I never saw him so earnest, so sorrowful, so deeply moved.

That effort seemed to be the straw which broke the camel's back, and I
was so ill as to demand medical attendance. For this I sent to Campbell.
Dr. Kelly came, but his forte was surgery, and my case was left with Dr.
True, who had had longer practice in medicine. They both decided that I
had been inoculated with gangrene while dressing wounds, and for some
weeks I continued to sink. I began to think my illness fatal, and asked
the doctor, who said:

"I have been thinking I ought to tell you that if you have any unsettled
business you should attend to it."

I had a feeling of being generally distributed over the bed, of being a
mass of pulp without any central force, but I had had a letter that day
from my daughter, who was with her father and grandmother in Swissvale,
and wanted to come to me, and the thought came: "Does God mean to make
my child an orphan, that others may receive their children by my
death?" Then I had a strange sensation of a muster, a gathering of
scattered life-force, and when it all came together it made a protest; I
signed to the doctor, who put his ear to my lips, and I said:

"Doctor True, I shall live to be an hundred and twenty years old!"

He took up the lamp, threw the light on my face, and peered anxiously
into it, and I looked straight into his eyes, and said:

"I will!"

He laughed and set down the lamp, saying:

"Then you must get over this!"

"You must get me over it. Bring Dr. Kelly!"

Next morning, I had them carry me into a larger room, where the morning
sun shone on me, and ten days after, started for Pennsylvania, where I
spent three weeks with my old Swissvale neighbors, Col. Hawkins and Wm.
S. Haven.

When I returned to Washington, I found an official document, a
recommendation from the Quarter-Master General, of my dismissal for
absence without leave. It was addressed to Secretary Stanton, who had
written on the outside:

"Respectfully referred to Mrs. Swisshelm, by Edwin M. Stanton."

I went back to work, and learned that Mrs. Gen. Barlow had died of
typhoid fever, in Washington. No man died more directly for the
Government. Thousands who fell on the battle-field, exhibited less
courage and devotion to that service, and did less to secure its
success. I know not where her body lies, but wherever it does, no
decoration-day should pass in which her memory is not crowned with
immortelles.

She died at a