h "Matter enough, you miserable
scoundrel! Here these men, any one of them worth a thousand of you, are
suffered to starve and die, because you want to be off upon a drunk!
Pull off your shoulder-straps," she continued, as he tried feebly to
laugh off her reproaches, "pull off your shoulder-straps, for you shall
not stay in the army a week longer." The surgeon still laughed, but he
turned pale, for he knew her power. She was as good as her word. Within
three days she had caused his discharge. He went to headquarters and
asked to be reinstated. Major-General Sherman, who was then in command,
listened patiently, and then inquired who had procured his discharge. "I
was discharged in consequence of misrepresentation," answered the
surgeon, evasively. "But who caused your discharge?" persisted the
general. "Why," said the surgeon, hesitatingly, "I suppose it was that
woman, that Mrs. Bickerdyke." "Oh!" said Sherman, "well, if it was her,
I can do nothing for you. She ranks me."

We may say in this connection, that the commanding generals of the
armies in which Mrs. Bickerdyke performed her labors, Generals Sherman,
Hurlburt, Grant, and Sherman again, in his great march, having become
fully satisfied how invaluable she was in her care of the private
soldiers, were always ready to listen to her appeals and to grant her
requests. She was, in particular, a great favorite with both Grant and
Sherman, and had only to ask for anything she needed to get it, if it
was within the power of the commander to obtain it. It should be said in
justice to her, that she never asked anything for herself, and that her
requests were always for something that would promote the welfare of the
men.

Some months after the discharge of the assistant surgeon, the surgeon in
charge of the hospital, who was a martinet in discipline, and somewhat
irritated for some cause, resolved, in order to annoy her, to compel the
discharge of the negro nurses and attendants, and require her to employ
convalescent soldiers, as the other hospitals were doing. For this
purpose he procured from the medical director an order that none but
convalescent soldiers should be employed as nurses in the Memphis
hospitals. The order was issued, probably, without any knowledge of the
annoyance it was intended to cause Mrs. Bickerdyke. It was to take
effect at nine o'clock the following morning. Mrs. Bickerdyke heard of
it just at night. The Gayoso Hospital was nearly three-fourths