y pillow in the house. It was six by ten inches, stuffed with
straw. His head was supported by two bits of board and a pair of very
muddy boots. He called me, clutched my dress, and plead:

"Mother, can't you get me a blanket, I'm so cold; I could live if I
could get any care!"

I went to the room where the men lay smoking on the blankets; but one of
them wearing a surgeon's shoulderstraps, and speaking in a German
accent, claimed them as his private property, and positively refused to
yield one. The other man was his orderly, and words were useless--they
kept their blankets.

Going into a room behind that, I found a man slightly wounded sitting on
the floor, supporting another who had been shot across the face, and was
totally blind. He called, and when I came and talked with them, said:

"Won't you stay with us?"

"Stay with you?" I replied, "Well, I rather think I will, indeed; I came
to stay, and am one of the folks it is hard to drive away!"

"Oh! thank God; everybody leaves us; they come and promise, and then go
off, but I know you will stay; you will do something for us!"

It was so pitiful, that for an instant my courage failed, and I said:

"I will certainly stay with you; but fear it is little I can do for
you."

"Oh, you can speak to us; you do not know how good your voice sounds. I
have not seen a woman in three months; what is your name?"

"My name is mother."

"Mother; oh my God! I have not seen my mother for two years. Let me feel
your hand?"

I took between both of mine his hand, covered with mud and blood and
smoke of battle, and told him I was not only going to stay with them,
but was going to send him back to his regiment, with a lot more who were
lying around here doing nothing, when there was so much fighting to be
done; I had come on purpose to make them well, and they might make up
their minds to it. My own courage had revived, and I must revive theirs;
I could surely keep them alive until help should come. By softening the
torturing bandages on his face, I made him more comfortable; and in an
adjoining room found another man with a thigh stump, who had been served
by field-surgeons, as the thieves served the man going from Jerusalem to
Jericho: i.e., "stripped him, left him naked and half dead." Those men
surely did not go into battle without clothes; and why they should have
been sent out of the surgeon's hands without enough of even
underclothing to cover them, is the question I h