quantity of dried fruit, which served for supper, reaching the
Hygeia wet through and through, _every garment_ saturated.
Disrobed, and bathing with bay rum, was glad to lie down, every
bone aching, and head and heart throbbing, unwilling to cease work
where so much was to be done, and yet wholly unable to do more.
There I lay, with the sick, wounded, and dying all around, and
slept from sheer exhaustion, the last sounds falling upon my ear
being groans from the operating room."

Her ministrations to the wounded on the Vanderbilt were unexpectedly
prolonged by the inability of the officers to get the necessary supplies
on board, but two days after she was on the Knickerbocker, a Sanitary
Commission Transport, and on her way to White House Landing where in
company with Miss Charlotte Bradford, she spent the whole night on the
Transport Louisiana, dressing and caring for the wounded. When she left
the boat at eleven o'clock the next night she was obliged to wash all
her skirts which were saturated with the mingled blood of the Union and
Confederate soldiers which covered the floor, as she kneeled between
them to wash their faces. She had torn up all her spare clothing which
could be of use to them for bandages and compresses. From White House
she proceeded to the battle-ground of Fair Oaks, and presently pitched
her tent on the Dudley Farm, near Savage Station, to be near the group
of field hospitals, to which the wounded in the almost daily skirmishes
and the sick smitten with that terrible Chickahominy fever were sent.

The provision made by the Medical Bureau of the Government at this time
for the care and comfort of the wounded and fever-stricken was small and
often inappropriate. Where tents were provided, they were either of the
wedge pattern or the bivouacking tent of black cloth, and in the hot sun
of a Virginia summer absorbed the sun's rays till they were like ovens;
many of the sick were put into the cabins and miserable shanties of the
vicinity, and not unfrequently in the attics of these, where amid the
intense heat they were left without food or drink except when the
Sanitary Commission's agents or some of the ladies connected with other
organizations, like Mrs. Harris, ministered to their necessities. One
case of this kind, not by any means the worst, but told with a simple
pathos deserves to be quoted:

"Passing a forlorn-looking house, we were told by a sentinel t