CHAPTER XX.
DIARY.
Saturday, February 4, 1865.
To-day being so bright and beautiful, yet so muddy, that as I go from tent to tent I lodge in the mire at times, I almost wish myself at home, where I should not be obliged to go out—still I am content, and happy to be doing some good to these poor fellows, who have neither wife, mother, or sister near them to listen to plans for the future, or to the history of the past.
I am alone of women in the Ninth Corps, yet I was never treated with more consideration than by these rough soldiers, with bronzed and scarred faces, telling that a hero has fought and bled for his country. A year and a half has gone by, and I have not seen my girls. When I think of them, and of home, how I long for the wings of a bird that I might fly away and be near them, to shelter and comfort with a mother's love.
Shall I write it? O Journal, bear witness to the weakness of women, I wish the war was over, and I could sleep upon a bed of feathers, and sit within the arms of a cushioned rocking-chair!
How the cunning things of this earth entangle the
