Nightingale's pathway was not an easy one. Her coming did not
meet the general approval of military or medical officials. Some
thought women would be in the way; others felt that their coming was
an interference. Possibly some did not like to have persons about who
would be apt to tell the truth on their return to England. But with
good sense and much tact she was able to overcome the disaffection,
using her almost unlimited power with discretion.

As soon as the wounded were attended to, she established an invalid's
kitchen, where appetizing food could be prepared,--one of the
essentials in convalescence. Here she overlooked the proper cooking
for eight hundred men who could not eat ordinary food. Then she
established a laundry. The beds and shirts of the men were in a filthy
condition, some wearing the ragged clothing in which they were brought
down from the Crimea. It was difficult to obtain either food or
clothing, partly from the immense amount of "red tape" in official
life.

Miss Nightingale seemed to be everywhere. Dr. Pincoffs said: "I
believe that there never was a severe case of any kind that escaped
her notice; and sometimes it was wonderful to see her at the bedside
of a patient who had been admitted perhaps but an hour before, and
of whose arrival one would hardly have supposed it possible she could
already be cognizant."

She aided the senior chaplain in establishing a library and
school-room, and in getting up evening lectures for the men. She
supplied books and games, wrote letters for the sick, and forwarded
their little savings to their home-friends.

For a year and a half, till the close of the war, she did a wonderful
work, reducing the death-rate in the Barrack Hospital from sixty per
cent to a little above one per cent. Said the _Times_ correspondent:
"Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of
the spoiler distressingly nigh, there is that incomparable woman sure
to be seen; her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort
even amid the struggles of expiring nature. She is a 'ministering
angel,' without any exaggeration, in these hospitals, and as her
slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's
face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical
officers have retired for the night, and silence and darkness have
settled down upon these miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed,
alone, with a little lamp in her han