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During the early summer the wooden
barracks were speedily filled, and many tent wards were added.
Duty became constant and severe, while the scenes witnessed were
often painful in the last degree. More truly than on the field,
the real horrors of war are learned from the long agonies in the
hospital. While in the cavalry service, I gained in vigor daily;
in two months of hospital work I lost thirty pounds. On one day I
buried as many as twenty-nine men. Every evening, till the duty
became like a nightmare, I followed the dead-cart, filled up with
coffins, once, twice, and often thrice, to the cemetery.
Eventually an associate chaplain was appointed, who relieved me of
this task.
Fortunately, my tastes led me to employ an antidote to my daily
work as useful to me as to the patients. Surrounding the hospital
was much waste land. This, with the approval of the surgeon in
charge, Dr. Ely McMillan, and the aid of the convalescents, I
transformed into a garden, and for two successive seasons sent to
the general kitchen fresh vegetables by the wagon-load.


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