pillow.
A bullet had shot him right through the bladder, hitting him from, low in the belly, and coming out back. He had suffer'd much--the water came out of the wound, by slow but steady quantities, for many weeks--so that He lay almost constantly in a sort of puddle--and there were other disagreeable circumstances.
. . .Had a bad throat, was delighted with a stick of horehound candy I gave him, with one or two other trifles.
. . . .took a long look at the President's House--and here is my splurge about. The white portico--the brilliant gas-light shining--the palace-like portico--the tall, round columns, spotless as snow--the walls also--the tender and soft moonlight, flooding the pale marble, and making peculiar faint languishing shades, not shadows--everywhere too a soft transparent haze, a thin blue moon-lace,hanging in the night in the air--the brilliant and extra plentiful clusters of gas, on and around the facade, columns, portico, &c--everything so white, so marbly pure and dazzling, yet soft--the White House of future poems, and of dreams and dramas, there in the soft and copious moon--the pure and gorgeous front, in the trees, under the night-lights, under the lustrous flooding moon, full of reality, full of illusion--The forms of the trees, leafless, silent, in trunk and myriad-angles of branches, under the stars and sky--the white House of the land, the White House of the night, and of beauty and silence--sentries at the gates, and by the portico, silent, pacing there in blue overcoats--stopping you not at all, but eyeing you with sharp eyes, whichever way you move.
Thoughnot more than twenty-one, or thereabouts, he was knock's much around the world, on sea and land, and has seen some fighting on both. . . .he confess'd that he had a hankering for a good home-made rice pudding.. .
The soldiers are nearly all young men, and far more American than is generally supposed--I should say nine-tenths are native-born. Among the arrivals from Chancellorsville I find a large proportion of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois men. As usual, there are all sorts of wounds. some of the men fearfully burnt from the explosion of artillery caissons.
. . .I saw him lying on the ground at Fredericksburgh last December, all bloody, just after the arm was taken off. He was very phlegmatic about it, munching away at a cracker in the remaining hand--made no fuss. He will recover, and thinks and talks yet of meeting the Johhny Reggs.
. . .As you pass by, you must be on your guard when you look. I saw the other day a gentleman, a visitor apparently from curiosity, in one of the Wards, stop and turn a moment to look at an awful wound they were probing, &c. He turn'd pale and in a moment more He fainted away and fallen on the floor.
.. . a regular Irish boy, a fine specimen of youthful physical manliness--shot through the lungs--inevitably dying--came over to this country from Ireland to enlist--has not a single friend or acquaintance here. . .
. . .low with chronic diarrhoea, and a bad wound also.
I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where He passes to or from his lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during the hot season, but has quarters at a healthy location, some three miles north of the city, the Soldiers' Home, a United States military establishment. I saw him this morning about 8-1/2 coming to business, riding on Vermont avenue, near L street. The sight is a significant one, (and different enough from how and where I first saw him.) He always has a company of twenty-five or thirty cavalry, with sabres drawn, and held upright over their shoulders. tTe party makes no great show in uniforms or horses. Mr. Lincoln, on the saddle, generally rides a good-sized easy-going gray horse, is dress'd in plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty; wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as ordinary in attire, &c., as the commonest man. A Lieutenant, with yellow straps, rides at his left, and following behind, two by two, come the cavalry men in their yellow-striped jackets. They are generally going at a slow trot, as that is the pace set them by the One they wait upon. The sabres and accoutrements clank, and the entirely unornamental corgtge as it trots towards Lafayette dsuare, arouses no sensation, only some curious stranger stops and gazes. I see very plainly ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S dark brown face, with the deep cut lines, the eyes, &c., always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we always exchange bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry always accompany him, with drawn sabres. often I notice as He goes out evenigs--and sometimes in the morning, when He returns early--He turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War, on K street, and holds conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my window He does not alight, but sits in the vehicle, and Mr. Stanton comes out to attend him. sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or twelve, accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony. Earlier in the summer I occasionally saw the President and his wife, toward the latter part of the afternoon, out in a barouche, on a pleasure ride through the city. Mrs. Lincoln was dress'd in complete black, with a long crape veil. The equipage is of the plainest kind, only two horses, and they nothing extra.
