prevalence
of disease was attributed by the surgeons to the constant rains,
the warm winter, and incessant labor day and night on the
fortifications.

Though up to this time I had enjoyed uninterrupted good health, the
pneumonia now seized me violently; and after a week of "heroic
treatment," I was put into a box-car and started for the hospital at
Nashville. This was the dreariest ride of my life thus far. Alone,
in darkness, suffering excruciating pain, going perhaps to die and
be buried in an unhonored grave, my "Christmas" was any thing but
"merry." And yet the month following my arrival in Nashville was
the most pleasant, on many accounts, that I had yet spent in Dixie.
I was carefully and tenderly nursed by Drs. Stout and Gambling and
the ladies of Nashville, who showed the true woman's heart in their
assiduous care of the poor suffering men, prostrated by disease and
home-sickness. Some of the ladies were strong Secessionists; but I
thought then, as I believe now, that most of them, not all, would
have shown the same kindness to any suffering soldiers who might
have come under their notice. I knew my mother would be a Good
Samaritan to a dying Rebel; why should not they to wounded
Unionists.

In two weeks I was convalescent, and yet I daily exhausted my
returning strength by gaining a knowledge of the Nashville
founderies, machine-shops, bridges, capitol, industry, and whatever
I thought worth visiting.

At this juncture I also found an old friend of my father's, who with
his interesting family did much to make my days of recovery pleasant
days; supplying many little things which a soldier's wardrobe and
an invalid's appetite needed. How much of a Rebel he was I could
never exactly make out, but I think his regard for my family held
deep debate with either love or fear of the ruling authorities, to
settle the question whether he should aid me to reach home. At
least, there was not in what he said in our frequent interviews that
entire outspokenness which would have prompted me to make a
confidant of him; hence I made no headway toward escaping to the
North. Indeed, I considered it the only safe way, in talking with
him, to show a guarded zeal for the Southern cause, lest, if he were
a hearty Rebel, he might betray me. I am now inclined to the opinion
that I was too suspicious of him, and that he was at heart a Union
man. At all events, I shall ever be grateful for his kindness to me.

I may as well record