(A.) May 31st.—Sick men arriving Friday night by the railroad could not be provided for in the crowded field-hospital ashore, which still remained of but one fifth the capacity in tent-room which I urged it should be made three weeks ago. To make more room, on Saturday morning, 31st, we were ordered to take off four hundred upon the Elm City. They were sent to her by smaller steamboats, and the last load, which brought the number up to four hundred and fifty, arrived so late Saturday night that she could not leave till daylight Sunday morning. The orders were to deliver the men at Yorktown and return immediately. I urged Dr. ——, who was the surgeon in charge, and the captain and engineer to do their best, and telegraphed to have every preparation made at Yorktown.

June 1st.—We had sent out two parties to look for straggling sick, and visit the hospitals in the rear of the left wing. One of these returned at noon, having been by Cumberland to New Kent Court-House. From Dr. ——, who was in charge of the other, I received a despatch about sunset, stating that his party were assisting the surgeons in a field-hospital, to which wounded were crowding from a battle then in progress. Soon after midnight this party arrived on board, having come from the front with a train of wounded, and we then had our first authentic information of the fierce battle in which our whole left wing had been engaged.

On that Sabbath day, after the departure of the Elm City, the wounded of the battle of Fair Oaks began to arrive in large numbers by railroad. After energetic remonstrances, with the responsible medical officer, on the part of the Commission, and a vain struggle to secure an adherence to some plan by which care and method in their shipment could be expected, a frightful scene of confusion and misery ensued at the landing, in the midst of which three government boats and two of those assigned to the Commission were loaded with wounded. We omit the painful particulars, because they could not be given without casting the gravest censure where censure would now be useless.^[6] To understand the extracts which follow, it is only necessary to know, that so well were things managed on the Elm City (which, it will be remembered, left, loaded with sick, in the morning), that she had proceeded to Yorktown, discharged her sick, and returned with beds made, reporting ready to receive wounded at White House before sunset the same day.

(M.) The Commission boats were all here, and ready to remove the wounded of the battle of the 1st and 2d of June. They filled and left with their accustomed order and promptitude. After that, other boats, detailed by government for hospital service, were brought up. These boats were not in the control of the Commission. There was no one specially appointed to take charge of them, no one to receive the wounded at the station, no one to ship them properly, no one to see that the boats were supplied with proper stores. Of course the Commission came forward to do all it could at a moment's notice, but it had no power; only the right of charity. It could neither control nor check the fearful confusion that ensued, as train after train came in, and the wounded were brought and thrust upon the various boats. But it did nobly what it could. Night and day its members worked, not, you must remember, in its own well-organized service, but in the hard duty of making the best of a bad case. Not the smallest preparation was found, in at least three of the boats, for the common food of the men. As for sick-food, stimulants, drinks, &c., such things scarcely exist in the medical mind of the army, and there was not even a pail or a cup to distribute food, had there been any.

(N.) June 5th.... We had been helping the ladies on the Elm City all night, had returned to our quarters, and just washed and dressed, when Captain —— came on board, to say that several hundred wounded men were lying at the landing,—that the Daniel Webster No. 2 had been filled, and the surplus was being sent on board the Vanderbilt,—that the confusion was terrible; there were no stores on board either vessel. Of course the best in our power had to be done. Our supply-boat Elizabeth came up. We begged Mr. —— not to refrain from sending us because we had been up all night; he said that he wouldn't send us, but if, in view of so much misery, we chose to offer our services to the United States surgeon in charge, he thought it would be merciful. We went on board, and such a scene as we entered and lived in for two days I trust never to see again. Men in every condition of horror, shattered and shrieking, were being brought in on stretchers, borne by contrabands, who dumped them anywhere, banged the stretchers against pillars and posts, and walked over the men without compassion. There was no one to direct what ward or what beds they were to go into. The men had mostly been without food since Saturday, but there was nothing on board for them, and the cook was only engaged to cook for the ship, and not for the hospital.

