“They throng to the martial summons,
    To the loud, triumphant strain;
  And the dear bright eyes of long-dead friends
    Come to the heart again.

  “They come with the ringing bugle
    And the deep drum’s mellow roar,
  Till the soul is faint with longing
    For the hands we clasp no more!

  “Oh, band in the pine-wood cease
    Or the heart will melt in tears,
  For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips
    And the voices of old years!”

When, at last, we were released from durance vile, the Confederate army had retreated.  Of course, the hospitals must follow it.  By this time my health was completely broken down.  The rigors of the winter, the incessant toil, the hard rations had done their work well.  I was no longer fit to nurse the sick.  In February I left the camp, intending to go for a while wherever help was needed, relying upon a change to recuperate my exhausted energies.

But from that time there was so much irregularity as far as hospital organization was concerned that one scarcely knew how best to serve the sick.  Besides, the presence of a lady had become embarrassing to the surgeons in charge of hospitals, who, while receiving orders one day which were likely to be countermanded the next, often having to send their stores, nurses, etc., to one place while they awaited orders in another, could find no time to provide quarters and sustenance for a lady.  As an illustration of this state of things, I will here give an extract from a letter addressed to me after the war by Dr. McAllister, of the “Buckner Hospital.”

“I was ordered late in November to Gainesville, Alabama; before reaching that place, my orders were changed to Macon; in February to Auburn, Alabama; thence to the woods to organize a tent hospital.  No sick were sent there, and I had nothing to do but to build.  Put up eighty large tents, built octagon homes, with rounded tops, and flag-poles on the top of each.  Everything looked gloomy, but I kept on as if I expected to remain there always.  Just as I had everything completed, received orders to move to Charlotte, North Carolina.  When I got to Columbus, Georgia, was ordered to send on my stores with my negroes and women-servants, in charge of a faithful man, while I and my detailed men were to remain in the city during its investment, and as long as the struggle lasted, but at last to save myself, and join my stores in Macon, Georgia.  Remained during the fight, while the city fell, and all my detailed men were captured; rode out of the city by the light of the burning buildings, and my road was lighted for twelve or fifteen miles by the burning city; borrowed horses about twelve at night, caught the last retreating train, put my servants Noel and Sam on it; rode on with my true friend Dr. Tates.  Found the servants at Genoa Station, a distance of thirty-five miles, next morning at sunrise, thence to Macon; next night found my wife on the same crowded