st hope; but a surgeon came, and I
hailed him with joy, thinking him the advance guard of the army of
relief. Half an hour after his appearance I missed him, and saw him no
more; and this was the fourth which left those men, after being
regularly detailed to duty among them--left them to die or live, as they
could.

Soon after this we had an official visit from one of those laundry
critics, called "Medical Inspectors." As there were no sheets or
counterpanes to look after, he turned his attention to a heap of dry
rubbish in the vestibule, which gave the place an untidy appearance, as
seen from the street. To remove this eyesore he had one of my nurses
hunt up a wheel-barrow, and two shovels--shovels were accessible by this
time--and ordered him and another to wheel that rubbish out into the
street. The wheel-barrow coming in the door called my attention, when I
learned that we were going to be made respectable. I sent the
wheel-barrow home, gave the shovels to two men to dig a sink hole back
in the yard, and forbade any disturbance of the dry, harmless rubbish in
the vestibule. I would not have my men choked with dust by its removal,
and set about getting up false appearances. No medical inspector should
white that sepulchre until he cleared the dead men's bones out of it. He
had not looked at a wound; did not know if the men had had any dinner. A
man did not need a medical diploma to clear up after stage carpenters.
If the Government wanted that kind of work done, it had better send a
man and cart with its donkey.

CHAPTER LXX.

WOUNDED OFFICERS.

In Washington, I had done nothing for any wounded officer, except a
captain who was brought to our ward when all the others were taken away,
and in Fredericksburg I began on that principle. I found twenty in the
Old Theater, and had them removed to private houses, to make room for
the men, and that they might be better cared for. Officers could be
quartered in private houses, and have beds, most of those taken out of
the theater were put into houses between it and our quarters, so that I
could see them on my way to and from meals. Among them was the blind
man, who still craved to hear me speak and feel my hand, and I kept his
face in a wet compress until a surgeon was dressing it and found the
inflammation so gone that he drew the lid of one back, and the man cried
out in delight: "I can see! I can see! now let me see mother." I stood
in his range of vision, until