I never in all my life felt so keen a sense of utter dependence upon a higher Power, or understood so thoroughly how “vain is the help of man,” than when, in the seclusion of my own room, the events of the night passed in review before me.  With a heart aching with supreme pity, ready to make any sacrifice for the noble martyrs who, for my sake as well as for that of all Southern women, had passed unshrinking through inexpressible suffering, never faltering until laid low by the hand of disease,—­I could yet do nothing.  I could not save them one moment of agony, I could not stay the fleeting breath, nor might I intermit the unceasing care imperatively demanded by those whom timely ministrations might save, to give due honor to the dead.

Only an hour or two of rest (broken like the sleep of those of a household who retire from the side of beloved sufferers, leaving them to the care of others while they snatch a few moments of the repose which is needed to prepare them for fresh exertions) and I was once more on my way to the wards.  At the gate of the boarding-house stood one of the nurses.  Again, as often before, I was summoned to a bed of death.  A soldier who had come in only two days before almost in the last stages of pneumonia was now dying.  I had left him at eight o’clock the night before very ill, but sleeping under the influence of an opiate.  His agony was now too terrible for any alleviation; but he had sent for me; so I stood beside him, answering by every possible expression of sympathy his imploring glances and the frantic clasp of his burning hand.  Finding that my presence was a comfort, I sent for Dr. McAllister, and, requesting him to assign my duties to some one else for a while, remained at my post, yielding to the restraining grasp which to the very last arrested every movement away from the side of the sufferer.  A companion of the sick man lay near.  From him I learned the excellent record of this young soldier, who, during the frightful “retreat,” had contracted the cold which culminated in pneumonia, but would not consent to leave his regiment until too late.

I had feared an awful struggle at the last, but the death angel was pitiful, bringing surcease of suffering; and so, peacefully sped the soul of John Grant, of the ——­ Mississippi Regiment, happily unconscious of the end, and murmuring with his last breath, of home and mother.

I remember with great distinctness his face,—­suffering while he yet struggled with death,—­happy and tranquil, when he stood upon the threshold of life eternal.  Almost the very saddest and most trying portion of my Confederate service was just here.  Only that my record must be faithful, I would fain bid memory pass with flying feet and veiled eyes over the scenes of that terrible winter at Ringgold, when my very soul was steeped in pity so painful that every night I was fain to cry out, “It is too hard!  I cannot bear it!” and every morning my heart, yearning over “my boys,” gave itself with renewed ardor to “the Cause” and its defenders.