THE TISHOMINGO HOTEL. MY SCHOOL AND OTHER INCIDENTS
THE scene changes. We were now ordered to turn. We “moved” in an ambulance, my father being taken on a cot, and were given quarters in the Tishomingo Hotel. The old Tishomingo House! Can I ever forget it? The historic, dilapidated old hotel through which a cannon ball passed during the progress of battle. We were given a large, cheerless room in the second story; the floor was bare, the four large windows were each guiltless of blind or curtain.
Our bed consisted of two cots placed together, with an army blanket to each for covering. The nights were cold, and we would have suffered had not my mother arisen through the night and replenished the fire. There was a large stove in the room and we had a plentiful supply of wood. The hotel was used as a hospital, although it was not full at this time, there being a number of vacant rooms. I remember but one nurse here, a Miss Johnson. We were great friends, and I spent as much time in her room as in our own. I frequently took walks with her about town. I went with her one morning to call on Dr. Norman Gay and family, of Columbus, O., who had roomed for a time at the hotel, but who afterward rented furnished rooms in a private house in another part of the town. On our way we passed the Iuka House and several sutlers’ stores. I had not been long in the Tishomingo House until I made the acquaintance of the cook, a curly-headed young fellow whose name was John Storms, of Ohio.
Part of the time we took our meals in the dining room with the doctors and officers. By “we” I mean my mother and myself; my father not being able to leave the room his meals were carried to him. At other times we all took our meals in our own room. Those who ate in the dining-room were: Dr. Gay, wife and son, Dr. Spicer, Dr. Huntington, Captain Pemberton, Chaplain Estabrook, Miss Johnson, ourselves and many others, comers and goers, whose names I can not now recall.
Across the railroad and directly opposite the hotel was another encampment, and reveille and lights out were again daily and nightly sounds. Gen. Hunter had his headquarters in a large white house not far away, and night after night I have sat on the upper porch listening entranced to the regimental band, as it played Hail Columbia, Star Spangled Banner, Red, White and Blue, Rally round the Flag, and America. Each night this band would play from dark until bedtime, and I could not be induced to leave my post until the last note died away in silence. Many events come to my mind as I write of this time. One day a man was brought in who had been accidentally shot through both thighs. While sitting on the floor of a box car a jolt dislodged a musket from where it was standing. As it fell, it was discharged, and the man being in direct range, the ball passed through both limbs. Amputation was decided upon as a forlorn hope of saving his life. Not knowing the time fixed upon for the operation, I passed down the stairway leading through the Medical Director’s room, which was also the operating room, and there, on the operating table, under the influence of chloroform, white and lifeless-looking, surrounded by the doctors, lay the poor fellow undergoing the awful ordeal of having both legs taken off. Sick at heart, I hurried on and delayed my return until I felt sure the operation was well over with. But alas! the hope of saving his life was a vain one, as he died a few days later.