s my chief
reliance.' He talked of death, and said he did not fear it. I said: 'Why,
Oscar, don't you think you will get well?' He said: 'I may, but it is not
probable.' He spoke calmly of his condition. The wound was very bad; it
discharged much. Then the diarrhoea had prostrated him, and I felt that
he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very manly and
affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving he returned
fourfold. He gave me his mother's address, Mrs. Sally D. Wilber, Alleghany
post-office, Cattaraugus County, New York. I had several such interviews
with him. He died a few days after the one just described."

And here, also, a characteristic scene in another of those long
barracks:--

"It is Sunday afternoon (middle of summer, 1864), hot and oppressive, and
very silent through the ward. I am taking care of a critical case, now
lying in a half lethargy. Near where I sit is a suffering rebel, from the
8th Louisiana; his name is Irving. He has been here a long time, badly
wounded, and has lately had his leg amputated. It is not doing very well.
Right opposite me is a sick soldier boy, laid down with his clothes on,
sleeping, looking much wasted, his pallid face on his arm. I see by the
yellow trimming on his jacket that he is a cavalry boy. He looks so
handsome as he sleeps, one must needs go nearer to him. I step softly over
to him, and find by his card that he is named William Cone, of the 1st
Maine Cavalry, and his folks live in Skowhegan."

In a letter to his mother in 1863 he says, in reference to his hospital
services: "I have got in the way, after going lightly, as it were, all
through the wards of a hospital, and trying to give a word of cheer, if
nothing else, to every one, then confining my special attention to the few
where the investment seems to tell best, and who want it most.... Mother,
I have real pride in telling you that I have the consciousness of saving
quite a number of lives by keeping the men from giving up, and being a
good deal with them. The men say it is so, and the doctors say it is so;
and I will candidly confess I can see it is true, though I say it myself.
I know you will like to hear it, mother, so I tell you."

Again he says: "I go among the worst fevers and wounds with impunity; I go
among the smallpox, etc., just the same. I feel to go without
apprehension, and so I go: nobody else goes; but, as the darkey said there
at Charleston when the boat ran on a flat a