laborious duties. Among these may be named Surrell of Virginia,
Hargis and Baldwin of Mississippi, Richardson of New Orleans, La
Fressne of Alabama, with many others of high reputation. During the
week following the battle the wounded were brought in by hundreds,
and the surgeons were overtasked. Above 5000 wounded men, demanding
instant and constant attendance, made a call too great to be met
successfully. A much larger proportion of amputations was performed
than would have been necessary if the wounds could have received
earlier attention. On account of exposures, many wounds were
gangrenous when the patients reached the hospital. In these cases
delay was fatal, and an operation almost equally so, as tetanus
often followed speedily. Where amputation was performed, eight out
of ten died. The deaths in Corinth averaged fifty per day for a week
after the battle. While the surgeons, as a body, did their duty
nobly, there were some young men, apparently just out of college,
who performed difficult operations with the assurance and assumed
skill of practiced surgeons, and with little regard for human life
or limb. In a few days erysipelas broke out, and numbers died of it.
Pneumonia, typhoid fever, and measles followed, and Corinth was one
entire hospital. As soon as possible, the wounded who could be moved
were sent off to Columbus, Okalona, Lauderdale Springs, and
elsewhere, and some relief was thus obtained. We were also comforted
by the arrival of a corps of nurses. Their presence acted like a
charm. Order emerged from chaos, and in a few hours all looked
cleaner and really felt better, from the skill and industry of a few
devoted women. A pleasant instance of the restraint of woman's
presence upon the roughest natures occurred in the hospital I was
attending. A stalwart backwoodsman was suffering from a broken arm,
and had been venting his spleen upon the doctors and male nurses by
continued profanity; but when one of his fellow-sufferers uttered an