The first thing wounded men want is lemonade and ice (with the sick, stimulants are the first thing); after that, we give them tea and bread. Imagine a boat like the Bay State, filled on every deck, every berth,—and every square inch of room covered with wounded men,—even the stairs and gangways and guards filled with those who are less badly wounded,—and then imagine fifty well men, on every kind of errand, hurried and impatient, rushing to and fro over them, every touch bringing agony to the poor fellows,—while stretcher after stretcher still comes along, hoping to find an empty place; and then imagine what it was to keep calm ourselves, and make sure that each man on our own boat, the Elm City, and then on this, was properly refreshed and fed. We got through about one o'clock at night, Mrs. —— and Miss —— having come off other duty, and reinforced us. We were sitting for a few moments resting and talking it over, and bitterly asking why a government, so lavish and so perfect in its other departments, should leave its wounded almost literally to take care of themselves, when a message came that one hundred and fifty men were just arriving by the cars. It was raining in torrents, and both boats were full. We went on shore again; the same scene repeated. The Kennebec was brought up, and the one hundred and fifty men carried across the Daniel Webster No. 2 to her, with the exception of some fearfully wounded ones who could not be touched in the darkness and rain, and were, therefore, left in the cars. We gave refreshments to all; a detail of young men from the Spaulding coming up in time to assist, and the officers of the Sebago (gunboat), who had seen how hard pressed we were in the afternoon, volunteering for the night-watch. Add to this sundry members of Congress, who, if they talked much, at least worked well. We went to bed at daylight with breakfast on our minds. At half past six we were all on board the Webster No. 2, and the breakfast of six hundred men was got through with before our own.

(A lady on the Knickerbocker.) Sunday.—"Three hundred wounded to come on board!" I wish you could see the three hundred white beds, with a clean shirt and drawers laid ready for each man.... They began to bring them in about noon. Many of them were shockingly hurt; but the men were proud of their wounds, and one of them, an artist, private of a New York regiment, was thankful that he had only lost a leg,—"so glad it wasn't his arm!" We went directly at work washing them, doing what we could, too, at dressing wounds which had been hastily bandaged on the battle-field thirty-six hours before. Men very patient and grateful always.

(A.) Sunday Night.—The Knickerbocker had, by estimate, three hundred and fifty on board. The night being fine, many were disposed of on the outer decks, and before I left, at eleven o'clock, nearly all had been washed, dressed, and put to bed decently, and were as comfortable as circumstances would admit of our making them. All had received needed nourishment, and such surgical and medical attention as was immediately demanded. Leaving the Knickerbocker in this satisfactory condition, I came back in a small boat, at midnight, to the landing, where I found that the Elm City already had five hundred wounded on board. I ordered her to run down and anchor near the Knickerbocker. There had been a special order in her case from the Medical Director to go to Washington. (I judge that this was given under the misapprehension that she had failed to go to Yorktown, and had her sick still on board.) She was unable to go at once for want of coal, which could not be furnished her till the evening of the next day (Monday). This finished the Commission's boats for the present. The State of Maine had been ordered to the landing by the Harbor-master, and the wounded remaining on shore, excluded from the Elm City, were flocking on board of her. Our ladies on the Elm City sent them some food, and we put on board from our supply-boat bedding and various stores, of which there was evident need, without waiting to be asked, and without finding any one to receive them, the surgeons being fully engrossed in performing operations of pressing necessity.

The battle had been renewed in the morning of this day (Sunday), and we had sent a relief party, composed of medical students and male nurses, with supplies of stimulants, lint, etc., to the battle-field hospitals. A portion of this party returned about midnight, with another large train of wounded. All our force that could possibly be withdrawn from duty on the boats was immediately employed in distributing drink, and in carrying the wounded from the railroad to the boat. Some men died on the cars. I made another visit to the Knickerbocker in the morning, and on my return (Monday), found that a train had just arrived, and the wounded men were walking in a throng across the scow to the Webster No. 2, Government Hospital, the only boat remaining at the landing. I knew that she was not prepared for them, and sent for Dr. S., the representative of the Medical Director. Dr. S. could not be found. I asked for the medical officer in charge of the Webster No. 2. The Captain said there was none, and that he had no orders except to bring his boat to the landing. I inquired for the surgeon in charge of the railroad train, but could find none. There was no one in charge of the wounded. Meantime they were taken out of the cars, and assisted towards the landing by volunteer bystanders, until the gang-planks of the boat, the landing-scow, and the adjoining river-banks were crowded. I finally concluded that Dr. S. must have intended them to go on board the Webster No. 2. I could find no one in the crowd who professed to have received his orders, but, as many were nearly fainting in the sun, I advised the Captain to let them come on board. He did so, and they hobbled on, till the boat was crowded in all parts. The Small was outside the Webster No. 2, and our ladies administered as far as possible to their relief. Going on shore, I found still a great number, including the worst cases, lying on litters, gasping in the fervid sun. I do not describe such a scene. The worst cases I had brought upon the Small. Two died on the forward deck, under the shade of the awning, within half an hour. One was senseless when brought on; the other revived for a moment, while Mrs. G. bathed his head with ice-water, just long enough to whisper the address of his father, and to smile gratefully, then passed away, holding her hand.

