Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/131

Rh , and could not live, I resolved to make a visit up to the front, and see if anything could be done for him.

There seemed no way open, only that I should go on horseback, and, looking about me, I found that Colonel Catlin had gone up to Washington sick, and unable to do duty, leaving his horse at City Point. One of our boys, John Lawrence, who was doing duty at the hospital, proposed to accompany me, I on the colonel's horse; and in the morning at six o'clock we started on our journey.

The great noble creature which I rode was so worn and poor, that the side-saddle which I had borrowed of one of the ladies of the Second Corps turned repeatedly, myself and the bag of articles which I was taking up from the Christian Commission going off together. Lawrence tightened the girth, and on we went over the lonesome road literally lined with the graves of our dead.

No Christian homes brightened the way. The houses, stormed by shot and shell, were deserted, only as our men on duty along the lines used them for a shelter against the inclement weather.

My riding-habit seemed to attract considerable attention from its novelty, being a striped bed-tick, thick and of great service in my work, and a black hat which I had worn in my hospital rounds. Soldiers laughed and stared at us as we rode along, but unheedingly we were enjoying the fresh morning air, and the exhilaration of a horseback ride.

At ten o'clock we reached the Division Hospital,