sights
that we have rarely seen equaled even in the stronger sex, and which,
when united with a tender sympathy, as in her case, makes the model
nurse. The feeling of horror which shrinks from the sight of agony and
vents itself in vapid exclamations, she rightly deemed had no place in
the character of one who proposes to do anything. So putting this aside
she learned to be happy in the hospital, and consequently made others
happy. Never in our observation has this first condition of success in
nursing been so completely met. It became so intense a satisfaction to
her to lessen, in ever so slight a degree, the misery of a sick or
wounded soldier that the horror of the case seemed never to occur to
her. It was often remarked that "Miss Hattie was never quite so happy as
when administering medicine or dressing a wound."

From Benton Barracks she was ordered in the autumn of 1863 to Nashville,
Tennessee, where she remained a short time and was then ordered to
Vicksburg, Mississippi, to assist in conducting a Soldiers' Home. Here
she remained until the close of the war. How faithfully she discharged
her duties, first as assistant and then as principal Matron, the one
hundred and fifteen thousand guests who were entertained there during
her stay know, and the living can testify. Her position for much of the
time was an extremely responsible and laborious one, the capacities of
the Home being sometimes extended to the accommodation of six hundred
men, and averaging, for nearly the whole period of her stay, two hundred
daily. The multiplicity of duties in the charge of the household affairs
of such an institution, with the uncertain assistance to be found in
such a place, may be better imagined than told. Under her satisfactory
management the Vicksburg Home acquired an enviable reputation, and was
the favorite stopping-place on the river. The great difficulty in
conducting a Soldiers' Home in time of war, as every one knows who has
been connected with one, is to keep it neat and clean, to have the
floors, the tables, the beds sufficiently respectable to remind the
soldier of the home he has left. Nothing but ceaseless vigilance could
do this at Vicksburg, as men were constantly arriving from filthy camps,
and still filthier prisons, covered not with greenbacks but with what
was known there as the rebel "currency." But on any one of the hundreds
of beds that filled the dormitories of this Home our most fastidious
reader could h