I shall not easily forget the first time I saw Abraham Lincoln. It must have been about the 18th or 19th of February, 1861. It was rather a pleasant spring afternoon, in New York city, as Lincoln arrived there from the West to stop a few hours and then pass on to Washington, to prepare for his inauguration. I saw him in Broadway, near the site of the present Post-office. He had come down, I thik, from canal street, to stop at the Astor House. The broad spaces, sidewalks, and street in the neighborhood, and for some distance, were crowded with solid masses of people, many thousands. The omnibuses and other vehicles had been all turn'd off, leaving an unusual hush in that busy part of the city. Presently two or three shabby hack barouches made their way with some difficulty through the crowd, and drew up at the Astor House entrance. A tall figure step'd out of the centre of these barouches, paus'd leisurely on the sidewalk, look's up at the dark granite walls and looming architecture of the grand old hotel--then, after a relieving stretch of arms and legs, turn'd round for over a minute to slowly and good-humoredly scan the appearance of the vast and silent crowds--and so, with very moderate pace, and accompanied by a few unknown-looking persons, ascended the portico steps. the figure, the look, the gait, are distinctly impress'd upon me yet; the unusual and uncouth height, the dress of complete black, the stovepipe hat push'd back on the head, the dark-brown complexion, the seam'd and wrinkled yet canny-looking face, the black, bushy head of hair, the disproportionately long neck, and the hands held behind as he stood observing the people. All was comparative and ominous silence. The new comer look'd with curiosity upon that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces return'd the look with similar curiosity. In both there was a dash of something almost comical. Yet there was much anxiety in certain quarters. Cautious persons had fear'd that there would be some outbreak, some mark'd indignity or insult to the President elect on his passage through the city, for he possess'd no personal popularity in New York, and not much political. No such outbreak or insult, however, occurr'd. Only the silence of the crowds was very significant to those who were accustom'd to the usual demonstrations of New York in wild, tumultuous hurrahs--the deafening tumults of welcome, and the thunder-shout of pack'd myriads along the whole line of Broadway, receiving Hungarian Kossuth or Filibuster Walker. [Whitman's note].
Last evening (Feb. 8,) I saw the first of the new moon, the old moon clear along with it; the sky and air so clear, such transparent hues of color, it seem'd to me I had never really seen the new moon before. It was the thinnest cut crescent possible. It hung delicate just above the sulky shadow of the Blue Mountains. Ah, if it might prove an omen and good prophecy for this unhappy State.
In one of the fights before Atlanta, a rebel soldier, of large size evidently a young man, was mortally wounded in top of the head, so that the brains partially exuded. He lived three days, lying on his back on the spot where he first dropt. He dug with his heel in the ground during that time a hole big enough to put in a couple of ordinary knapsacks. He just lay there in the open air, and with little intermission kept his heel going night and day.
Dilapidated, fenceless, and trodden with war as Virginia is.. . .
Saw a squad of our own deserters, (over 300) surrounded with a strong cordon of arm'd guards, marching along Pennsylvania avenue. The most motley collection I ever saw, all sorts of rig, all sorts of hats and caps, many fine-looking young fellows some of them shame-faced, some sickly, most of the dirty, shirts very dirty and long worn, &c. They tamp'd along without order, a huge huddling mass, not in ranks. I saw some of the spectators laughing, but I felt like anything else but laughing. These deserters are far more numerous thant would be thought. Almost every day I see squades of them, sometimes two or three at a time, with a small guard; sometimes ten or twelve, under a larger one. (I hear that desetions from the army now in the field haave often averaged 10,000 a month. One of the commonest sights in Washington is a squad of deserters. I often think it curious that the military and civil operatons do not clash, but they never do here.)
. . .boiling volcanoes of human revenge for comrades, brothers slain--with the light of burning frms, and heaps of smjutting, smouldering black embers. . .
