Page 114 - Arkansas Confederate Women

HOSPITAL WORK OF JUDGE JAMES GREEN AND

WIFE.

By Their Son, B. W. Green, of Little Rock.

In the early spring of 1863, my parents were living in North

Georgia near Dalton. They sold their plantation and began an
overland journey with their negroes to Arkansas, where they
owned a cotton plantation in Hempstead county. Before the war
between the states they had sent a part of their negroes in charge
of two sons, to this State and they wished to unite their forces
on this cotton plantation, but the movement of General Grant's
army south from Memphis, made the risk of crossing the Miss-

issippi river too great. My father, Judge James Green, was too

old to enter the Confederate army but his heart was in the work,
he having furnished six sons for the service and he therefore

determined to offer his service to the Confederate States in
hospital work. His services were accepted and he was assigned
to duty at Tunnel Hill, Georgia, as superintendent of the hospi-

tal. My mother had been accustomed to the ease' and comfort

which wealth affords, but seeing the great need for skillful nurs-
ing in the hospital, she determined to undertake the post of Mat-

ron under my father. She gave herself up wholly to this duty day
and night to the end of the war. When Sherman advanced

against Dalton the hospital was removed to South Georgia,

and when Hood advanced into Tenessee the hospital was

sent to Columbus, Mississippi. After the evacuation of

Tennessee, the army being sent to North Carolina, the
hospital was sent to Forsythe, Georgia, and remained

there until the end of the war. My mother did not spare her-

self when there was suffering and sick soldiers to be nursed;
she went into the small-pox wards and where there were other
contagious diseases without fear and with her own hands minis-
tered to their wants. After one of our great battles had been
fought there was a stream of wounded men who were sent from

the front and cared for in the hospital by my parents. They