I replaced the blanket as
tenderly as I could, and then said, "Galbreath, good-bye." I then kissed
him on his lips and forehead, and left. As I passed on, he kept trying
to tell me something, but I could not make out what he said, and fearing
I would cause him to exert himself too much, I left.
It was the only field hospital that I saw during the whole war, and I
have no desire to see another. Those hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked
sufferers, shot in every conceivable part of the body; some shrieking,
and calling upon their mothers; some laughing the hard, cackling laugh
of the sufferer without hope, and some cursing like troopers, and some
writhing and groaning as their wounds were being bandaged and dressed.
I saw a man of the Twenty-seventh, who had lost his right hand, another
his leg, then another whose head was laid open, and I could see his brain
thump, and another with his under jaw shot off; in fact, wounded in every
manner possible.
Ah! reader, there is no glory for the private soldier, much less a
conscript. James Galbreath was a conscript, as was also Fain King.
Mr. King was killed at Chickamauga. He and Galbreath were conscripted
and joined Company H at the same time. Both were old men, and very poor,
with large families at home; and they were forced to go to war against
their wishes, while their wives and little children were at home without
the necessaries of life.
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