"...bled, purged and puked".

Monday, November 24, 1862, in a Richmond hospital

The doctors here say that I am getting better. As I am certainly no doctor, I am compelled to trust in them. I am still quite weak and can get around unassisted for short times before I have to sit down or just retire to my bed. I think that I am asleep more than I am awake.

One of the doctors, quite an elderly gentleman, has told me of my afflictions. Tough old buzzard that I am, it has taked two different maladies to knock me down. Both the bloody flux and camp fever decided to join forces and attack me. They nearly put me under. I refer to the doctors. The diseases perhaps affected me less. 

I have been bled, purged and puked. I am sure that my skin is three shades whiter due to my lack of blood. The mercurials they give me have given me breath of a very foul condition. My diet is calculated to treat my conditions. I get a good amount of beef tea for the fever. I feed on the beeves in the form of their tea and the leeches feed on me in the form of my blood. I suppose that it evens out. That I can keep most everything that I eat means that I am getting better.

William, a nurse from Franklin County, Virginia, had been tending to my fever by wiping me down with a sponge and tepid water. He will not tell me his last name but he is still a good fellow. He does not answer any questions about himself and I have learned not to ask him such things.

The reading material at this hospital is quite adequate. There are both northern and southern papers. The New York Herald Tribune says that McClellan is out and Burnside is in as Army of the Potomac commander. Their army has been divided into three Grand Divisions, left, right and center. Let them divide themselves all they want to. Lee will chew each of them up. As it is almost December, nothing will happen before spring.