CHAPTER IV. RINGGOLD.

The hospitals established at Ringgold, Georgia, early in the fall of 1862, received the wounded and the not less serious cases of typhoid fever, typhoid pneumonia, dysentery, and scurvy resulting from almost unparalleled fatigue, exposure, and every kind of hardship incident to Bragg's retreat from Kentucky. These sick men were no shirkers, but soldiers brave and true, who, knowing their duty, had performed it faithfully, until little remained to them but the patriot hearts beating almost too feebly to keep soul and body together. The court-house, one church, warehouses, stores, and hotels were converted into hospitals. Row after row of beds filled every ward. Upon them lay wrecks of humanity, pale as the dead, with sunken eyes, hollow cheeks and temples, long, claw-like hands. Oh, those poor, weak, nerveless hands used to seem to me more pitiful than all; and when I remembered all they had achieved and how they had lost their firm, sinewy proportions, their strong grasp, my heart swelled with pity and with passionate devotion. Often I felt as if I could have held these cold hands to my heart for warmth, and given of my own warm blood to fill those flaccid veins.

Every train brought in squads of just such poor fellows as I have tried to describe. How well I remember them toiling painfully from the depot to report at the surgeon's office, then, after being relieved of their accoutrements, tottering with trembling limbs to the beds from which, perhaps, they would never more arise. This hospital-post, as nearly as I remember, comprised only two hospitals, the Bragg and the Buckner. Of the Bragg, Dr. S.M. Bemiss was surgeon in charge; assistant surgeons, Gore, of Kentucky; Hewes, of Louisville, Kentucky; Welford, of Virginia; Redwood, of Mobile, Alabama, and some others whose names I cannot now recall. Dr. W.T. McAllister was surgeon in charge of the Buckner. Of the assistant surgeons I can only remember Dr. W.S. Lee, then of Florida, now a successful practitioner and an honored citizen of Dallas, Texas; Dr. R.D. Jackson, of Selma, Alabama, who since the war has lived a well-beloved physician and druggist in Summerfield, Alabama; Dr. Reese, also of Alabama, and Dr. Yates, of Texas, now dead. For a few months Dr. Francis Thornton, of Kentucky, was surgeon of the post. He was a fiery, impetuous, manly man, a rigid disciplinarian, but always compelled to fight against the dictates of his large, warm heart when duty compelled him to execute severe justice.

Mrs. Thornton was one of the most lovable women I ever knew; impulsive and earnest in her friendship, of a sunny, cheerful temperament seldom clouded. Her pride in her husband and her happiness in being with him was pleasant to see. While she remained in Ringgold we were warm friends. To her thoughtful kindness I owed many an indulgence in dainties not supplied by the Confederate Government. My room was in the same house where the surgeons and their wives were boarding. Often returning late from the hospital,