Mrs. Hopkins watched over me with the tenderness of a mother.  But she also had hands and heart full.  Her cautions, with those of other friends, bore not a feather’s weight in comparison with the increasing demands of my sick.  But one day I fell fainting while on duty.  Thus began a severe attack of nervous fever, which brought me very low.  Can I ever forget the tender, devoted nursing of some of the ladies of Richmond!  Truly it seemed as if “God had sent angelic legions,” whose sweet faces bent above me day after day, whose kindly voices pervaded my feverish dreams.  The same care usually given to sick soldiers was now lavished upon me.  After several days I was able to leave my bed, but, finding myself totally unfit for duty, and being unwilling to remain a burden upon my kind friends, I decided to go to my husband’s relatives in Alabama, though fully intending to return to my labors in Richmond as soon as my strength should be restored.

My husband having been transferred to the Army of Tennessee, where he continued to serve until the close of the war, this plan was changed.  I have never since revisited the scene of my earliest service to the Confederacy.  Perhaps it is as well that I did not, for memory preserves at least this one picture, more full of light than shadow, because always softly illumined by the beautiful star which had not then begun to wane,—­“the star of Hope.”

CHAPTER II.

ALABAMA.

"Here we rest."

The hoarse panting of the steam-pipes, the clangor of bells, the splashing of the paddle-wheels, died away in the distance as I stood upon the landing watching the receding boat steaming down the Alabama River on its way to Mobile.

Ah, how lovely appeared the woodland scenery around me!  The sombre green of pines, and the equally dark though glossy foliage of oaks, were beautifully enlivened by lighter greens, and by the brilliant hues of the sassafras-tree.  Here climbed in tantalizing beauty—­tempting as insidious vice, which attracts but to destroy—­the poison-oak vine.  Cherokee roses starred the hedges, or, adventurously climbing the highest trees, flung downward graceful pendants.  Upon the edge of the bank stood a lofty pine, branchless and dead, but, by the law of compensation which nature delights to execute, clothed to the very top with closely-clinging vines of mingled green and brightest red.

Standing upon the bluff above the river, drinking in the beauty of the scene, listening to the murmur of waters, the song of birds, the weird music of the pines, I repeated to myself the sweet name Alabama with a new sense of its fitness:  sweet quiet and restfulness seemed to belong to the spot.

Surely, the noise of battle, the suffering and sorrow I had so lately witnessed, could never invade this abode of peace.  Walking towards the house where I was to await conveyance to the plantation of my uncle, I heard the moaning of one apparently in deep distress.  At the door the lady of the house appeared, with red eyes and a sorrowful countenance.  Said she, “Just listen at Mrs. ——.  Her son went off on the boat to join the army, and ’pears like she can’t get over it. She kept up splendid until after he got off.”  I sat listening, not daring to intrude upon such sorrow.