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

Even at this early hour, Buckner hospital presented a scene of great activity. Some of the surgeons had remained all night on duty, and were still busy; while others, having snatched a few hours of sleep, were now preparing for their trying work.

In almost every ward lay a few wounded Federals, but, all the spare beds having been filled, a long, low, brick building, on the corner opposite the drug-store, once used as a cotton-pickery, was fitted up as comfortably as the limited hospital-supplies at our command would allow for the Federals exclusively, and they were permitted to have the attendance of their own surgeons, although ours always responded readily, if needed.

These Federal surgeons appeared to me to be very indifferent to the comfort of their patients, and to avoid all unnecessary trouble. They were tardy in beginning their work the morning after the battle, and, when they were ready, coolly sent in requisitions for chloroform, which, having been (contrary to the dictates of humanity and to the customs of civilized nations) long since declared by their government ‘contraband of war,’ was almost unattainable, and used by our Confederate surgeons only in extreme cases. In all minor, and in some severe, operations the surgeons relied upon the manly fortitude of the patients, and, God bless our brave boys, they bore this cruel test with a courage fully as worthy to be recorded as the most brilliant action on the battle-field.

On the morning in question, as I made my early rounds, there met me everywhere ghastly reminders of the battle,—men shot and disfigured in every conceivable manner. Many, fresh from the hands of the surgeons, exhausted by suffering, looked as if already