There are many women in one position or another, among the Hospitals, mostly as nurses here in Washington, and among the military stations; quite a number of them young ladies acting as volunteers. . . .it remains to be distinctly said that few or no young ladies, under the irresistible conventions of society, answer the practical requirements of nurses for soldiers. Middle-aged or healthy and good condition'd elderly women, mothers of children, are always best.
A large majority of the wounds are in the arms and legs. But there is every kind of wound, in every part of the body. I should say of the sick, from my observation, that the prevailing maladies are typhoid fever and the camp fevers generally, diarrhoea, catarrhal affections and bronchitis, reheumatism and pneumonia. There are twice as many sick as there are wounded. The deaths range from 7 to 10 per cent of those under treatment.
. . .want an undershirt, drawers and socks. . . . . .I supplied him; also with a comb, tooth-brush, and some soap and towels. . . . . .Ward F., wants a bottle of brandy--has two patients imperatively requiring stimulus. . .
Early herbage, early flowers, were out. (I remember where I was stopping at the time, the season being advanced, there were many lilacs in full bloom.
The releas'd prisoners of War are now coming up from the Southern prisons. I have seen a number of them. The sight is worse than any sight of battle-fields or any collections of wounded, even the bloodiest. There was, (as a sample,) one large boat load, of several hundreds, brought about the 25th, to Annapolis; and out of the whole number only three individuals were able to walk from the boat. the rest were carried ashore and laid down on one place or another. Can those be men--those little livid-brown, ash-streak's monkey-looking dwarfs?--are they really not mummied, dwindles corpses? They lay there, most of them, quite still, but with a horrible look in their eyes and skinny lips, often with not enough flesh on the lips to cover their teeth. Probably no more appalling sight was ever seen on this earth.
. . .very feeble, right leg amputated, can't sleep hardly at all--has taken a great deal of morphine,, which, as usual, is costing more than it comes to.
For two days now the broad spaces of Pennsylvania Avenue along to Treasury Hill, and so by detour around to the President's House, (and so up to Georgetown, and across the aqueduct bridge,) have been alive with a magnificent sight, the returning Armies. In their wide ranks stretching clear across the Avenue I watch them march or ride along, at a brisk pace, through two whole days--Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery--some 200,000 men. . . . . .Some days afterwards one or two other Corps. . . . .and then, still afterwards, a good part of Sherman's immense Army, brought up from Charleston, Savanna, &c.
Some where they crawl'd to die, alone, in bushes, low gulleys, or on the sides of hills--(there, in secluded spots, their skeletons, bleach'd bones, tufts of hair, buttons, fragments of clothing, are occasionally found, yet)--our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us--the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend from the dear friend--the clusters of camp graves, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and in Tennessee--the single graves in the woods or by the road-side, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated)--the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the Upper Potomac, after the cavalry engagement, the pursuit of Lee, following Gettysburgh)--some lie at the bottom of the sea--the general Million, and the special Cemeteries in almost all the States--the Infinite Dead--(the land entire is saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes' exhalation in Nature's chemistry distill'd, and shall be so forever, and every grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that grows, and every breath we draw,)--not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil--thousands, aye many tens of thousands, of Southerners, crumble-to-day in Northern earth. . . .the vast trences, the depositaries of slain, Northern and southern, after the geat battles. . .
From ten years' rain and snow, in their seasons--grass, clover, pine trees, orchards, forests--from all the noiseless miracles of soil and sun and running streams--how peaceful and how beautiful appear to-day even the battle-Trenches, and the many hundred thousand Cemetery mounds!
the dead line, over which so many brave soldiers pass'd top the freedom of eternity rather than endure the misery of life, can only be traced here and there, for most of the old marks the last ten years have obliterated.
and now, to thought of these--on these graaves of the dead of the War, as on an altar--to memory of these, or North or South, I close and dedicate my book.
