ho had died during the night. There
they lay, stark and stiff. Upon these cold, dead faces no mourners'
tears would fall; no friends would bear with reverend tread these
honored forms to their last resting-place. Rough pine boxes would soon
cover the faces once the light of some far-away home, careless hands
would place them in their shallow graves, without a prayer, without a
tear. Only the loving hand of nature to plant flowers above them.

For months after entering the service I insisted upon attending every
dead soldier to the grave and reading over him a part of the
burial-service. But it had now become impossible. The dead were past
help; the living _always_ needed succor. But no soldier ever died in
my presence without a whispered prayer to comfort his parting soul. Ah
me! The "prayers for the sick, and those near unto death," are to this
day more familiar to me than any other portion of the Prayer-Book, and
at no time can I hear unmoved the sacred old hymns so often sung
beside dying beds. Passing to my office along the path traversed last
night by the incoming soldiers, I found the snow along the whole
distance stained by their bare, bleeding feet, and the sight made my
heart ache sorely. I think I never in all my life felt so keen a sense
of utter dependence upon a higher Power, or understood so thoroughly
how "vain is the help of man," than when, in the seclusion of my own
room, the events of the night passed in review before me. With a heart
aching with supreme pity, ready to make any sacrifice for the noble
martyrs who, for my sake as well as for that of all Southern women,
had passed unshrinking through inexpressible suffering, never
faltering until laid low by the hand of disease,--I could yet do
nothing. I could not save them one moment of agony, I could not stay
the fleeting breath, nor might I intermit the unceasing care
imperatively demanded by those whom timely ministrations might save,
to give due honor to the dead.

Only an hour or two of rest (broken like the sleep of those of a
household who retire from the side of beloved sufferers, leaving them
to the care of others while they snatch a few moments of the repose
which is needed to prepare them for fresh exertions) and I was once
more on my way to the wards. At the gate of the boarding-house stood
one of the nurses. Again, as often before, I was summoned to a bed of
death. A soldier who had come in only two days before almost in the
last stages