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over, the residents of those pretty houses standing back in gardens full ofroses set their cooks to work, or, better still, went themselves into thekitchen, to compound delicious messes for the wounded, after the appetiz-ing old Virginia recipes. Flitting about the streets in the direction ofthe hospitals were smiling, white-jacketed negroes, carrying silver trayswith dishes of fine porcelain under napkins of thick white damask, con-taining soups, creams, jellies, thin biscuit, eggs a la creme, boiled chicken,etc., surmounted by clusters of freshly gathered flowers. A year later wehad cause to pine after these culinary glories when it came to measuringout, with sinking hearts, the meagerportions of milk and food wecould afford to give our charges.
As an instance, however,that quality <in food was
by the patients, mymother urged upon
one of her sufferers(a gaunt and soft-voiced Carolinianfrom the “ piueywoods district ”) adelicately served tri-fle from some neigh-boring kitchen.
“ Jes ez you say,old miss,” was theweary answer; “ I
ain’t a-contradictin’you. It mout be goodfor me, but my stom-ick’s kinder sot aginit. There ain’t but one thing I’m sorter yarnin’ arter, an’ that’s a dish o’greens en bacon fat, with a few molarses poured onto it.”
From our patients, when they could syllable the tale, we had accountsof the fury of the fight, which were made none the less horrible by suchassistance as imagination could give to the facts. I remember they told usof shot thrown from the enemy’s batteries, that plowed their way throughlines of flesh and blood before exploding in showers of musket-balls to dostill further havoc. Before these awful missiles, it was said, our men hadfallen in swaths, the living closing over them to press forward in the charge.
It was at the end of one of these narrations that a piping voice came froma pallet in the corner: u They fit right smart, them Yanks did, I tell you ! ”and not to laugh was as much of an effort as it had just been not to cry.
From one scene of death and suffering to another we passed during thosedays of June. Under a withering heat that made the hours preceding dawn