Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/29



is no record of bloody battles which these pages are opened to detail; neither do I purpose to depict the horrible scenes of carnage which made the "Sunny South" one red field of flame: only to show one weak woman's work amongst the sufferers gathered up from those dreadful slaughter-plains, and those driven in sick and exhausted from the unwonted exposure in camp and march, this work of recording is begun.

Standing firm against the tide of popular opinion; hearing myself pronounced demented—bereft of usual common sense; doomed to the horrors of an untended death-bed—suffering torture, hunger, and all the untold miseries of a soldier's fate; above the loud echoed cry, "It is no place for woman," I think it was well that no one held a bond over me strong enough to restrain me from performing my plain duty, fulfilling the promise which I made my brothers on enlistment, that I would go with them down to the scene of conflict, and be near when sickness or 1