the military hospitals during the late war. She was promptly at her work, and in circumstances that would soon have discouraged her if the impulse which brought her thither had been but a romantic fancy. She had charge at first, all inexperienced as she was, of a ward containing forty beds, where she spent her days, as she remarks, in "washing faces, serving rations, giving medicine, and sitting in a very hard chair, with pneumonia on one side, diphtheria on the other, two typhoids opposite, and a dozen dilapidated patriots hopping, lying, and lounging about, all staring more or less at the new 'Nuss'."
What a change from the tranquil life of a New England home! She almost desired the arrival of wounded men, since unhappily there were such, for there was nothing heroic in rheumatism or liver complaint.
The wounded men came all too soon.
In the gray of early morning, but three days after her arrival, she was roused by a hurried knock at her door, and an excited black contraband of six years thrust in his woolly head and told her that forty ambulances, filled with the wounded from Fredericksburg, were at the door, and the matron required her help at once.
She hastened down, and was greeted as she descended by dreadful odors, which she was told would thenceforth pervade the place, since there was no way to get rid of them. On reaching the large hall, she found numbers of soldiers lying about on the floor or seated with their backs against the wall, while more were continually arriving, some staggering in supported upon rude crutches, others borne upon stretchers or carried in men's arms. Nurses, surgeons, and attendants were hurrying to and fro, and the scene was one of horror and confusion. She remained a moment, dazed with wonder and compassion, looking on, and then repaired to her ward to receive orders from
