t. Woman like, she then wanted to know if anybody
enlisted. Things were getting pretty close home now. The ice must be
broken. I told her that several persons enlisted, and gave her the names
of some of them; and, after a moment's hesitation, I said, "I don't know
what you will think, or say, when I tell you that I was one of them, and
that I am going to the war." Judge of my surprise, and of my own
depreciated estimate of what I had previously considered my great
patriotism, when she exclaimed, "_Well, all I have got to say is, that if
I had been a man, I should have gone long ago_." The ice was pretty
effectually broken now, and what I feared might prove a council of war,
was turned into a council of peace. That speech settled the whole business
for me, and I was ready, yea, anxious, to shoulder my musket and go "to
the front" immediately; in fact, I wished I had gone before. Woman's work
in the war! I fear it has not been fully appreciated or justly
acknowledged. The patriotism, the heroism and the sacrifice were not
confined to the soldiers. They knew little of the inexpressible longings,
the fears, the prayers, the yearning hopes, the terrible suspense, of
those at home who loved them. What pen can truthfully describe the weary
watching and waiting of the wives and mothers, the daughters and sisters,
during those long four years of fire and blood? God bless them, one and
all!

Several weeks elapsed between the time of enlistment and going into camp.
At last we were ordered to report on Dexter Training Ground, in
Providence, the name of the camp being "Camp Stevens," in honor of Major
General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who was killed September 1st, 1862, in the
battle of Chantilly, Virginia, while leading his division in a charge. To
very many of the members of the regiment, their first military experience
began on Camp Stevens, and truthfulness to history compels me to add that
with no small number of the enlisted men it ended there, they being unable
to "pass muster," or, in other words, to endure the severe ordeal to which
they were subjected by the chief mustering officer, Captain William
Silvey, of the regular army. I had entertained fears from the start that I
would be "thrown out" on account of a supposed pulmonary difficulty. I
"braced up" as best I could for the examination. Captain Silvey looked me
squarely in the face as I stood in line, and placing one of his hands upon
my breast, he struck with the other a b