December 21, 1862 -- Began my visits among the camp hospitals in Army of the Potomac, about Falmouth, Va.  Spent a good part of the day in a large brick mansion, on the banks of the Rappahannock, immediately opposite Fredericksburgh.  It is used as a hospital since the battle, and seems to have received only the worst cases.  Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heep of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, &c., a full load for a one-horse cart.  Several dead bodies lie near, each covered with its brown woolen blanket.  In the door-yard, towards the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel-staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt.  (Most of these bodies were subsequently taken up and transported North to their friends.)
[missing text]e large brick house is quite crowded, up [missing text] and down, everything impromptu, no [missing text]l bad enough, but I have no doubt the [missing text] be done; all the wounds pretty [missing text]htful, the men in their old clothes, [missing text]ody.  Some of the wounded are [missing text] officers, prisoners.  One a [missing text] captain -- hit badly in leg, I [missing text] time; he asked me for papers, [missing text]m. (I saw him three months [missing text] Washington, with his leg ampu-[missing text].
    [missing text]gh the rooms, down-stairs and [missing text] men were dying.  I had nothing [missing text]hat visit, but wrote a few letters [missing text] mothers, &c.  Also talked to [missing text]o seemed most susceptible to [missing text].

[missing text] was noise [missing text] ago.  Probably the earth [missing text]icial means, nor the air re[missing text] an on that winter daybreak [missing text]ys since, when Burnside or [missing text]ies of the army to combine [missing text]ent of Fredericksburgh.  It [missing text] most magnificent and ter-[missing text] with all the adjunct of sound, [missing text]ar.  The perfect hush of the [missing text]t was suddenly broken by the [missing text] instant all the thunderers, [missing text] are in full chorus, which they [missing text] intermission for several hours.  [missing text] experience, the grandeur of im[missing text]nt it was here then in all its [missing text] orm-symphonies, or battle-com-[missing text] Wagner's or Beethoven's, were a mere in[missing text]inence to it.
    The battle comprised December 12, 13, 14 and 15.  On the 11th the engineers succeeded in bridging the Rappahannock with pontoons and keeping their integrity; and on that day and the 12th (though troubled by the rebel sharp-shooters,) our men crossed over, and did pretty much what they pleased in Fredericksburgh.
    Saturday, 13th, was the main battle.  Our troops, with a courage and coolness, taken in the whole, never excelled anywhere, advanced upon some of the strongest natural positions in the world, receding and rising terraces, fortified tier upon tier with well-handled batteries, protected [missing text] swarming rebel sharp-shooters, su[missing text] marksmen, in impromptu rifle-pits [missing text] they concealed themselves.  Sunday, [missing text] lay upon the contested field.  That [missing text] the next day we recrossed the river in [missing text] er to our old camp on the Falmouth [missing text] our losses in killed and wounded had [missing text].

[missing text] 23 to 31.--The results of the late [missing text] exhibited everywhere about here in [missing text]f cases, (hundreds die every day,) in [missing text] Brigade, and Division Hospitals.  [missing text] merely tenets, and sometimes very [missing text] the wounded lying on the ground, [missing text]heir blankets are spread on layers [missing text] hemlock twigs or small leaves.  No [missing text]m even a mattress on the ground.  It [missing text] old.  The ground is frozen hard, and [missing text] occasional snow.  I go around from one [missing text] other.  I do not see that I can do much [missing text] cannot leave them.  Once in a while [missing text]ster holds on to me convulsively, and [missing text] for him; at any rate, stop with [missing text] him for hours, if he wishes it.
    [missing text] hospitals, I also go occasionally on [missing text] tours [missing text]gh the camps, talking with the men, &c., sometimes at night among the groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes.  These are curious shows, full of characters and groups, worthy of Xenophon to narrate and Rembrandt to paint.  I soon get acquainted anywhere in camp, with officers or men, and am always well used.  Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best.
    As to rations, the army here at present seems to be tolerably well supplied and the men have enough, such as it is.  It is mainly salt pork and hard tack.  Most of the regiments lodge in the flimsy little shelter-tents.  A few have built themselves huts of logs and mud, with fireplaces.

