From the Richmond Examiner, 5/18/1864

THE WOUNDED OF THE TWO ARMIES. – Nothing has struck us as more remarkable in the recent battles than the opposite degrees of emotion with which the Yankee and Confederate wounded bear up under the most painful wounds. Hospital No. 21, Cary street, is the recepticle of the Yankee wounded that fall into our hands, and, at all hours, cries and groans of distress can be heard issuing from its somber wards. Enter it, and the whine and groan and earful contortion of countenance to be met with on every hand is fearful to behold. – Frequently the patients have importuned the surgeons to shoot them, to put them out of their misery of mind and body. In a hospital of Confederate wounded, the sights and sounds are vastly different, and if not pleasant, are far from being revolting. Pleasant faces are to be met with, groans and sighs are repressed, and the wounded joke and laugh about their wounds as though something to be proud of.

Whence this difference of endurance? Is it not the consciousness on the one hand that they are engaged in a just and holy cause, and on the other that they are engaged in a wicked and unjust crusade, and that their wounds are a just retribution for this folly and crime?

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