that
they would miss the opportunity of these last: one was Jerome Fletcher,
the hero of our story. They started upon the run; and, strange to tell,
all of them reached the body, and had nearly borne it from the field,
when two of the number were cut down. Of these, one was Jerome. His
head was entirely torn off by a shell. The body of the deceased officer
having been rescued, an end was put t the human sacrifice.

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE ANGEL OF MERCY

The sad intelligence of Jerome's death was brought to Clotelle while she
was giving her personal attention to the sick and wounded that filled
the hospitals of New Orleans. For a time she withdrew from the gaze of
mankind, and gave herself up to grief. Few unions had been productive of
more harmonious feelings than hers. And this blow, so unexpected and at
a time when she was experiencing such a degree of excitement caused by
the rebellion, made her, indeed, feel the affliction severely.

But the newspaper accounts of the intense suffering of the Union
prisoners in the rebel States aroused her, and caused her to leave her
retirement. In the month of October, 1863, Clotelle resolved to visit
Andersonville, Ga., for the purpose of alleviating the hardships of our
sick and imprisoned soldiers, and at once put her resolution into effect
by going immediately to that place. After crossing the lines, she passed
as a rebel lady, to enable her the more successfully to carry out her
object. On her arrival at Andersonville, Clotelle took up her abode
with a private family, of Union proclivities, and commenced her work
of mercy. She first visited the hospitals, the buildings of which were
merest excuses for hospitals.

It was the beginning of November; and, even in that southern latitude,
the cold made these miserable abodes uncomfortable nights and mornings.
The dirty, unventilated rooms, with nothing but straw upon the cold,
damp floor, for beds, upon which lay the ragged, emaciated Union
prisoners, worn down to skin and bone with disease and starvation,
with their sunken eyes and wild looks, made them appear hideous in the
extreme. The repulsive scenes, that showed the suffering, neglect, and
cruelty which these poor creatures had experienced, made her heart sink
within her.

Having paid considerable attention to hospital life in Europe, and so
recently from amongst the sick at New Orleans, Clotelle's experience,
suggestions, and liberal expenditure of money, would have