... At the time of which I am now writing (Monday afternoon), wounded men were arriving by every train, entirely unattended, or with at most a detail of two soldiers, two hundred or more of them in a train. They were packed as closely as they could be stowed in the common freight-cars, without beds, without straw, at most with a wisp of hay under their heads. Many of the lighter cases came on the roof of the cars. They arrived, dead and living together, in the same close box, many with awful wounds festering and swarming with maggots. Recollect it was midsummer in Virginia, clear and calm. The stench was such as to produce vomiting with some of our strong men, habituated to the duty of attending the sick. How close they were packed, you may infer from a fact reported by my messenger to Dr. Tripler, who, on his return from Head-quarters, was present at the loading of a car. A surgeon was told that it was not possible to get another man upon the floor of the car. "Then," said he, "these three men must be laid in across the others, for they have got to be cleared out from here by this train!" This outrage was avoided, however.

Need I tell you that the women were always ready to press into these places of horror, going to them in torrents of rain, groping their way by dim lantern-light, at all hours of night, carrying spirits and ice-water; calling back to life those in despair from utter exhaustion, or again and again catching for mother or wife the last faint whispers of the dying?

One Dr. —— was at this time the only man on the ground who claimed to act as a medical officer of the United States. He was without instructions and without authority, and, though miraculously active, could do nothing toward bringing about the one thing wanted, orderly responsibility, and while he was there, ——, who might otherwise have done something, would not interfere. Dr. Ware, of our party, was at one time the only other medical man on the ground. The Spaulding, Dr. —— in charge, arrived Monday night, but not in a condition to be made directly useful, being laden with government stores, which could not at once be removed by the quartermaster. Her physicians and students, however, could never have been more welcome. I put one half her eager company at once at work on the Webster No. 2. Captain Sawtelle, at my request, pitched a hospital tent for the ladies at the river-bank by the railroad, behind which a common camp-kitchen was established. To this tent quantities of stores have now been conveyed, and soup and tea in camp-kettles are kept constantly hot there. Before this arrangement was complete, and until other stores arrived, we were for a time very hard put to it to find food of any kind to meet the extraordinary demand upon us. Just as everything was about giving out, B. found a sutler, who told him that he had five hundred loaves of bread on board of a boat which had just arrived at Cumberland, but he had no way of getting it immediately up. A conditional bargain was immediately struck, and the Elizabeth hastened off to Cumberland to bring up the bread. When it arrived, to our horror, it proved to be so mouldy it could not be used. B., almost crying with disappointment, started again to make a search through the exhausted sutlers' stores of the post. While doing so, he came upon a heap of boxes and barrels unopened and "unaccounted for." "What's all this?" "Sutlers' goods." "Who owns them?" "I do. I am the sutler of the —— New York, up to the front. I want to get them up there, but I can't get transportation." "What's in here?" said B. in great excitement. "Mack'rel in them barrels." "What's in the boxes!" "That's wine biscuit. There's two barrels of molasses and a barrel of vinegar. I've got forty barrels of soft tack, too." "Where's that?" "That's one of 'em"; and B., hardly waiting for leave, seized a musket, and jammed a head off. It was aerated bread, and not a speck of mould upon it! He bought the sutler's whole stock on the spot, and in half an hour the ladies were dealing out bread spread with molasses, and iced vinegar and water....

