With these, an army blanket thrown over my shoulders and pinned with a thorn, and my dress kilted up like a washerwoman’s, I defied alike the liquid streets and the piercing wind.  My “nursery” was at this time filled to overflowing.  My mind’s eye takes in every nook and corner of that large room.  It is very strange, but true, that I remember the position of each bed and the faces of those who lay there at different times.  As I said before, they were principally the youngest patients, or those requiring constant supervision.  I seem to see them now, lying pale and worn, their hollow eyes looking up at me as I fed them or following with wistful gaze my movements about the ward.  Some bear ghastly wounds, others sit upon the side of the bed, trembling with weakness, yet smiling proudly because they can do so much, and promising soon to pay me a visit downstairs, “if I can make it; but I’m powerful weak right now.”  I remember two brave Texas boys, brothers, both wounded at Murfreesboro’, who lay side by side in this ward.  One of them was only fifteen years old.  When he was brought in, it was found that a minie-ball had penetrated near the eye, and remained in the wound, forcing the eye entirely from the socket, causing the greatest agony.  At first it was found difficult to extract it, and it proved a most painful operation.  I stood by, and his brother had his cot brought close so that he could hold his other hand.  Not a groan did the brave boy utter, but when it was over, and the eye replaced and bandaged, he said, “Doctor, how soon can I go back to my regiment?” Poor boy! he did go back in time to participate in the battle of Chickamauga, where he met his death.  Twenty years after, I met his brother at a reunion of Confederate soldiers, in Dallas, Texas, and he could hardly tell me for weeping that Eddie had been shot down at his side while gallantly charging with the ——­ Texas Cavalry.  Another youth, ——­ Roundtree, of Alabama, lingered in that ward for many weeks, suffering from dysentery, and, I believe, was finally discharged.

Dr. Gore, of Kentucky, took the deepest interest in my nursery, and sometimes asked permission to place young friends of his own there, a compliment which I highly appreciated.  Dr. Gore was one of Nature’s noblemen.  In his large, warm heart there seemed to be room for everybody.  His interest in his patients was very keen, and his skill greatly enhanced by extreme tenderness and unfailing attention.  He was an earnest Christian (a Methodist, I believe), but upon one occasion I saw him so excited and distressed that he “fell from grace,” and gave vent to a fearful imprecation.  He had brought to me a boy of seventeen very ill of dysentery.  For days it seemed that he must die.  Dr. Gore and I watched him and nursed him as if he had been very near and dear.  A slight improvement showed itself at last, and of course his craving for food was insatiate.  As this was a special ward, the nurses had been forbidden