47



The Wound Dresser

trying to get access to big people, etc. — I could
not get the least clue to anything. Odell would
not see me at all. But Thursday afternoon, I lit
on a way to get down on the Government boat that
runs to Aquia creek, and so by railroad to the
neighborhood of Falmouth, opposite Fredericks-
burg — so by degrees I worked my way to Fer-
rero's^ brigade, which I found Friday afternoon
without much trouble after I got in camp. When
I found dear brother George, and found that he
was alive and well, O you may imagine how
trifling all my little cares and difficulties seemed
— they vanished into nothing. And now that I
have lived for eight or nine days amid such
scenes as the camps furnish, and had a practical
part in it all, and realize the way that hundreds of
thousands of good men are now living, and have
had to live for a year or more, not only without
any of the comforts, but with death and sickness
and hard marching and hard fighting (and no
success at that) for their continual experience —
really nothing we call trouble seems worth talk-
ing about. One of the first things that met my
eyes in camp was a heap of feet, arms, legs, etc.,
under a tree in front of a hospital, the Lacy
house.
George is very well in health, has a good appe-
tite — I think he is at times more wearied out

^ Brig. -Gen. Edward Ferrero, commanding Second Brigade,
Second Division, Army of the Potomac, under whose command the
51st Brooklyn Regiment fought at Fredericlcsburg. George Whit-
man was a captain in this regiment.