The trains with wounded and sick arrive at all hours of the night; the last one before daylight, generally getting in between twelve and one. As soon as the whistle is heard, Dr. Ware is on hand, (he has all the hard work of this kind to do,) and the ladies are ready in their tent; blazing trench-fires, and kettles all of a row, bright lights and savory supplies, piles of fresh bread and pots of coffee,—the tent door opened wide,—the road leading to it from the cars dotted all along the side with little fires or lighted candles. Then, the first procession of slightly wounded, who stop at the tent-door on their way to the boat, and get cups of hot coffee with as much milk (condensed) as they want, followed by the slow-moving line of bearers and stretchers, halted by our Zouave, while the poor fellows on them have brandy, or wine, or iced lemonade given them. It makes but a minute's delay to pour something down their throats, and put oranges in their hands, and saves them from exhaustion and thirst before, in the confusion which reigns on most of the crowded government transports, food can be served them. When the worst cases have been sent on board, those which are to go to the shore hospital the next day are put into the twenty Sibley tents, pitched for the Commission, along the railroad, and our detail of five men start, each with his own pail of hot coffee or hot milk, and crackers and soft bread, with lemonade and ice-water, and feed them from tent to tent, a hundred men every night; sometimes one hundred and fifty are thus taken care of, for whom no provision has been made by government. Dr. Ware sees them all, and knows that they have blankets, attendants, stimulants, &c. for the night. When the morning comes, ambulances are generally sent for them from the shore hospital, but occasionally they are left on the Commission's hands for three days at a time. They would fare badly but for the sleepless devotion of Dr. Ware, who, night after night, works among them, often not leaving them till two or three o'clock in the morning. The ladies from the Webster, and other Commission boats, visit the shore hospital between their voyages, and carry to the sick properly prepared soups and gruels.

June 3d. I cannot disentangle now the events of the last few days, nor have I a very exact idea of the numbers we have taken care of. We put two hundred and fifty on Webster No. 1 on Monday, among them General Devens and Colonel Briggs of Massachusetts, and, fearing that all intermediate hospitals would be full, and the weather continuing very hot, sent her, in the absence of orders, to Boston. The same day the Vanderbilt and Knickerbocker were filled, and to-day the Spaulding. Between two and three thousand wounded have been sent here this week, and at least nine tenths of them have been fed and cared for, as long as they remained, exclusively by the Commission.

(M.) Generally the government hospital boats are ready and glad to accept our assistance, but now and then one will stand off in the stream "all ready," needing no help, till finally, and when the sick are coming on board, at the last moment, not a pound of bread or ounce of meat will be found ready for them. The men are expected to bring rations for a day or so, in their haversacks, haversacks meanwhile being lost at the front, and men being too badly hurt to think of any such provision.... This is where the Commission comes in, and kettles of soup and tea, with fresh soft bread, gruel, and stimulants, are sent to all these boats from the tent kitchen, and with them go cups and spoons, and attendants to distribute the food. Many hundreds of men have been helped in this way, who, without such a provision, would, to say the least, have greatly suffered. Two days ago there was a hospital transport near us, "all ready," according to their own account, and after the wounded men came on board, before the first surgical case could be attended to, they had to rush over to our boat for lint, bandages, rags, pins, towels, and stimulants. One man had been without the slightest nourishment all day until an hour before his shoulder was taken off; then, when it was too late, the surgeon hurried over to ask us to take him beef-tea and egg-nog, and we crossed the coal-barges and administered it; all this after the Doctor had himself told me that morning that they needed no help. It is just the same with lint and bandages, sponges and splints, all which the Commission supplies freely. There was another boat near us with a good staff and plenty of assistants, and everything looking so fair that we supposed it all right, particularly as we were assured that she had been "preparing" for some weeks, and had "all that was necessary." All day last Sunday they were putting men on board, selecting four hundred from the five hundred sick and wounded who came down on Friday to the post hospital, and who were all received on arrival and taken care of by Dr. Ware and his assistants. When they had been put on board, and wanted food at the moment, it was not ready,—plenty of it in the rough, but nothing cooked in anticipation; and at six o'clock in the evening, as we were crossing the boat from the Small, which lay outside, we found the boat full of very sick men, feverish and thirsty, and calling for water, and no help at hand. We asked for basins; there were none on board; and to add to the rest, the forty "Sisters," who had come down unexpectedly, by some one's order, had all struck for keys to their state-rooms, and sat about on their large trunks, forbidden to stir by the Padre, who was in a high state of ecclesiastical disgust on the deck of the Knickerbocker, at not finding provision made for them, including a chapel. —— labored with the indignant old gentleman upon the unreasonableness of expecting to find confessionals, &c. erected on the battle-field, but to no purpose. There sat the forty "Sisters," clean and peaceful, with their forty umbrellas and their forty baskets, fastened to their places by the Padre's eye, and not one of them was allowed to come over and help us. So our boat's company went to work, Dr. Ware getting for us all we needed from the Commission's supplies, and before the boat left, the sickest men were washed and fed; large pails of beef-tea, milk-punch, and arrow-root were made, enough to last for the worst cases until they reached Fortress Monroe, and at half past seven we climbed over the guards to the deck of the Small, and the boat cast off. We wrote all the names and home-addresses of the sickest men, who might be speechless on their arrival, and fastened the papers into their pockets. It was hard to have the "Sisters," who would have been so faithful, and who were so much needed, shut away from the sick men by the etiquette of their confessor. It is unpleasant to abuse people for inefficiency. Possibly they have all that is necessary on these government boats, stowed away in boxes somewhere, but at the precise moment when it is needed no one knows anything about it. Such boats either have no one at their head, or where there is one there are many, which is worse than none.

