Washington May 16^th 1864

 

Dear father,

                        I would have written you yesterday it being Sunday, but I was busy all day looking up the wounded boys in the various hospitals about the city. I have already on my list 28 boys from the 126^th Regiment. But few of them I know personally, but they are all from our District. Saturday afternoon I went out to Finley Hospital at Kendall Green about 3 miles from where I stay; Eugene knows where it is, so does Sarah; Eugene and I used to ride out on horses near there, but I had to walk or pay ^c5 for a Hack which I never will do.—I found Owen M^cGinty, a boy by the name of Nelson, and another by the name of Niles there, all 3 from Shortsville, and a young fellow from Clifton by the name of Brown, son of the shoe maker there. They were all wounded in our late battles, but none of them seriously. M^cGinty was shot thr^o the fleshy part of the thigh, Brown in the arm, Nelson in the foot. They were all doing well, and glad to see a friend, but especially was M^cGinty pleased for I was something of a favorite of his. But the sight / is truly awful. There was some 5 or 600 in Finley Hospital and every Hospital in the city is crammed full, and the Surgeons with their long frocks on covered with blood are sawing away all the time, taking off a leg or arm and whacking it down on the floor or on a pile of bloody clothes to be carried off to be buried. I suppose there are now, at this time full 10,000 freshly wounded men in the Hospitals here, and there are certainly 20,000 according to the best accounts down at Fredericksburg and Belle Plain, most of whom are worse cases than these here. I have not yet seen half of the men here that I have got a list of that belong to the 126^th. I shall go this afternoon, and keep going till I see them all. Many who cannot write from wounds or something else I write letters for to their families. I have written this morning to the Shortsville and Clifton families. But in this harvest of death it is but little we can do to stay the destroyer. But the poor fellows shattered and crippled and away from home want some one to aid them in getting news to their families, & to cheer their drooping spirits. /

 

Tell Eugene that Cap^t Owen was killed; He came north with me last November. He was wounded and left for the time on the field the furze and underbrush caught fire, and the boys say he burned to death: He was from Clifton and a noble fellow. The boys also tell me that Townshend Dewey was shot thr^o the brain dead. You probably know before this whether it is so. But the carnage is frightful, judging only from the Thousands I see here. It has seemed that Grant has succeeded in driving Lee from one position to another, and taking some 10,000 prisoners; Eight days succissive fighting will never I hope be heard from of again. Still they are not yet conquered, and many a poor fellow will go down yet before “this cruel war is over”

 

            Please tell Ed that his Bill has not yet come to light; Also, that going by the P.O. Dep^t Friday last Seyholt called to me to know where “Ned” was, for he says I want him. I told him where and that when he was ready I would bring Ed in 3 days, but says I, Ed dont believe you are going at all. He says “I am”—very well I said “he is ready” Give my love to all the family & tell Ed to write, Eugene too.

                                                                        Yours affectionately   N Granger

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