e, and an
excellent manager of household affairs. The sickness of some members of
her family delayed her for a time, but when this obstacle was removed,
she felt that she could not longer be detained from her chosen work. It
was July, 1862, the period when the Army of the Potomac exhausted by its
wearisome march and fearful battles of the seven days, lay almost
helpless at Harrison's Landing. The sick poisoned by the malaria of the
Chickahominy Swamps, and the wounded, shattered and maimed wrecks of
humanity from the great battles, were being sent off by thousands to the
hospitals of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and New
England, and yet other thousands lay in the wretched field hospitals
around the Landing, with but scant care, and in utter wretchedness and
misery. The S. R. Spaulding, one of the steamers assigned to the United
States Sanitary Commission for its Hospital Transport Service, had
brought to Philadelphia a heavy cargo of the sick and wounded, and was
about to return for another, when Mrs. Lee, supplied with stores by the
Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee, and her personal friends,
embarked upon it for Harrison's Landing, where she was to be associated
with Mrs. John Harris in caring for the soldiers. The Spaulding arrived
in due time in the James River, and lay off in the stream while the
Ruffin house was burning. On landing, Mrs. Lee found Mrs. Harris, and
the Rev. Isaac O. Sloan, one of the Agents of the Christian Commission
ready to welcome her to the toilsome duties that were before her.
Wretched indeed was the condition of the poor sick men, lying in
mildewed, leaky tents without floors, and the pasty tenacious mud ankle
deep around them, the raging thirst and burning fever of the marshes
consuming them, with only the warm and impure river water to drink, and
little even of this; with but a small supply of medicines, and no food
or delicacies suitable for the sick, the bean soup, unctuous with rancid
pork fat, forming the principal article of low diet; uncheered by kind
words or tender sympathy, it is hardly matter of surprise that hundreds
of as gallant men as ever entered the army died here daily.

The supplies of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and those sent
to Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Lee, from the Ladies' Aid Society, and the Union
Volunteer Refreshment Committee, administered by such skilful nurses as
Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Fales, Mrs. Husband, and Miss Hall, soo