Letters of Rev. John W. Alvord

more cheerful. I gave him hot black tea with the charming crackers Mr Broughton sent. On showing him the motto he looked up and smiled at me so beautifully. A Sunday school boy of noble brow & intelligent eye evidently from some intelligent Phil family—I mention this case in some detail, that you may have a specimen of the work every moment through the day and night of any one willing or able to work—on the other side of me, as I write here on my knees lies a colored boy ragged & sick to whom I have given medicine & similar food His dark face is full of gratitude. Just around me are many others—I find where Regts did most nobly & were most dreadfully cut to peices that the remnant are most neglected They have no officers left or surgeons to look after them—are therefore not reported to the Hospital & so broken down & dispirited they lay themselves down in groups to die.—single ones like the

above Jouare crawl to where they may perhaps find relief—The rain has again made it muddy & it increases the suffering chills & cramp seize the patients as they lie on the cold wet ground, & their moans & sometimes shrieks, are dreadful I went to sleep last night in the midst of such melancholy music. I could work no longer. Do not think from all this that matters are getting worse, or that Govt are not doing all they can. We are in the midst of comfort as compared with a week since. Every thing which the surgeons & stewards can do with the means at hand is being done. Subsistance is becoming plentiful. The cooks with ten large cauldrons keep down absolute hunger with the majority—Three times a day rations come regularly. But so enormous has been the calamity, that cases which are miscellaneous & exceptional even now exist with what are really large multitudes. This must be so for some time to come.

There is an article called Egg nogg just up in bottles can Mr B send some. Many need sstimulating nourishment before they can take [unclear] food The good things sent are most timely. Shall drive out to day to the Regts with a waggon load, I mix in a little reading & so try to minister to both soul & body Yours [unclear] J W A

Harrisons Landing Va July 19. 1862 My Dear Broughton. Please let yout packages of reading matter and hospital stores be directed hereafter to me. "Harrisons Landing"—care of Mrs John Harris" I have made arrangements in connection with Mrs Harris to have the mail B^t bring every thing directly on— Quarter Master [unclear] has given an order to that effect. Have you not more reading matter on the way? Shield Div. and Riverside both of whom have had of late scarcely anything are now here—They are very eager for it. The immense Fleet, now in the river I want also to supply—If George had enough at W. to keep all the mail bags going, the old troops here will be

in some good degree supplied but the immense demoralization—the cutter off in battle of many of my most faithful distributors—the absence of Chaplains (more than half of them are sick or gone home) make constant personal attention and distribution at the present moment necessary and many of the Regts, where I could never get any local distribution will be wholly destitute, unless in my circuit. I have a good clock along. There is a new feeling at present every where, of sadness, mourning, officers fallen. Half in each soldiers tent in their graves or missing. Groups of worn and weary men crowd around me in almost every camp to tell the story of the fight and of their losses. Knowing me, they respect my sympathies. Tears start from many eyes as we talk of the absent—perhaps their Colonel (I found three such cases

yesterday in a row) "very lonely" they say "we are now and many of us are sick" "Take me to your Hospital" and so ministering what comfort I have—do you see how their hearts are won? ready for any counsel I have to dive on for any reading I choose to leave. They read under their circumstances with a tender interest such as they never felt before and your little books are now so appropriate (send words of healing) as to the Delicacies they take a good portion of my time just now (I have a soldier detatched to help me) in fixing parceling and distributing. Every thing you sent it apropos and each article opens so fresh and perfect. In every case, I know that these comforts actually reach cases of suffering. They are not gobbled up by Staff Officers, Doctors, Stewards +c +ce. I go personallyto the Hospitals enquire, examine and then leave in presence of the

patients what they will ask for and expect to get. In hundreds of cases I minister with my own hands often, indeed always I find many poor fellows straggling about in camp, fevery, diarrhea, pale and emaciated yet plucky and too proud to go down on a hospital bed. The very bravest element of the army needing medicine and some delicacy for feeble difestion and yet no one to care for them. You would take me for an itinerant apothecary's shop as with such acrowd I give each a pinch of tea a handful of crackers a swallow round from a bottle of Stoughtous Elixer. A paper of farina or cornstarch to be coocked up in a club and divided between three or four of them and so on. How they look at me! "Don't you take any pay for this"? "No, the Ladies of Mass. sent there things

to you boys and I came to bring them Perhaps it is a N. Y. Regt. and they object to receiving. "Tell the N. Y. Ladies that they must take care of the sick Boston boys when they find them". "Thats it, we will"— "God bless the Boston Ladies" or it's a Michigan Regt. "Well, no matter" I say "Michigan is close to Massachusetts, we are all one now" "That's a fact, we are" comes back with heavy emphasis. One tall gaunt figure with noble brow stood in the outer edge of the crowd lingering to listen. Gazing at me with a fulness of gratitude which fairly made him look solemn when slowly raising his bony hands (a little drawing of tea was in its hollow) he stretched it out to the crowd and exclaimed "Its the first generosity I've had since

I came to the army." Oh if friends could know how the blessing of many ready to perish is coming upon them, and is not this a cheap way to get "rich in good works" and faith too—With constantly occurring scenes and incidents like the above. I have up to the present time dispensed (in quantities proportonate to the supply to the

surgeons and sick officers who have come to my quarters and to Mrs Harris. In each of the above cases I have reason to beleive that the articles reached the sick. Recollect this is only one visit each. Every two or three days such vitist should be repeated. I go today to the DL Mass Vol. the set I have also supplied Yours J. W. Alvord.