anks and Island, were engaged with
the Union gunboats. The firing was incessant and protracted, but not
very disastrous. At last the firing from one of the gunboats resulted in
the killing and wounding of a number of the enemy, which last were
brought on board the Louisiana for care. After remaining there ten days,
the Louisiana returned to Cairo, and receiving on board the wounded from
Mound City Hospital, carried them to Cincinnati. Mrs. Colfax and her
friends were very busy in the care of these poor men, many of them very
low, giving unceasing attentions to them, and even then feeling that
they had not done half enough.

Immediately after their return to Cairo, they left for Savannah and
Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee River. They took from the latter
place two hundred and fifty men, leaving again before the battle of
Shiloh. This took place immediately after they left, and they ran up to
St. Louis, landed their freight of wounded, and returned immediately for
another load.

Two hundred and seventy-five desperately wounded men from the battle of
Shiloh, formed this load. They quickly made their way Northward with
their freight of misery and suffering. This was beyond the power of the
imagination to conceive, and the nurses were too busy in their cares to
sleep or eat. The sorrowful labor was at last performed, the wounded
were transferred to the hospitals at St. Louis, and Mrs. Colfax returned
to her duties there.

After remaining some time in the Fifth Street Hospital, and making
occasional trips on the Hospital-boats, Mrs. Colfax was sent to the
Hospital at Jefferson Barracks, where she remained a long time, and
where her services, so eminently kind, efficient and womanly, met the
success they so much deserved.

She remained in the service as a hospital nurse two years and a half.
Except while on the hospital boats, and during brief stays at the
various hospitals of the South-west, while attached to the Transport
Service, she spent the entire time at Fifth Street Hospital, St. Louis,
and at Jefferson Barracks. In each and every place her services were
alike meritorious, and though she encountered many annoyances, and
unpleasant incidents, she does not now regret the time and labor she
bestowed in doing her share of the woman's work of the war.

Like all earnest, unselfish workers, in this eminently unselfish
service, Mrs. Colfax delights to bear testimony to the efficient labors
of others.

All who work