When one piece of pork was cooked, it was cut into small pieces and distributed, and another put into the boiler.  During our cooking times I usually sat on the stairs, where I could direct and be out of the way; and to improve the time, often had a plate and cup from which I ate and drank.  Cook always saved me something nice, and I made tea for myself.  I was running my body as I did the cook stove, making it do quadruple duty, and did not spare the fuel in either case.  Around each foot, below the instep, I had a broad, firm bandage, one above each ankle and one below each knee.  If soldiers on the march had adopted this precaution, they would have escaped the swollen limbs so often distressing.  I also had each knee covered by several layers of red flannel, to protect them while I knelt on damp places.  Soon after going into Campbell, I discovered that muscles around the bone will do double service if held firmly in place, and so was enabled in all my hospital work, to do what seemed miraculous to the most experienced surgeons.

I rested every moment I could, never stood when I might sit, made no useless motions, spent no strength in sorrow, had no sentiment, was simply the engineer of a machine—­my own body; could fall asleep soon as I lay down, and wake any moment with my senses all alert, outlived my prejudice about china cups, and drank tea from brown earthen mugs used for soup, and never washed save in cold water; often ate from a tin plate with my left hand, while my right held a stump to prevent that jerking of the nerves which is so agonizing to the patient, many a time eating from the same tin plate with my patient, and making merry over it; and think I must have outstanding engagements to dance cotillions with one hundred one-legged men.

One day while I sat eating and watching, that just enough cans of beef were put into each boiler of broth, and no time wasted by letting it stand after reaching boiling point, a surgeon asked to see me at the kitchen door.  He informed me that up on the forecastle, some men had had soup twice while those in some other place had had none.  He evidently wished to be lenient, but felt that I had been guilty of great neglect.  I heard his grievance, and said: 

“Doctor, how many of you surgeons are on this boat?”

After some consideration he answered: 

“Four!”

“Four surgeons!” I repeated, “beside the surgeon in charge, who is sick!  We have four hundred and fifty wounded men!  I draw all the rations, find a way to cook them, have them cooked and put into the buckets, ready for distribution.  Do you not think that you four could organize a force to see that they are honestly distributed—­or do you expect me to be in the kitchen, up in the forecastle, and at the stern on the boiler deck, at one and the same time?  Doctor, could you not take turns in amusing those ladies?  Could they not spare two of you for duty?”