but this hideousness must have been her recommendation, as
she could not have been more than twenty years old.

From the engine house I went to the Methodist church. Miss Hancock had
been detailed to the General Hospital, just being established, and I
found a house full of men in a sad condition. Nine o'clock, on a hot
morning, and no wounds dressed; bandages dry and hard, men thirsty and
feverish, nurses out watching that stream pouring through the city, and
patients helpless and despondent.

I got a basin of water and a clean rag, never cared for sponges, and
went from one to another, dripping water in behind those bandages to
ease the torment of lint splints, brought drinks and talked to call
their attention from the indefinite dread which filled the air, and got
up considerable interest in--I do not remember what--but something which
set them to talking.

Some wounds I dressed, and while engaged on one, a man called from the
other side of the house to know what the fun was all about, when the
man whose wound I was attending placed a hand on each of his sides,
screamed with laughter, and replied:

"Oh, Jim! do get her to dress your wound, for I swear, she'd make a dead
man laugh!"

I found some of the nurses; a surgeon came in who would, I thought,
attend to them, and I went back to my post to find every man on duty.

It was near sundown when we heard that this backward movement was a
"change of base;" but to me it seemed more like looking for a base, as
there had been none to change. The stream thickened toward nightfall,
and continued until two o'clock next morning; so that our army was
twenty-four hours passing through Fredericksburg; and in that time I do
not think a man strayed off on to any other street! All poured down that
side street, turned that corner, and went on down Princess Ann.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

PRAYERS ENOUGH AND TO SPARE.

The next evening, after hearing of the battle of Spottsylvania, and
while waiting to know if it had been renewed, I sat after sundown on the
door-step of our quarters, when an orderly hurried up and inquired for
the Christian Commission. A lieutenant was dying, and wanted to see a
preacher. I directed the messenger, but doubted if he would find a
preacher, as I had seen nothing of any save a Catholic priest, with whom
I had formed an alliance; and I went to stay with the dying man, who was
alone.

I found him nervous and tired, with nothing to hinder his return