27th.–Expectation is still on the strain. How long it has been kept up! But no order to move, and I doubt whether we get any soon. Indeed, I think now that we should not move. ‘Tis too late. The roads are excessively bad, and for a long time we have been having an almost continuous storm of freezing rain and snow. An army could not lie out over night in this terrible weather, and be in condition next day to fight against those who had slept in good quarters and been well fed. The time has passed to move. But why are we not ordered to winter quarters? There seems to me to be great recklessness of the soldiers’ health and comfort in this army. There is wrong somewhere.
A sad case has just passed under my notice. Three days ago, as I was busily engaged in attending to hospital duties, I entrusted, necessarily, the light sickness of quarters to others. As I passed out just after morning call, I heard one of my nurses say to a man, “You look sick; why do you not come to hospital, where we can take care of you?”– “That is what I came for, but the doctor’ says I am not sick, and has returned me to duty.” I passed on, but notwithstanding that there is scarcely a day that some “shirk ” who is pretending to be sick to avoid duty, is not treated thus, that voice rang sadly in my ears. In ten minutes I returned, and inquired after the man. The drums had beaten to duty, and he was on parade. I followed to parade ground, found him endeavoring to do his duty, on a “double-quick.” I took him from the ranks, examined him, and sent him to hospital. Before they got him to bed he was delirious. He has just died. ‘Twas a case of typhoid fever, of which he had been sick for two days before I saw him. I ask of army Surgeons, Had you not better excuse ten “seeds” who are worthless, even when in rank, than sacrifice one good man like this, who believes he is not sick, because you tell him he is not?