Page:A history concerning the pension claim of Harriet Tubman.djvu/4

 with free transportation on a Gov’t transport. By order of Sec’t of War

Dated Washington, March 20, 1865.

"To Bvt. Brig. General Van Vliet,

U.S.Q.M., N.Y.”

Returning with the intention of embarking at New York—she was intercepted in Philadelphia by some members of the Sanitary Commission who persuaded her to go instead to the James River Hospitals—where there was pressing need of such service as she could give in the Gov’t Hospitals. And relinquishing her plan of returning to the Dept. of the South—without a thought as to the unfortunate pecuniary result of this irregular proceeding she went to the Hospitals of the James River, and at Fortress Monroe or Hampton—where she remained until July 1865. In that month she went to Washington again to advise the Gov’t of some dreadful abuses existing in one or more of the Hospitals there. And so great was the confidence of some officers of the Gov’t in her that Surgeon Gen’l Barnes directed that