up a little girl who had been in Baltimore during the late Rebel inroad.
It made me think of the time when my own mother, at that time six years
old, was hurried off from Boston, then occupied by the British soldiers,
to Newburyport, and heard the people saying that "the redcoats were
coming, killing and murdering everybody as they went along." Frederick
looked cheerful for a place that had so recently been in an enemy's
hands. Here and there a house or shop was shut up, but the national
colors were waving in all directions, and the general aspect was peaceful
and contented. I saw no bullet-marks or other sign of the fighting which
had gone on in the streets. The Colonel's lady was taken in charge by a
daughter of that hospitable family to which we had been commended by its
head, and I proceeded to inquire for wounded officers at the various
temporary hospitals.

At the United States Hotel, where many were lying, I heard mention of an
officer in an upper chamber, and, going there, found Lieutenant Abbott,
of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers, lying ill with what looked
like typhoid fever. While there, who should come in but the almost
ubiquitous Lieutenant Wilkins, of the same Twentieth, whom I had met
repeatedly before on errands of kindness or duty, and who was just from
the battle-ground. He was going to Boston in charge of the body of the
lamented Dr. Revere, the Assistant Surgeon of the regiment, killed on the
field. From his lips I learned something of the mishaps of the regiment.
My Captain's wound he spoke of as less grave than at first thought; but
he mentioned incidentally having heard a story recently that he was
killed,--a fiction, doubtless,--a mistake,--a palpable absurdity,--not to
be remembered or made any account of. Oh no! but what dull ache is this
in that obscurely sensitive region, somewhere below the heart, where the
nervous centre called the semilunar ganglion lies unconscious of itself
until a great grief or a mastering anxiety reaches it through all the
non-conductors which isolate it from ordinary impressions? I talked
awhile with Lieutenant Abbott, who lay prostrate, feeble, but
soldier-like and uncomplaining, carefully waited upon by a most excellent
lady, a captain's wife, New England born, loyal as the Liberty on a
golden ten-dollar piece, and of lofty bearing enough to have sat for that
goddess's portrait. She had stayed in Frederick through the Rebel
inroad, and kept the s