        1863--Sunday, January 11.--This evening occurred one of the first of those captures, afterwards so common, by rebel privateers at sea.  It was about thirty miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas.  (I am able to give here an exact account, hitherto unpublished. ) It is a specimen of many cases of the kind, and was the entrapping by the Alabama of the United States steamer Hatteras.  The latter had been signaled from Galveston to pursue a doubtful-looking steamer, a stranger--went on and on several hours--it got to be towards evening--came up--the stranger showed English colors.  Captain Blake, of the Hatteras, bailed her--asked who she was.  She answered, "We are Her Britannic Majesty's steamer Vixen."  Captain Blake rejoined, "Then lay to, and I will send about a board," (intending to send his compliments, &c.)  The two vessels, in the half-dusk, lay less than 200 feet apart.  The boat was lowered--had just touched the water, when a voice (Captain Semmes) sang out from the stranger, "You needn't come--I am the Confederate vessel Alabama,"--and instantly, without a moment's intermission or warning, sent a full broadside into the unsuspecting Hatteras.
    The engagement then commenced.  It is a mistake to suppose, as has been asserted and published, that there was no fight.  There was a fierce one of half an hour's duration--two men killed and eighteen wounded.  The effort of the Hatteras was to board the Alabama; and she would have done so--was on the move and was likely to do it--when a shot from the Alabama went into her steam chamber, and she lay at once helpless, in full control of the rebel cruiser.  The crew and officers of the Hatteras were transferred rapidly in boats to the Alabama, and as soon as they touched the decks were paroled--not a moment's delay.
    (Out of the 158 men of the Alabama only eight were Americans--and five of these eight were a family of brothers, Southern pilots of the name of King.  Nearly all the hands were English; there were no Irish in the rebel crew, or very few indeed; there were two or three Austrians, and one Italian.
    The Alabama immediately sailed for King [missing text], into which port she made a gala-entrance [missing text].  Bands on the English vessels [missing text] "dixie" and all Kingston [missing text]and [missing text] and snaking hands in great glee.
    The officers and crew of the Hatteras came on to Key West in the Borodino, and thence to New York in a Government vessel.

January. '63.--Left camp of Falmouth, with some wounded, a few days since, and came here (to Washington) by Aquia Creek Railroad, and so on Government steamer up the Potomac.  Many wounded were with us on the cars and boat.  The cars were just common platform ones.  The railroad journey of ten or twelve miles was made mostly before sunrise.  The soldiers guarding the road came out from their tents or shebangs of bushes with rumpled hair and half-awake look.  Those on duty were walking their posts, some on banks over us, others down far below the level of the track.  I saw large cavalry camps off the road.  At Aquia Creek Landing were numbers of wounded going North.  While I waited some three hours, I went around among them.  Several wanted word sent home to parents, brothers, wives, &c., which I did for them, (by mail the next day from Washington.)  On the boat I had my hands full.  One poor fellow died going up.

    I am now remaining in and around Washington, daily visiting the hospitals.  Am much in Patent Office, Eighth street, H street, Armory square, and others.  Am now able to do a little good, having money, (as almoner of others home,) and getting experience.
    To-day, Sunday afternoon and till nine in the evening, visited Campbell Hospital; attended specially to one case in Ward 1; very sick with pleurisy and typhoid fever; young man, farmer's son, D. F. Russell, Company E, Sixtieth New York; downhearted and feeble; a long time before he would take any interest; wrote a letter home to his mother, in Malone, Franklin County, N.Y., at his request; gave him some fruit and one or two other gifts; enveloped and directed his letter, &c.  Then went thoroughly through Ward 6; observed every case in the ward, (without, I think, missing one;) found some cases I thought needed little sums of money; supplied them; (sums of perhaps 30, 20, or 15 cents;) distributed a pretty bountiful supply of cheerful reading matter, and gave perhaps from twenty to thirty persons, each one some little gift, such as oranges, apples sweet crackers, figs, &c., &c.

