“Sick call,” And the scenes that accompanied it—­mustering the lame, halt
and diseased at the south gate—­an unusually bad case—­going out to the
hospital—­accommodation and treatment of the patients there—­the horrible
suffering in the gangrene ward—­bungling amputations by blundering
practitioners—­affection between A sailor and his ward
—­death of my comrade.

Every morning after roll-call, thousands of sick gathered at the South Gate, where the doctors made some pretense of affording medical relief.  The scene there reminded me of the illustrations in my Sunday-School lessons of that time when “great multitudes came unto Him,” by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, “having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others.”  Had the crowds worn the flouting robes of the East, the picture would have lacked nothing but the presence of the Son of Man to make it complete.  Here were the burning sands and parching sun; hither came scores of groups of three or four comrades, laboriously staggering under the weight of a blanket in which they had carried a disabled and dying friend from some distant part of the Stockade.  Beside them hobbled the scorbutics with swollen and distorted limbs, each more loathsome and nearer death than the lepers whom Christ’s divine touch made whole.  Dozens, unable to walk, and having no comrades to carry them, crawled painfully along, with frequent stops, on their hands and knees.  Every, form of intense physical suffering that it is possible for disease to induce in the human frame was visible at these daily parades of the sick of the prison.  As over three thousand (three thousand and seventy-six) died in August, there were probably twelve thousand dangerously sick at any given time daring the month; and a large part of these collected at the South Gate every morning.

Measurably-calloused as we had become by the daily sights of horror around us, we encountered spectacles in these gatherings which no amount of visible misery could accustom us to.  I remember one especially that burned itself deeply into my memory.  It was of a young man not over twenty-five, who a few weeks ago—­his clothes looked comparatively new —­had evidently been the picture of manly beauty and youthful vigor.  He had had a well-knit, lithe form; dark curling hair fell over a forehead which had once been fair, and his eyes still showed that they had gleamed with a bold, adventurous spirit.  The red clover leaf on his cap showed that he belonged to the First Division of the Second Corps, the three chevrons on his arm that he was a