. . .realize the way that hundreds of thousands of good men are now living, and have had to live for a year or more, not only without any of the comforts, but with death and sickness and hard marching and hard fighting (and no success at that) for their continual experience--really nothing we call trouble seems worth talking about. One of the first things that met my eyes in camp was a heap of feet, arms, legs, etc., under a tree in from of a hospital, the Lacy house.
I had my pocket picked in a jam and hurry, changing cars, at Philadelphia--so that I landed here without a dime.
. . .George is about building a place, half hut and half tent, for himself. Every captain has a tent in which He lives, transacts company business, etc., had a cook, (or a man of all work,) and in the same tent mess and sleep his lieutenants, and perhaps the first sergeant. They have a kind of fireplace--and the cook's fire is outside on the open ground. George was wounded by a shell, a gash in the cheek--you could stick a splint ghrough into the mouth, but it has healed up without difficulty already.
. . .You have no idea how letters form home cheer one up in camp, and dissipate homesickness. ..George still lived in Capt. Francis's tent--there were five of us altogether, to eat, sleep, write, etc., in a space twelve feet square, but we get along very well. . .
. . .underneath his outside smutched mannerism, and stories from third-class county barrooms (it is his humor), Mr. Lincoln keeps a fountain of first-class practical telling wisdom. I do not dwell on the supposed failures of his government. . . .rely upon hids idiomatic western genius, careless of court dress or court decorum.
. . .and remain yet much of the old vagabond that so gracefully becomes me. . . . . .I wear army boots, with magnificent black morocco tops, the trousers put in. . . . . .A gentleman and his wife who occupy the two other apartments on this floor have gone to see Heron in Medea. . .
Major Hapgood, paymaster U.S. Army, Cor. 15th & F St., Washington.
. . .curious scenes around here--a continual stream of soldiers, officers, cripples, etc., some climbing wearily up the stairs. They seek their pay. . . . . .There are two paymasters in this room. A sentry at the street door, another halfway up the stairs, another at the chief clerk's door, all with muskets and bayonets. . .
I called the doctor's attention to him, shook up the nurses, had him bathes in spirits, game him lumps of ice, and ice to his head; He had a fearful bursting of pain in his head, and his body was like fire. . . .the rule is to remove bad fever patients out form the main wards to a tent by themselves, and the doctor told me He would have to be removed. . .I had to compel him to take a quarter of an orange now and then.
. . .Armory-square hospital because it contains by far the worst cases. . .
. .It would be funny if they should come some night to the President's country house (Soldier's home), where He goes out to sleep every night; it is in the same direction as their saucy raid last Sunday.
. . .I had a good view of the President last evening. He looks more careworn even than usual, his face with deep cut lines seams, and his complexion gray through very dark skin--a curious looking man, very sad.
The President dresses in plain black clothes, cylinder hat--He was alone yesterday. As He came up, He first drove over to the house of the Sec. of War, on K st., about 300 feet from here; sat in his carriage while Stanton came out and had a 15 minutes interview with him (I can see from my window), and then wheeled around the corner and up Fourteenth st., the cavalry after him.
. . .handsome American young men (I make no acc't of any other); rude uniforms, well worn, but good cattle, prancing--all good riders, full of the devil; nobody shaves, very sunburnt. The regimental officers (splendidly mounted, but just as roughly dressed as the men) came immediately after the ban then company after company, with each its officers at its head--the tramps of so many horses (there is a good hard turnpike)--then a long train of men with led horses, mounted negroes, and a long, long string of baggage wagons, each with four horses, and then a strong rear guard. . .
. . .there are getting to be many black troops. There is one very good regt. here black as tar; they go around have the regular uniform--they submit to no nonsense. Other are constantly forming. It is getting to be a common sight. . .
. . .the only thing I dread in Washington, the dust, I don't mind the mud.
.there are very few visitors, amateurs, now. It has become an old story. The suffering ones cling to me poor children very close.
. . .Major Haptood'sf office, fifth story, by a window that overlooks all down the city & over & down the beautiful Potomac, & far across the hills & shores for many a mile. .
. . .I tell you the copperheads go flaxed out handsomely--indeed these late elections are about as great victory for us as if we had flaxed General Lee himself, and all his men--and so for personal good will I feel as if I could have more for Lee or any of his fighting men, than I have for the northern copperheads.
