yed
through it all. Meanwhile, Dr. John Swinburne, who was formerly, I
believe, a health officer of New York, had been invited to take charge
of the American hospital at Paris. Dr. Evans's tents were pitched in
the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, in the place where the dog-show used to
be. This was our headquarters all through the siege, though at last,
as winter came on, the tents were not large or comfortable enough to
hold the wounded, and so we built barracks there. George Kidder, Will
Dreyer and I joined the corps together. My first service was to beg
Bowles Brothers' American flag and hoist it over our tents. Then our
duties consisted for a while in loafing about the grounds, driving
tent pegs, greasing the wagons and drawing up rules for our own
government, for there was no fighting just then. Those were the
bright, sunny days of September. Montretout and Chatillon had been
taken, the Zouaves had disgraced themselves, and we were utterly
cut off from the world. We elected two captains. One was William B.
Bowles, and the other Joseph K. Riggs of Washington. They were to
serve on alternate days.

One morning we went down in our wagons, drawn by horses belonging to
members of our corps, and reported to the "International Society for
the Aid of the Wounded." We found them at the Palais d'Industrie. They
did not think much of us, as we could not help perceiving, but they
finally consented to let us go out at the first sortie--namely, that
of Villejuif, when the French tried to take the villages of Thiais and
L'Hay. We got upon the field just as the firing was over. The French
had taken one village at the point of the bayonet, but at last they
had retired so precipitately that they had left their wounded in the
Prussian lines. There the poor fellows lay, in among the yellow wheat,
with great well-fed Prussians prancing around them on horseback. It
was a terrible scene, especially to me, being the first of the kind
I had ever seen. But after a while I was so busy with the others,
picking up the wounded and burying the dead, that somehow I lost my
first overwhelming sense of the horror of the spectacle.

We smelt our first powder--that is, a few stray balls came among
us--at Chatillon. Returning from this latter fight, we saw the burning
of the palace of St. Cloud. It was a beautiful October sunset and
evening, and the sight was indescribably grand.

You will, however, get a better idea of our share in a sortie if I
tell yo