30                        
                         Sickness
artillery.  The doctor told me that if
I didn�t get better my dysentery would pro-
bably develope into Typhoid fever when I should
die.  I thought this very probable and
crawling out from my boxes, in the Quar-
termasters tent, into the wet, black night,
time after time, leaning my back against a
tree � for I was too weak, even to squat un-
supported � listening to the rush of the rain,
  I fancied how the news of my death would
reach Hannah and my mother in England.
Once, in returning, I stumbled, and crawl-
ed back on my hands and knees.  It was
a dreary time and I hardly thought to
live to write of it as I do now.
                          June.
     1 Sunday.  Sick all the morning and
trailing afternoon.  Then to McClellan�s
headquarters to telegraph to the Tribune
that I intended to return to New York.
This message I accomplished after running
the gauntlet of some official snobbery � I
wrote, also, to Wilkeson, Painter and Bowery-
em.  Returning to the 7th Maine had ano-
ther dreary night.  Whittemore returned,
giving an account of the horrible state of