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[260] to convert the ‘U’ into a ‘C,’ leaving the ‘S’ and ‘A’ painted on it in some Northern city, still on duty; but these were generally taken possession of by brigade, division, or corps headquarters, leaving the regiments to rely on the two-horse wagons. I had kept with me my regimental medicine chest, amputating and pocket-case instruments, and the assistant surgeons had their own pocket instruments. The division commissary left us three days rations of beef and meal per man, but I had no further occasion to call on our commissariat for supplies, as the good people of Franklin and vicinity brought in an abundance of everything that sick, wounded, and attendants could desire from day to day-well-cooked bread, beef, mutton, chickens, turkeys, milk, butter, eggs, and other food. Several carpenters in my detail were put to work constructing rough bunks of such lumber as could be found, placing in them the more severely wounded. By the end of my first week's service, I had permitted about one-third of the wounded to take up their quarters in the residences of willing citizens of the town and immediate vicinity. Those who could do so were required to report at the hospital every day, or on alternate days, and one of the assistant surgeons or myself visited, from time to time, such as could not walk to the hospital. Nearly all of these ‘out-patients,’ as well as some others in my hospital, went south with Hood's battered battalions as they retreated beyond the Tennessee River in the days following December 17, 1864. In my hospital, while at Franklin, only seven men died; two from abdominal wounds, three from gunshot wounds in the head, one with amputation of thigh, and one who refused to submit to amputation—I never amputated a limb without consent of the wounded man—after the nature of his case had been fully explained to him. Despite all arguments and reasoning, this man refused amputation, was greatly depressed and despondent from the first, and died on December 23d, as
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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