purpose long cherished in faithful hearts, at last
accomplished by patient hands.

"Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Can dim our ray of holy light
That gilds this glorious tomb."

CHAPTER V.

A WOMAN'S RECORD.[5]

(From the _Southern Bivouac_.)

[5] Written in 1883 by Major McDonald, of Louisville, Kentucky,
then editor _Southern Bivouac_.

This record will be found to substantiate in every particular my own
history of the period referred to.

Being inspired by an ardent zeal or a high sense of duty, not a few
noble women during the war arose conspicuous to view. Their gentle
deeds, though done in humble spheres, yet shone like "a bright light
in a low world."

Fair exemplars they were of patriotic virtue, whose acts of devotion
helped much to enshrine in our memories a melancholy past; and they
should not be forgotten. In the March number of the _Bivouac_ was
given a short sketch of a lady who, during the war, tenderly cared for
the sick and suffering Confederates in a Northern prison. It is now
proposed to give the record of one who, animated with a romantic love
for the cause of the South, left a luxurious home and spent nearly
four years in nursing the sick and wounded in Confederate hospitals.

Mrs. Fannie A. Beers was a native of the North, and the child of fond
parents, who gave her every educational advantage, and the means of
acquiring all the accomplishments usual in refined circles.

When very young she was married to her present husband, and before the
war came South to reside at New Orleans. By nature ardent and
susceptible, she readily adapted herself to the surroundings of her
new life, and soon grew to love the people and the land of her
adoption. A few years of happiness passed and then came the sectional
storm. Pull well she knew that it threatened to sunder cherished ties,
but it did not move her from the side of her choice.

When the struggle came at last, and her home was broken up in New
Orleans by the absence of her husband in the field, she returned to
the parental roof, to beguile the time in the companionship of her
mother. But the separation, with the anxiety it brought, became
intolerable; besides, from the positiveness of her opinions and the
warmth of her zeal, she soon became ill at ease in the land of her
birth. So, with her mother's approval, she resolved to face all
perils, and to return and share the