. . .Two or three night ago I went to the N Y Academy of Music, to the Italian opera. I suppose you know that is a performance, a play, all in music and singing, in the Italian language, very sweet and beautiful. There is a large company of singers and a large band, altogether two or three hundred. It is a splendid great house, four or five tiers high, and a broad parquette on the main floor. The opera here now has some of the greatest singers in the world--the principal lady singer (her name is Medori) has a voice that would make you hold your breath with wonder and delight--it is like a miracle--no mocking bird or clearest flute can begin with it--and besides she is a tall and handsome lady, and her actions are so graceful as she moves about the stage, playing her part. Boys, I must tell you just once scene in the opera I saw--things have worked so in the piece that this lady is compelled, although she tries very hard to avoid it, to give the cup of poisoned wine to her lover--the king her husband forces her to do it--she pleads hard, but her husband threatens to take both their lives (all this is in the singing and music, very fine)--so the lover is brought in as a prisoner, and the king pretends to pardon him and make up, and asks the young man to drink a cup of wine, and orders the lady to pour it out. The lover drinks it, then the king gives her and him a look, and walks off the stage. And now came as good a piece of performance as I ever saw in my life. The lady as soon as she saw that her husband was really gone, she sprang to her lover, clutched him by the arm, and poured out the greatest singing you ever heard--it poured like a raging river more than anything else I could compare it to--she tells him he is poisoned--he tries to inquire &c and hardly knows what to make of it--she breaks in trying to pacify him, and explain &c--all this goes on very rapid indeed, and the band accompanying--she quickly draws out from her bosom a little vial, to neutralize the poison, then the young man in his desperation abuses her and tells her perhaps it is to poison him still more as she has already poisoned him once--this puts her in such agony, she begs and pleads with him to take the antidote at once before it is too late--her voice is so wild and high it goes through one like a knife, yet it is delicious--she holds the little vial to his mouth with one hand and with the other springs open a secret door in the wall for him to escape for the palace--he swallows the antidote and as she pushed him through the door, the husband returns with some armed guards, but she slams the door to, and stands back up against the door, and her arms spread wide open across it, one fist clenched, and her eyes glaring like a wildcat, so they dare not touch her--and that ends the scene. Comrades, recollect all this is in singing and music, and lots of it too, on a big scale, in the band, every instrument you can think of, and the best players in the world, and sometimes the whole band the whole men's chorus and the women's chorus all putting on the steam together--and all in a vast house, light as day, and with a crowded audience of ladies and men. Such singing and strong rich music always give me the greatest pleasure--and so the opera is the only amusement I have gone to, for my own satisfaction, for last ten years.
. . .It looked funny to see the President standing with his hat off to them just the same as the rest as they passed by. Then there [were the] Michigan regiments; one of them was a regiment of sharpshooters, partly composed of Indians.
..it is very different to see a real army of fighting men, from one of those shows in Brooklyn, or New York, or on fort greene. Mother, it was a curious sight to see these ranks after rank of our own dearest blood of men, mostly young, march by, worn and sunburnt and sweaty, with well-worn clothes and thin bundles, and knapsacks, tin cups, and some with frying pans strapt over their backs, all dirty and sweaty, nothing real neat about them except their muskets; but they were all as clean and bright as silver. They were four or five hours passing along, marching with wide ranks pretty quickly, too. It is a great sight to see an army 25 or 30,000 on the march. . .
. . .more than half the army passed without noticing Mr. Lincoln and the others, for there was a great crowd all through the streets, especially here, and the place where the President stood was not conspicuous from the rest.
. . .My boarding place, 502 Pennsylvania av., is a miserable place, very bad air. . .
