CHAPTER XI.
The long three weeks ended, and the city was to be evacuated. Through the lonesome night of storm and darkness, we women held the lights for the soldiers to lift their comrades on stretchers, and carry them down the slippery banks to the transports in waiting on the river. No moon or stars shone on that painful embarkation;—thick clouds of storm were drawn from horizon to horizon, and the rain drenched us, and the chilly wind swept in long gusts, now and then extinguishing the dim lights which we carried.
Groans from manly lips, which could not be suppressed, bore evidence of the torture which they endured, when bare bone, and nerve, and artery freshly bleeding, came in contact with the stretcher.
There was no help—if they died there was no help, and I kept back the tears for those who I knew could never endure the transition to another hospital, or if reaching it, would die speedily.
Three hundred of the wounded from the Wilderness, who fell into the hands of the rebels, and were retaken by a cavalry force of their own number, were brought in, and with them we left Fredericksburg at dark for Washington.
