emed to have a
reverential affection,--some of them a sort of worship, which confused
Father Abraham and Massa Abraham in one general cry for blessings.
Whatever else they asked for, they must have strength, and comfort, and
blessing for 'Massa Lincoln.' Very little care was taken of these poor
men. Those who were ill during our stay were looked after by one of the
officers of the Commission. They were grateful for every little thing.
Mrs. ---- went into the town and hunted up several dozen bright
handkerchiefs, hemmed them, and sent them over to be distributed the
next night after meeting. They were put on the table in the tent, and
one by one, the men came up to get them. Purple, and blue, and yellow
the handkerchiefs were, and the desire of every man's heart fastened
itself on a yellow one; they politely made way for each other,
though,--one man standing back to let another pass up first, although he
ran the risk of seeing the particular pumpkin-color that riveted his
eyes taken from before them. When the distribution is over, each man
tied his head up in his handkerchief, and they sang one more hymn,
keeping time all round, with blue and purple and yellow nods, and
thanking and blessing the white people in 'their basket and in their
store,' as much as if the cotton handkerchiefs had all been gold leaf.
One man came over to our tent next day, to say, 'Missus, was it you who
sent me that present? I never had anything so beautiful in all my life
before;' and he only had a blue one, too.

"Among our wounded soldiers one night, came an elderly man, sick,
wounded, and crazy, singing and talking about home. We did what we could
for him, and pleased him greatly with a present of a red flannel shirt,
drawers, and red calico dressing-gown, all of which he needed, and in
which he dressed himself up, and then wrote a letter to his wife, made
it into a little book with gingham covers, and gave it to one of the
gentlemen to mail for him. The next morning he was sent on with the
company from the Lodge; and that evening two tired women came into our
camp--his wife and sister, who hurried on from their home to meet him,
arriving just too late. Fortunately we had the queer little gingham book
to identify him by, and when some one said, 'It is the man, you know,
who screamed so,' the poor wife was certain about him. He had been crazy
before the war, but not for two years, now, she said. He had been
fretting for home since he was hurt;