We have, up to this time, sent away on the Commission's boats, since Sunday, 1,770 patients. These, after having once been got upon beds, have been all methodically and tenderly cared for. The difficulties to be overcome in accomplishing it were enormous, and the greatest of them of a nature which it would now be ungrateful to describe. We have also distributed to government boats and hospitals an immense quantity of clothing and hospital stores.

(A.) Rustic Sidneys are so common we have ceased to think of it. "I guess that next fellow wants it more'n I do,"—"Won't you jus' go to that man over there first, if you please, marm; I hearn him kind o' groan jus' now; must be pretty bad hurt, I guess: I ha'n't got anythin' only a flesh-wound!" You may always hear such phrases as these repeated by one after another, as the ladies are moving on their first rounds.

There is not the slightest appearance of a conscious purpose to play the hero or the Spartan. Groans, and even yells and shrieks, are not always restrained, but complaint is never uttered, though the Irish, especially when not very severely wounded, are sometimes pathetically despondent and lachrymose, and the Frenchmen look unutterable things. But gratitude and a spirit of patience never fails, a cheerful disposition seldom.... In this republic of suffering, individuals do not often become very strongly marked in one's mind, but now and then one does so unaccountably. I am haunted by the laughing eye of a brave New Hampshire man,—laughing I am sure in agony,—whom I saw on the ——. [This was one of the worst of the government transports, badly managed, hastily loaded, and densely crowded.] He was lying closely packed among some badly wounded rebels, and in giving them some little attention I had passed him by, because he looked as if he wanted nothing,—so differently from the others. Afterwards returning that way, they seemed to have all fallen asleep; but this man's strange, cheerful eye met mine as I was carefully stepping over his feet. "Do you want anything, my man?" "Well, now you are there, I don't care if you h'ist that blanket off my leg a piece; the heft on't kind o' irks my wound." "Certainly," I said; drawing it down, and knowing at once that he must be painfully wounded; "is there nothing else I can do for you? wouldn't you like a cup of water?" "If you've got some cool water handy, I should be obliged to you. I've got some in my canteen they give me this morning, but it's got warm." I brought him some, as soon as I could. "That tastes good," says he. "Do you know where this boat's goin'?" "She goes first to Fortress Monroe; whether they will send her on from there to New York, or take you ashore there, I don't know. It will be decided when you get there." "They mustn't keep me there. I must go home." "Where is your home?" "It's a place called Keene, up in New Hampshire." "What's the matter with you?" "Got a ball through my thigh." "Did it touch the bone?" "Yes, broke it snap off." "Rather high up the thigh, isn't it?" "Just about as high as it can be; the doctors, they tell me,—well, first they told me that 'twould kill me if they didn't take it off, and then they told me 'twould kill me if they did take it off, it's so high up, they say they can't do it. So, accordin' to their account, I've got to go anyhow. That's what the doctors make out; but I'll tell you what I think: I think God Almighty's got something to say about that. If he says so, well and good, I ha'n't got nothin' to say. But I'd like to get back to Keene. They must send me. I know I'll die if they don't. They must." "I'm afraid it would hardly do to send you out to sea,—the motion of the vessel—" "O, I a'n't a bit afraid of that, I don't mind the hurt on't. The old doctor, he wasn't a goin' to send me; he said 'twan't no use, and there wasn't no room. But after they'd got about loaded up, the young doctor came along, and I got hold o' him, and I told him they must send me, and finally he told 'em they must get me in somehow. That did hurt, that 'are. Fact is, I fainted away when they put me in, it hurt so. I never felt anything like that. But I tell you, when I come to, and found I was rattlin' along down here, I didn't mind how much it hurt." "Is it painful now?" "Well, when they step round here, and when the engine goes, it's kinder like a jumping toothache, down there. Well, yes, it does hurt pretty bad, but I don't mind, if they'll only let me go home. I guess if they'll let me go home, I can pull through it somehow; and if I don't,—that's God Almighty's business, too; I a'n't consarned about that." And he smiled again, that brave, man to man, knowing New England smile. I found that his wound had not been dressed in three days; fortunately there was time for me to get Ware to dress it before the boat left.

