no gift, grace, or
accomplishment could be spared without leaving something wanting of a
perfect woman's work in the hospitals.

Nine hospitals, in addition to the regimental hospital, which she still
thought of as her "own," were assigned her. Of these Harewood contained
nearly as many patients as all the others. During the summer of 1864,
its wards and tents held twenty-eight hundred patients. It was Mrs.
Barker's custom to commence here every Monday morning at the First Ward,
doing all she saw needful as she went along, and to go on as far as she
could before two o'clock, when she went to dinner. In the afternoon she
would visit one of the smaller hospitals, all of whose inmates she could
see in the course of one visit, and devote the whole afternoon entirely
to that hospital.

The next morning she would begin again at Harewood, where she stopped
the day before, doing all she could there, previous to two o'clock, and
devoting the afternoon to a smaller hospital. When Harewood was
finished, two hospitals might be visited in a day, and in this manner
she would complete the entire round weekly.

It was not necessary to speak to every man, for on being recognized as a
Sanitary Visitor the men would tell her their wants, and her eye was
sufficiently practiced to discern where undue shyness prevented any from
speaking of them. An assistant always went with her, who drove the
horses, and who, by his knowledge of German, was a great help in
understanding the foreign soldiers. They carried a variety of common
articles with them, so that the larger proportion of the wants could be
supplied on the spot. In this way a constant distribution was going on,
in all the hospitals of Washington, whereby the soldiers received what
was sent for them with certainty and promptness.

In the meantime the First Heavy Artillery had been ordered to join the
army before Petersburg. On the fourth day after it left the forts round
Washington, it lost two hundred men killed, wounded and taken prisoners.
As soon as the sick or wounded men began to be sent back to Washington,
Mrs. Barker was notified of it by her husband, and sought them out to
make them the objects of her special care.

At the same time the soldiers of this regiment, in the field, were
constantly confiding money and mementoes to Mr. Barker, to be sent to
Mrs. Barker by returning Sanitary Agents, and forwarded by her to their
families in New England. Often she gave up the entire