The Wound Dresser

In these moving letters a celebrated poet reaches out across the battlefield to his mother, sharing the day‑to‑day reality of the Union’s great army of the wounded. He writes from the crowded hospitals and convalescent camps that surround Washington, where thousands of young men—farmers, mechanics, city workers—lie in fevered rows. His observations capture the frantic pace of illness, the endless stream of typhoid and dysentery, and the quiet moments when a gentle word or a small act of care eases a soldier’s suffering.

The correspondence is raw and immediate, written on the spot as the sights, sounds, and smells of the wards unfold. Readers hear a voice that balances a poet’s lyrical sensitivity with the practical demands of tending to the injured, offering a rare, human portrait of the Civil War’s medical front. The letters invite listeners to feel the compassion, the exhaustion, and the resilient spirit that defined those bleak yet hopeful days.