My whole heart and soul went out toward the sick soldiers.  My days were mostly spent in visiting the hospitals.

At first the larger ones attracted me, because there seemed to be so many sufferers and more need of nurses.  My timid advances (never amounting to a direct application, but only a suggestion as to my qualifications as a nurse) were condescendingly smiled down by the surgeons in charge.  My youthful appearance was against me.  Besides, there really was no need for other nursing in many of the State hospitals, notably that of Louisiana, than the angelic ministrations of the Sisters of Charity, whose tireless vigils knew no end, whose skill and efficiency, as well as their constant devotion, environed the patients committed to their care.  Occasionally I was allowed the blessed privilege of fanning a sick hero or of moistening parched lips or bathing fevered brows.  But somebody always came whose business it was to do these things, and I was set aside.  One day, however, by a happy chance, I found in a ward of one of the hospitals a poor fellow who seemed to have been left to die.  So forlorn, so feeble, so near death did he seem, that my heart yearned over him, for he was only a boy, and I knew he was some mother’s darling.  He had, like many other soldiers, been unwilling to go to a hospital, and remaining in camp while broken out with measles, took cold and provoked an attack of pneumonia.  In addition to this, terrible abscesses had formed under each ear, and his eyes were swollen and suppurating.  His surgeon said there was little hope of his recovery; none at all unless he could be removed to some more quiet place, and receive unremitting care and watchfulness as well as excellent nursing.  “Can he be removed if I promise to fulfil all these conditions?” said I.  “It is a risk, but his only chance,” replied Dr. ——.  “Then I will go at once and prepare a place.”  As I spoke, the suffering boy grasped my hand with all his feeble strength, as if afraid to let me leave him.  Reassuring him as well as I could, I rushed off to the “Soldiers’ Rest,” where I knew I should find friends ready and willing to help me.  My tale was soon told to the ladies in charge, who at once and with all their hearts entered into my plans.  One vacant cot temptingly clean and white was moved into a secluded corner and assigned to me for the use of my “sick boy.”  The loan of an ambulance, readily obtained, facilitated his removal.  That same evening I had the satisfaction of seeing him laid carefully upon the comfortable bed so kindly prepared by the ladies of the Soldiers’ Rest, exhausted, but evidently not worse for the change.

Right here began my career as a nurse of Confederate soldiers.  This was my first patient,—­my very own,—­to have and to hold until the issues of life and death should be decided.  All facilities were accorded me by the ladies.  Dr. Little gave his most careful attention and his greatest skill, but the nursing, the responsibility, was mine.