Fannie A. Beers, Memories: a record of personal exeperience and adventure during four years of war.

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[108] equally brave who, after the battle of Chickamauga, became my patients. Scattered all through the wards were dozens of Irishmen, whose awful wounds scarcely sufficed to keep them in bed, so impatient were they of restraint, and especially of inactivity,—so eager to be at the front. Ever since the war I have kept in my heart a place sacred to these generous exiles, who, in the very earliest days of the Confederacy, flocked by thousands to her standard, wearing the gray as if it had been the green, giving in defence of the land of their adoption the might of stalwart arms, unfaltering courage, and the earnest devotion of hearts glad thus to give expression to the love of liberty and hatred of oppression which filled them. As Confederate soldiers they made records unsurpassed by any, but they never forgot that they were Irishmen, and bound to keep up the name and fame of Old Ireland. So, company after company, composing many regiments, appeared on fields of glory bearing names dear to every Irish heart,—names which they meant to immortalize, and did.

That I should be permitted to serve all these heroes, to live among them, to minister to them, seemed to me a blessing beyond estimation. Strange to say, although my toil increased and the horror deepened, my health did not suffer. After days and nights of immeasurable fatigue, a few hours of sleep would quite restore me, and I dared to believe that the supporting rod and staff was given of God.

It now became very difficult to obtain food either suitable or sufficient. The beef was horrible. Upon two occasions rations of mule meat were issued, and eaten with the only sauce which could have rendered it possible to swallow the rank, coarse-grained meat,— i.e., the ravenous hunger of wounded and convalescent men. Meal was musty, flour impossible to be procured.