(N.) ... We lie here just outside some other vessels at the railroad wharf. The one nearest the wharf is the Knickerbocker (one of our own boats, a refreshing sight to sick and well). On it we are placing the wounded as they now come in, somewhat slowly.^[7] Since last night at ten o'clock there have been one hundred and sixty-five brought on board. This nearly completes the list of the wounded by the Saturday and Sunday engagements, excepting some two or three hundred who are in a hospital on the extreme right, some ten miles from the railroad. There have now been brought in to the hospital boats about three thousand seven hundred men, of whom six or eight hundred were rebels. It has been touching to hear the expressions of surprise and gratitude from some of these young, fresh-looking Southerners, as they received tender care from the hands of those who were ministering to them in their sad suffering. Of course our own wounded were carried off the field first, and this left the others with wounds for some time not dressed.

(M.) Among the sick and wounded who came on board last night were several Secessionists. One whom I was attending took my hand, with tears in his eyes: "God bless you, Miss." Another, who was near death,—he had the most terrible wound I ever saw,—said, gently: "God forgive me, honey, if it was wrong. I thought it was right, but I don't like it, that's the truth. I would rather have died for the old flag, but—I thought it was right. There, let them bury that with me" (showing me a bracelet of hair on his arm). "It's my wife's, honey; it is. My watch you may keep, and if ever the time should come when you can send it to her, please do so."

(A.) Naturally enough, the prisoners do not "bear up" as well as our own men. There is not only more whimpering, but more fretfulness and bitterness of spirit, evinced chiefly in want of regard one for another.

(N.) On board the Commission's boats we see the unavoidable miseries of war, and none other. So soon as the men come on board, all suffering except that of illness ceases, and we know and see that every comfort and every chance for recovery is freely supplied. I have a long history to tell, one of these days, of the gratefulness of the men.... I often wish,—as I give a comfort to some poor fellow, and see the sense of rest it gives him, and hear the favorite speech, "O, that's good! it's just as if mother was here,"—that the man or woman who supplied the means for the comfort were present to see how blessed it is. Believe me, you may all give and work in the earnest hope that you alleviate suffering, but none of you realize what you do,—perhaps you can't even conceive of it unless you could see your gifts in use. I often think of the money and supplies which, by the goodness of others, passed through my hands before I left home. How little I then knew their value! How little I then imagined that each article was to be a life-giving comfort to some one sufferer!

The object of the Commission is not clearly understood. Those who admire its noble, wise work naturally feel the wish that larger power should be given to it. But the object of the Commission itself is not this. It seeks to bring the government to do what the government should do for its sick and wounded. Until that object is accomplished, the Commission stands ready to throw itself into the breach, as it did during that dreadful battle-week, and as it does, more or less, all the time. The thing it asks for is not the gift of power, but that the government should come forward and take the work away from it.... There are rumors that this much-desired change will be effected. I am not afraid to say that no enterprise ever deserved better of the country than this undertaken by the Sanitary Commission. Alive to the true state of things, ever aiming at the best thing to be done, and striving to bring everything to bear upon that, it has already fulfilled a great work,—let those who have reaped its benefits say how great and how indispensable.

