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Taken Alive by Edward Payson Roe
page 17 of 436 (03%)
One of the great needs of the patients who had to fight the
winning or losing battle of life was good reading, and I speedily
sought to obtain a supply. Hearts and purses at the North
responded promptly and liberally; publishers threw off fifty per
cent from their prices; and I was eventually able to collect, by
gift and purchase, about three thousand volumes. In gathering this
library, I provided what may be distinctly termed religious
reading in abundance; but I also recognized the need of diversion.
Long wards were filled with men who had lost a leg or an arm, and
who must lie in one position for weeks. To help them get through
the time was to help them to live. I therefore made the library
rich in popular fiction and genial books of travel and biography.
Full sets of Irving, Cooper, Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, Marryat,
and other standard works were bought; and many a time I have seen
a poor fellow absorbed in their pages while holding his stump lest
the jar of a footstep should send a dart of agony to the point of
mutilation. My wife gave much assistance in my hospital duties,
often reaching and influencing those beyond me. I recall one poor
fellow who was actually six months in dying from a very painful
wound. Profanity appeared to be his vernacular, and in bitter
protest at his fate, he would curse nearly every one and
everything. Mrs. Roe's sympathy and attentions changed him very
much, and he would listen quietly as long as she would read to
him. Some of the hospital attendants, men and women, had good
voices, and we organized a choir. Every Sunday afternoon we went
from ward to ward singing familiar hymns. It was touching to see
rough fellows drawing their blankets over their heads to hide the
emotion caused by words and melodies associated, in many
instances, with home and mother.

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