_February 23._--I must not let the great hospital at the Patent-office
pass away without some mention. A few weeks ago the vast area of the
second story of that noblest of Washington buildings was crowded close
with rows of sick, badly wounded and dying soldiers. They were placed
in three very large apartments. I went there many times. It was a
strange, solemn, and, with all its features of suffering and death,
a sort of fascinating sight. I go sometimes at night to soothe and
relieve particular cases. Two of the immense apartments are fill'd
with high and ponderous glass cases, crowded with models in miniature
of every kind of utensil, machine or invention, it ever enter'd
into the mind of man to conceive; and with curiosities and foreign
presents. Between these cases are lateral openings, perhaps eight feet
wide and quite deep, and in these were placed the sick, besides a
great long double row of them up and down through the middle of the
hall. Many of them were very bad cases, wounds and amputations. Then
there was a gallery running above the hall in which there were beds
also. It was, indeed, a curious scene, especially at night when lit
up. The glass cases, the beds, the forms lying there, the gallery
above, and the marble pavement under foot--the suffering, and the
fortitude to bear it in various degrees--occasionally, from some, the
groan that could not be repress'd--sometimes a poor fellow dying, with
emaciated face and glassy eye, the nurse by his side, the doctor also
there, but no friend, no relative--such were the sights but lately in
the Patent-office. (The wounded have since been removed from there,
and it is now vacant again.)


THE WHITE HOUSE BY MOONLIGHT