She says:  “Round the great stove was gathered the dreariest group I ever saw,—­ragged, gaunt, and pale, mud to the knees, with bloody bandages untouched since put on days before; many bundled up in blankets, coats being lost or useless, and all wearing that disheartened look which proclaimed defeat more plainly than any telegram, of the Burnside blunder.  I pitied them so much, I dared not speak to them.  I yearned to serve the dreariest of them all.

“Presently there came an order, ’Tell them to take off socks, coats, and shirts; scrub them well, put on clean shirts, and the attendants will finish them off, and lay them in bed.’

“I chanced to light on a withered old Irishman,” she says, “wounded in the head, which caused that portion of his frame to be tastefully laid out like a garden, the bandages being the walks, and his hair the shrubbery.  He was so overpowered by the honor of having a lady wash him, as he expressed it, that he did nothing but roll up his eyes and bless me, in an irresistible style which was too much for my sense of the ludicrous, so we laughed together; and when I knelt down to take off his shoes, he wouldn’t hear of my touching ‘them dirty craters.’  Some of them took the performance like sleepy children, leaning their tired heads against me as I worked; others looked grimly scandalized, and several of the roughest colored like bashful girls.”

When food was brought, she fed one of the badly wounded men, and offered the same help to his neighbor.  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, “I don’t think I’ll ever eat again, for I’m shot in the stomach.  But I’d like a drink of water, if you ain’t too busy.”

“I rushed away,” she says; “but the water pails were gone to be refilled, and it was some time before they reappeared.  I did not forget my patient, meanwhile, and, with the first mugful, hurried back to him.  He seemed asleep; but something in the tired white face caused me to listen at his lips for a breath.  None came.  I touched his forehead; it was cold; and then I knew that, while he waited, a better nurse than I had given him a cooler draught, and healed him with a touch.  I laid the sheet over the quiet sleeper, whom no noise could now disturb; and, half an hour later, the bed was empty.”

With cheerful face and warm heart she went among the soldiers, now writing letters, now washing faces, and now singing lullabies.  One day a tall, manly fellow was brought in.  He seldom spoke, and uttered no complaint.  After a little, when his wounds were being dressed, Miss Alcott observed the big tears roll down his cheeks and drop on the floor.

She says:  “My heart opened wide and took him in, as, gathering the bent head in my arms, as freely as if he had been a child, I said, ‘Let me help you bear it, John!’ Never on any human countenance have I seen so swift and beautiful a look of gratitude, surprise, and comfort as that which answered me more eloquently than the whispered—­