Returning later, bringing some cooling drink and a bottle of Confederate bay-water (vinegar), I gave him to drink and proceeded to sponge off his head and hands.  He submitted, as it seemed at first, unwillingly, but just as I turned to leave him he suddenly seized my hand, kissed it, and laid his burning cheek upon it.  From that moment I was eagerly welcomed by him whenever I appeared among the sick.

When he began to mend and was allowed to talk freely, I learned his name, Charley Percy, that he was a native of Bayou Sara, Louisiana, and a member of the fifth company of Washington Artillery, Captain Slocomb commanding.  He had been wounded at Resaca.  I grew to love him dearly.  As soon as he was permitted to leave his bed he became averse to remaining in the ward, and most of his waking hours were spent in the little room which was specially allotted to me.  Whenever I returned after my rounds among the sick it was a certainty that the glad, bright presence awaited me, and that many little plans for my rest and comfort would make the rough place homelike.

He became to me like a dear young brother, devoted and ever-thoughtful.  The matron’s room at the hospital was called very often “Soldiers’ Rest,” and sometimes “The Promised Land,” because many soldiers came there every day, and those newly convalescent made it a goal which they aspired to reach as soon as permitted.

This habit gave me an opportunity to use properly what might have been sent in boxes which arrived frequently from different quarters, filled with a variety of goodies, but in quantities entirely insufficient to supply all the soldiers.  A sangaree or any other delicacy, taken while resting after a walk which taxed the weakened energies to the utmost, or a meal served outside the fevered air of the wards, did more to build up the strength than any amount of medicine could have done.  As there never was, by any chance, a supply of these things for one thousand men (the usual number assigned to Buckner Hospital), delicacies (already becoming scarce) were served only to the very sick or to convalescents.

It was beautiful to see how young Percy delighted to assist in waiting on these visitors to “The Soldiers’ Rest,”—­how his sprightliness pleased and amused them.  His own great embarrassment seemed to be that he had lost all his clothes at the time he was wounded, so was compelled to wear the unbleached shirts with blue cottonade collars and cuffs, which were supplied to all patients, numbered to correspond with the bunks.  These he called State’s prison uniform.  One day, however, Dr. Fenner from New Orleans, Louisiana, paid a visit to Buckner Hospital (then located at Newnan, Georgia), leaving with me two large boxes of clothing and stores for the Louisiana soldiers.  Percy assisted to unpack these boxes, soon finding himself amply provided with underclothing and a nice jacket and pants of gray, also a new blanket.  He was pleased, but not yet quite satisfied, for the jacket was simply gray.  He wanted it trimmed with red.