and Richmond, and
return the same day. On these occasions she was warmly and
enthusiastically welcomed by the soldiers, not only for what she
brought, but for the comfort and solace of her presence.

She was often in positions of great peril from whizzing shot and
bursting shell, but was never harmed during these dangerous visits. On
one occasion, she was probably by reason of her black hat and feather,
mistaken for an officer, as she for a moment carelessly showed the upper
part of her person, from a slight eminence near the rifle pits, and was
fired at by one of the enemy's sharp-shooters. The ball lodged in a
tree, close by her side, from which she deliberately dug it out with her
penknife, retaining it as a memento of her escape.

Few of us whose days have been passed in the serene quietude of home,
can imagine the comfort and joy her presence and cheering words brought
to the "boys" undergoing the privations and discomforts of their station
at the "Front," in those days of peril and siege. As she approached, her
name would be heard passing from man to man, with electric swiftness,
and often the shouts that accompanied it, would receive from the enemy
a warlike response in the strange music of the whistling shot, or the
bursting shell.

Through all this she seemed to bear a charmed life. "I never believed I
should be harmed by shot or shell," she says, and her simple faith was
justified.

She even escaped nearly unharmed the fearful peril of the great
explosion at City Point, when, as it is now supposed, by rebel
treachery, the ammunition barge was fired, and hundreds of human beings
without an instant's warning, were hurried into eternity.

When this event occurred, she was on horseback near the landing, and in
turning to flee was struck, probably by a piece of shell, in the side.
Almost as by a miracle she escaped with only a terrible and extensive
bruise, and a temporary paralysis of the lower limbs. The elastic steel
wires of her crinoline, had resisted the deadly force of the blow, which
otherwise would undoubtedly have killed her. A smaller missile, nearly
cut away the string of her hat, which was found next day covered by the
ghastly smear of human blood and flesh, which also sprinkled all her
garments.

After the surrender of Richmond, Mrs. Spencer, with a party of friends,
visited that city, and she records that she experienced a very human
sense of satisfaction, as she saw some rebel prisoners marc