It was my daily business during the war to read and answer letters to sick soldiers.  Almost all were such as I have described.  A few, alas! were far different.  As I read them and watched the agony they caused, I understood why some men became deserters, and absolutely revered the manliness and patriotism which resisted a temptation so terrible.

It seemed once that I could never forget the contents of letters which particularly impressed me, but am sorry I have done so and cannot reproduce them here.  One I can never forget.  A tall, splendid Missouri soldier came into my office one morning, his face convulsed with grief.  Handing me a letter, he sank into a chair, burying his face in his hands and sobbing pitifully.  A letter had been somehow conveyed to him from his sister-in-law announcing that his wife was dying of consumption.  Appended to the letter (which was sad enough) were a few lines written by the trembling hand of the dying one.  “Darling, do not let any thoughts of me come between you and your duty to our country.  I have longed to see you once more, to die with my head upon your breast; but that is past,—­I am calm and happy.  We have long known that this parting must be; perhaps when my soul is free I may be nearer you.  If possible, my spirit will be with you wherever you are.”

I can only recall these few lines.  A volume could not convey more strongly the spirit of Southern women, strong even in death.  I could only offer the stricken soldier the little comfort human sympathy can give, but my tears flowed plentifully as he told me of his wife and his home.

He was, as I afterwards learned, killed at the battle of Franklin.  I thought almost with pleasure of the happy reunion which I felt sure must have followed.

How often I have marshalled into the hospital wards mothers and wives, who for the sake of some absent loved one had come from homes many miles away, to bring some offering to the sick.  Timid, yet earnest women, poorly dressed, with sunbrowned faces and rough hands, yet bearing in their hearts the very essence of loving-kindness towards the poor fellows upon whose pale faces and ghastly wounds they looked with “round-eyed wonder” and pity.  After a while they would gain courage to approach some soldier whom they found “sort o’ favored” their own, to whom they ventured to offer some dainty, would stroke the wasted hand, smooth the hair, or hold to the fevered lips a drink of buttermilk or a piece of delicious fruit.  Ah, how many times I have watched such scenes!  To the warmly-expressed thanks of the beneficiaries they would simply answer, “That is nothing; ‘mebbe’ somebody will do as much for mine when he needs it.”