der the ban of silence; and the
anxious yearning--the almost frantic yearning one feels in the
contemplation of suffering which he is powerless to alleviate. And worse
than all, at last came the hardened feeling which a familiarity with
such scenes produces. This is nothing but an immense charnel-house. We
are constantly in the midst of the dead and dying. Nearly every day some
of our comrades, and on some days several of them, are borne away
coffinless and unshrouded to their unmarked graves. Nor flower, nor
cross, nor hallowed token, gives grace to the dead, or beauty to the
grave. I am well aware that in time of war, on the field of carnage, in
camp, where the pestilential fever rages, or in the crowded prisons of
the enemy, human life is but little valued. Yet there are moments amidst
all these scenes, when the importance of life and the terrors of death,
seem to force themselves upon the mind of every man, with a power which
cannot be resisted."

It is pleasant to find that here, as generally in the world with members
of the learned professions, the surgeons were humane and kind; and
remonstrated with the authorities whenever remonstrance on behalf of the
poor sufferers was needed. Of course they could not "minister to a mind
diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow," or,

"With some sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse
The choked bosom of that perilous stuff
That weighs upon the heart;"

but gracious words and sympathizing looks, and the consciousness that he
was once more in the hands of _gentlemen_, were a source of great
comfort to the patient, after having been brought into daily and hourly
contact with the familiars of Major Turner. Another gratifying
circumstance was, that the Federal surgeons held as prisoners were
permitted to attend upon their sick comrades when they expressed a wish
to do so, and that, of course, was very frequently. Even an hospital has
its little events, which although they appear very trifling in the
retrospect, are of considerable importance at the time of their
occurrence. Here these little episodes were not infrequent. At one time
it was the destruction of a box of dainties sent by the Federal Sanitary
Commission for the prisoners; at another, it was the excitement incident
to an exchange of the surgeons held in captivity; and again, it was the
surreptitious acquisition by some of the patients of a daily newspaper,
and the guarded dissemination of such items as i