    Thursday, January 21.--Devoted the main part of the day to Armory Square Hospital; went pretty thoroughly through Wards F, C, H, and I; some fifty cases in each ward.  In Ward F supplied the men throughout with writing paper and a stamped envelope each; also some cheerful reading matter; distributed in small portions, to proper subjects, a large jar of first-rate preserved berries, which had been donated to me by a lady--her own cooking.  In Wards G, H, and I, found several cases I thought good subjects for small sums of money, which I furnished.  The wounded men often come up broke, and it helps their spirits to have even the small sum I give them.  My paper and envelopes all gone, but distributed a good lot of amusing reading matter; also, as I thought judicious, tabacco, oranges, apples, &c.  Very interesting cases in Ward I: Charles Miller, bed No. 19, Company D, Fifty-third Pennsylvania, is only sixteen years of age, very bright, courageous boy, left leg amputated below the knee; next bed to him, another young lad very sick; gave each appropriate gifts.  In the bed above, also amputation of the left leg: gave him a little jar of raspberries; bed No. 1, this ward, gave a small sum; also to a soldier on crutches, sitting on his bed near.
    I am more and more surprised at the very great proportion of youngsters from fifteen to twenty-one in the army.  I afterwards found a still greater proportion among the Southerners.)
    Evening, same day, went to see D. F. R., before alluded to; found him remarkably changed for the better: up and dressed, quite a triumph; he afterwards got well and went back to his regiment.  Distributed in the wards a quantity of note-paper, and forty or fifty stamped envelopes, of which, the men were much in need.

Here is a case of a soldier I found among the crowded cots in the Patent Office--(they have removed most of the men of late, and are breaking up that hospital.)  He likes to have some one to talk to, and we will listen to him.  He got badly hit in his leg and side at Fredericksburgh that eventful Saturday, 13th of December.  HE lay the succeeding two days and nights helpless on the field, between the city and those grim terraces of batteries; for his company and regiment had been compelled to leave him to his fate.  To make matters worse, he lay with his head slightly down hill, and could not help himself.  At the end of some fifty hours he was brought off, with other wounded, under a flag of truce.
    I ask him how the rebels treated him as he lay during those two days and nights within reach of them--whether they came to him--whether they abused him?  He answers that several of the rebels, soldiers and others, came to him, at one time and another.  A couple of them, who were together, spoke roughly and sarcastically, but did nothing to him.  One middle-aged man, however, who seemed to be moving around the field, among the dead and wounded, for benevolent purposes, came to him in a way he will never forget.  This man treated our soldiers kindly, bound up his wounds, cheered him, gave him a couple of biscuits, and a drink of whiskey and water; asked him if he could eat some beef.  This good Secesh, however, did not change our soldier's position, for it might have caused the blood to burst from the wounds where they were clotted and stagnated.  Our soldiers is from Pennsylvania; has had a pretty severe time; the wounds proved to be bad ones.  But he retains a good heart, and is at present on the gain.
    (It is not uncommon for the men to remain on the field this way, one, two, ore even four or five days.)

    In my Fourth Paper, never week, I shall give a fuller description of the immense army hospitals, with characteristic cases.
    [Though following and running into the others, each paper is, for the reader's purposes, complete in itself.  It but makes almost random selections out of a vast mass of contemporaneous memoranda.  Of those notes of Soldiers, Hospitals, Battles, President Lincoln &c., I collate the tedium of a strange illness, paralysis disabling me bodily, temporarily.  They are significant, if at all, of the vast and interesting indescribably arriere--the graves of the past, nearly obliterated, though but ten years have intervened.  Phantoms now, yet terribly real then--a countless crowd, still fading, still receding--of which each here, flashed from life, is but a rapid suggestion-sketch.--W. W. Camden, N. J., February 5, 1874.]