Since yesterday morning we have been leading a life which Mr. —— feels to be one of such utter discomfort that we all try to make the best of it for his sake, though I will admit to you that it is very wearing to have no proper place to eat, sit, or sleep. No matter! our Wilson Small will be back soon, and we shall resume our happy home life on the top of the old stove. We had luxury which did not please us on board the ——, and piggishness which pleased us still less on board the ——, and yet we are the most cheerful set of people to be found anywhere. This morning, just as Mr. —— was sitting with his head on his hand, sighing over the horrid breakfast to which we ladies had been subjected, some one looked up and spied the Daniel Webster coming up. Such vitality as seized us! The good Webster! always perfect, prompt, and true. In a moment, Dr. Grymes and Captain Bletham were on board, and didn't we shake hands all round! I suppose you know the Webster had to put into New York in consequence of a storm, which would have perilled the lives of many of the sick if they had pursued the voyage to Boston.

I often feel the pleasantness of our (the ladies') footing amongst all these people, official, military, naval, and medical. They clearly respect our work, and rightly appreciate it; they strengthen our hands when they can, they make no foolish speeches, but are direct and sensible in their acts and words, and when work is over, they do not feel toward us as "women with a mission," but as ladies, to be with whom is a grateful relaxation. I must say our position here is particularly proper and pleasant.... I suppose from eight to ten thousand troops have arrived here within a week. At first, I scarcely noticed their coming. I heard their gay bands, and the loud cheering of the men as the transports rounded the last bend in the river, and came in sight of the landing, but such sounds of the dreadful other side of war filled my ears, that, if I heard, I heeded not. For the last night or two, the arrivals by moonlight, with the cheers and the gay music, have been really enlivening. We see the dark side of all. You must not, however, gather only gloomy ideas from me. I see the worst—short of the actual battle-field—that can be seen. You must not allow yourself to think there is no brightness because I do not speak of it.

(M.) We have on two of our boats nine contraband women, from the Lee estate,—real Virginia "darkies," and excellent workers,—who all "wish on their souls and bodies" that the Rebels could be "put in a house together and burned up." "Mary Susan," the blackest of them, yielded at once to the allurements of freedom and fashion, and begged Mr. K. to take a little commission for her the next time he went to Washington. "I wants you for to get me, sar, if you please, a lawn dress and hoop-skirt, sar." The women not working on our boats do the hospital washing for us in their cabins on the Lee estate, and I have been up to-day to hurry them with the Knickerbocker's eleven hundred pieces. The negro quarters are decent and comfortable little houses, with a wide road between them and the bank which slopes to the river. Any number of little darkey babies are rushing about, and tipping into the wash-tubs, and in one cottage we found two absurdly small babies taken care of by an antique bronze, calling itself grandmother. Babies had the measles, which wouldn't "come out" on one of them. So she had laid him tenderly in the open clay oven, and, with hot sage-tea and an unusually large brick put to his morsels of feet, was proceeding to develop the disease. Two of the colored women and their husbands work for us at the tent kitchen, close by the shore, and entertain us by their singing. The other night Molly and Nellie collected all their friends behind their tent and commenced, in a sort of monotonous recitativo, a condensed narrative of the creation of the world; one giving out a line and all the others joining in. They went straight through from Genesis to Revelation, following with a confession of sin and exhortation to do better,—till suddenly their deep humility seemed to strike them as uncalled for, and they rose at once into the "assurance of the saints," and each one instructed her neighbor at the top of her voice to

Just as they came to a pause the train arrived; midnight, as usual, and the work of feeding and caring for the sick began again. Dr. Ware was busy with his nightly work of seeing that the men were properly lifted from the platform cars and put into the Sibley tents; H. was "processing" his detail with additional blankets and quilts; and Wagner, our Zouave, and his five men, were going the rounds with hot tea and fresh bread, while we were getting ready beef-tea and punch for the use of the sickest through the night. By two o'clock we could cross the gang-plank to the Small again, feeling that all the men were quiet and comfortable.

We women constantly receive noble and patriotic letters from the parents and friends of the soldiers who have died here among us, one of our duties being to write to the families of those we have had care of. Mrs. —— had sent her the other day, from one of the —— Regiment, a little poem in such delicate acknowledgment of kindness received that I must copy it:—