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Death & Transfigurations. In his rage against the prewar politicians he had dreamed of plain American workmen ending machine politics and voting for some "heroic, shrewd, full-informed, healthy-bodied, middleaged, beard-faced American blacksmith," who would cross the Alleghenies and march into Washington. Now it seemed to him that America lay in the hospital, feeble, bloody and bandaged. He had thought to beat the alarm and urge relentless war; he found himself soothing the wounded or silently watching the dead. He could no longer endure the poppy-show goddesses and the pretty blue and gold interior of the Capitol because he was filled from top to toe with scenes and thoughts of the hospitals. He was proud when the doctors told him he had saved many lives. With an air of redis covering something that he had always known, and finding new confirmation for a faith that he had never lost, he wrote that the American soldier is full of affection and the yearning for affection. In the deep despair of the Wilderness campaigns he wrote to his mother that of the many he had seen die, he had not seen or heard of one who met death with terror. He knew that he would treat wounded Southern soldiers as gently. The faces of the dead were transfigured. He stepped out of his tent one grey, dim daybreak, and walked in the cool fresh air to the hospital tent, uncovering the features of three of the dead — an elderly man, gaunt and grim, a young boy, and a third —Young man 7 think I know you — 7 think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.