oung, calm, strong, refined, was Miss Gray of
Columbia Hospital, and staid with me through a long hard trial, in which
she proved that her price was above rubies.

Next morning I found on one of the guards, young Johnson, the son of an
old Wilkinsburg schoolmate. Hoped I had so checked the decay and final
destroyers which had already taken hold of him, that he might live.
Wrote to his people, and saw him at noon transferred with the other
patients, the surgeons and stylish lady nurses, to a large hospital
boat; when Miss Gray and I returned in the transport to Fredericksburg.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

TAKE FINAL LEAVE OF FREDERICKSBURG.

I cannot remember if our boat lay at the Fredericksburg wharf one day or
two; but she might start any moment, and those who went ashore took the
risk of being left, as this was the last boat. The evacuation was almost
complete, and we waited the result of expeditions to gather up our
wounded from field hospitals at the front. We were liable to attack at
any moment, and were protected by a gunboat which lay close along side.

There was plenty to do on board, but in doing it I must see the piles of
stores on the wharf brought there too late to be of service to our
wounded, and now to be abandoned to the Rebels. There were certainly one
hundred bales of hay, which would have more than replaced all that was
withheld by United States bayonets from our own men in their extremity.
I soon learned after entering Fredericksburg, that our Commissaries were
issuing stores without stint to the citizens; went and saw them carry
off loads of everything there was to give; and when those one hundred
and eighty-two Union soldiers were literally starving in the old
Theater, Union soldiers were dealing out delicacies to Rebels, while
others guarded the meanest article of their property, and kept it from
our men, even when it was necessary to save life.

I consulted several old Sanitary Commission men, who told me it was
always so when Grant was at the front; that he was then in absolute
command; that Patrick, the Provost Marshal, was his friend, and would be
sustained; and that we must be quiet or we would be ordered out of
Fredericksburg.

Gen. Grant may have been loyal to the Union cause, but it has always
seemed to me that in fighting its battles, he was moved by the pure love
of fighting, and took that side which could furnish him the most means
to gratify his passion for war. His Generalship was c