Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

With Dr. Fletcher of Indiana, he was permitted to leave the prison on parole, to look after our sick and wounded in the various hospitals. Their services to our wounded, sick, and suffering men were most timely and valuable,—procuring for them, as these surgeons often did, from their private means, many delicate and nourishing articles, not found in the prison rations. Our men were sick, wounded, neglected, dejected, almost without hope. His courageous, cheerful kindness roused and cheered their spirits; and the promise of preparing them to be removed gave them new life. At the end of three weeks, two hundred of them were, under his superintendence, embarked from Richmond for home. These services were especially appreciated by our men, and are still well remembered.

He wrote from Richmond to his wife: ‘No one could believe that there could be such a change in the appearance of patients, as there was in the sick here, from merely knowing that we were Yankee doctors. The patients sick with typhoid fever showed it more than any others. Although there was no material change in the treatment, it seemed to brighten them up, and a few words of encouragement did them more good than any medicine, and I think the whole disease took a favorable turn from our first visit; for there has been only one death out of one hundred and ninety-six patients, in the last ten days, and that was a man who was wounded at Manassas.’

While devoting himself to these men, Dr. Revere was enabled to be of service to other prisoners,—loyal private citizens from West Virginia. These men were, if possible, in a more miserable condition, and suffered more from neglect, than the prisoners from the North. When Dr. Revere proposed to minister to them, the Confederate officers said, ‘Don't mind them, they are of no consequence: they are some of our traitors.’ But the Doctor kept on, and did for them what he could. They, with our own men, remembered these services with gratitude; and often afterwards, while he was at home as a paroled prisoner, some poor fellow came to thank him. He sincerely reciprocated this attachment of all the prisoners.