Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/174

136 But the women were sent away, and I, alone of my sex, was left in the Ninth Corp Hospital at City Point.

The stewards and myself had our own table, and the cooks prepared our meals, and it was strange again to me to see only men about, wearing the blue uniform, and to hear only their harsh voices in the camp.

Still, when the desire for female society pressed strongly upon me, I visited the nurses of other corps, where hospitals were in close proximity to ours, but time did not lie heavily on my hands, allowing discontentment to spring up in my mind like weeds, overshadowing duty.

The November rain fell alike on the camp and the beleaguered city of Petersburg, and the mud was ankle deep in the streets of our tented town. The stray bullet and cannon still did its fearful work, and sickness struck many a man down in the height of his ambition for glory.

The leaves fell, and the grass withered. We had no birds to leave us on their bright wings. Never a bird did I see here or at Fredericksburg; only a few crows, with black wings, ominous of death and disaster. The storm of iron hail had effectually driven them away, but not forever, we hoped.

It would be sad if, amongst other horrors, the spring-time should bring no birds to build their nests high in the tree-boughs, or low in the June meadows. But although there will be desolation enough, Nature will not withold her gifts to the South—the bright