neighborhood for about six
weeks. It is quite evident that Miss Breckinridge improved this occasion
to air her loyal sentiments and give such help and courage to Unionists
as lay in her power. In a letter written just after this invasion she
says, "At that very time, a train of ambulances, bringing our sick and
wounded from Richmond, was leaving town on its way to Cincinnati. It was
a sight to stir every loyal heart; and so the Union people thronged
round them to cheer them up with pleasant, hopeful words, to bid them
God speed, and last, but not least, to fill their haversacks and
canteens. We went, thinking it possible we might be ordered off by the
guard, but they only stood off, scowling and wondering.

"'Good-by,' said the poor fellows from the ambulances, 'we're coming
back as soon as ever we get well.'

"'Yes, yes,' we whispered, for there were spies all around us, 'and
every one of you bring a regiment with you.'"

As soon as these alarms were over, and Kentucky freed from rebel
invaders, Miss Breckinridge went on to St. Louis, to spend the winter
with her brother. As soon as she arrived, she began to visit the
hospitals of the city and its neighborhood, but her chief work, and that
from the effects of which she never recovered, was the service she
undertook upon the hospital boats, which were sent down the Mississippi
to bring up the sick and wounded from the posts below. She made two
excursions of this kind, full of intense experiences, both of pleasure
and pain. These boats went down the river empty unless they chanced to
carry companies of soldiers to rejoin their regiments, but they returned
crowded with the sick and dying, emaciated, fever-stricken men, sadly in
need of tender nursing but with scarcely a single comfort at command.
Several of the nurses broke down under this arduous and difficult
service, but Margaret congratulated herself that she had held out to the
end. These expeditions were not without danger as well as privation. One
of her letters records a narrow escape. "To give you an idea of the
audacity of these guerrillas; while we lay at Memphis that afternoon, in
broad daylight, a party of six, dressed in our uniform, went on board a
government boat, lying just across the river, and asked to be taken as
passengers six miles up the river, which was granted; but they had no
sooner left the shore than they drew their pistols, overpowered the
crew, and made them go up eighteen miles to meet an