Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/134

98 to riot within. It was a nervous place for a woman; but I endured it, rather feeling a kind of enthusiasm in the nearness to danger and death.

We remained to dinner, enjoying exceedingly the hard tack fried in bacon grease. At four o'clock we left en route for the Division Hospital again, for I was anxious to see my patients once more, and exact a promise that they should be sent up to our hospital as soon as possible.

I found them as I left them, and the second day they were brought to our Corps Hospital. Of the three men, one died, a young Michigan soldier, who was shot just above the lungs, and was delirious till he breathed the last. The day of our visit to Division Hospital, we had been invited by our sanitary agents to take a sail on the river, but I preferred my visit up to the front; and when we returned, and learned what had occurred to the pleasure-party, we were glad that we declined. In the excitement of the ride, they ventured too far with the boat, and were fired into by guerrillas, and a Mr. Wilson, one of the noblest men connected with the Sanitary Commission, was shot, and lived only a short time. The women were panic-struck, and the excitement was intense.

I received, on the 4th of July, a testimonial from the men of our regiment, in the shape of one hundred and seventy-five dollars in greenbacks, and could not keep back the tears from my eyes, when I thought how kind they all were to me, and I doing nothing but my duty.