. . .I am perhaps mainly satisfied with Drum-Taps because it delivers my ambition of the task that has haunted me, namely, to express in a poem (& in the way I like, which is not at all by directly stating it) the pending action of the Time & Land we swim in, with all their large conflicting fluctuations and despair & hope, the shiftings, masses, & the whirl & deafening din, (yet over all, as by invisible hand, a definite purport & idea)--with the unprecedented anguish of wounded & suffering, the beautiful young men, in wholesale death & agony, everything sometimes as if blood color, & dripping blood. The book is therefore unprecedented sad, (as these days are, are they not?)--but it also has the blast of the trumpet, & the drum pounds & whirrs in it, & then an undertone of sweetest comradeship & human love, threading its steady thread inside the chaos, & heard at every lull & interstice thereof--truly, also it has clear notes of faith & triumph.
. . .I have in it only succeeded to my satisfaction in removing all superfluity from it, verbal superfluity I mean, I delight to make a poem where I feel clear that not a word but is indispensable part thereof & of my meaning.
. . .I will write you a few lines--as a casual friend that sat by his death-bed. your son, corporal frank H. Irwin, was wounded near Fort Fisher, Virginia, March 25th, 1865--the wound was in the left knee, pretty bad. He was sent up to Washington, was receiv'd in Ward C. Armory-square hospital, March 285h--the wound became worse, and on the 4th of April the leg was amputated a little above the knee--the operation was perform'd by Dr. Bliss, one of the best surgeons in the army--He did the whole operation himself--there was a good deal of bad matter gather'd--the bullet was found in the knee. For a couple of weeks afterwards He was doing pretty well. I visited and sat by him frequently, as He was fond of having me. the last ten or twelve days of April I saw that his case was critical. He previously had some fever, with cold spells. The last week in April He was much of the time flighty--but always mild and gentle. He died first of May. the actual cause of death was pyaemia, (the absorption of the matter in the system instead of its discharge.)
. . .I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him, and soothing him, and He liked to have me--liked to put his arm out and lay his hand on my knee--would keep it so a long while. Toward the late He was more restless and flighty at night--often fancied himself with this regiment--by his talk sometimes seem'd as if his feelings were hurt by being blamed by his officers for something He was entirely innocent of--said, "I never in my life was thought capable of such a thing, and never was."
. . .He seem'd quite willing to die--He had become very weak and had suffer'd a good deal, and was perfectly resign'd, poor boy.
..I thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about your son, from one who was with him at the last, might be worth while--for I loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to lose him. I am merely a friend visiting the hospitals occasionally o cheer the wounded and sick.
Washington, Thursday, May 25, '65 . . .Well, the review is over, & it was very grand--it was too much & too impressive, to be described--but you will see a good deal about it in the papers. if you can imagine a great wide avenue like Flatbush avenue, quite flat, & stretching as far as you can see with a great white building half as big as Fort Greene on a hill at the commencement of the avenue, and then through this avenue marching solid ranks of soldiers, 20 or 25 abreast, just marching steady all day long for two days without intermission, one regiment after another, real war-worn soldiers, that have been marching & fighting for years--sometimes for an hour nothing but cavalry, just solid ranks, on good horses, with sabres glistening & carbines hanging by their saddles, & their clothes showing hard service, but they mostly all good-looking hardy young men--then great massed of guns, batteries of cannon, for or six abreast, each drawn by six horses, with the gunners seated on the ammunition wagons--& these perhaps a long while in passing, nothing but batteries,--(it seemed as if all the cannon in the world were here)--then great battalions of blacks, with axes & shovels & pick axes, (real) Southern darkies, black as tar--then again hour after hour the old infantry regiments, the men all sunburnt--nearly every one with some old tater all in shreds, (that had been a costly and beautiful flag)--the great drum corps of sixty or eighty drummers massed at the heads of the brigades, playing away--now & then a fine brass band,--but oftener nothing but the drums 7 whistling fifes,--but they sounded very lively--(perhaps a band of sixty drums 7 fifteen or twenty fifes playing "Lannigan's ball")--the different corps banners, the generals with their staffs &c--the Western Army, led by Gen. Sherman, (old Bill, the soldiers call him)--well, dear mother, that is a brief sketch, give you some idea of the great panorama of the Armies that have been passing through here the last two days.