was
upheld by Dr. McAllister, who severely reprimanded Lieutenant Cox, and
excused me from future attendance upon that ward.

I have said that Charlie Gazzan was a special patient and friend;
perhaps the expression needs explanation. A few weeks before, he had
been brought to me one night from the ambulance-train, a living
skeleton, and seemingly at the point of death from dysentery. His
family and that of my husband were residents of Mobile, Alabama, and
intimate friends. He seemed almost in the agony of death, but had
asked to be brought to me. There was not, after the battle of
Murfreesboro', a single vacant bed. He begged hard not to be put in a
crowded ward, so, until I could do better, he was placed upon the
lounge in my office. One small room in the officers' ward being
vacant, I asked and obtained next day the privilege of placing him
there. He recovered very slowly, but surely, and during his
convalescence made himself useful in a hundred ways. My sick boys owed
many a comfort to his wonderful powers of invention; even the surgeons
availed themselves of his skill. He often relieved me of a task I had
sometimes found very wearisome, because so constantly recurring,--that
of writing letters for the sick. He made his own pens and his own ink,
of a deep green color, and seemingly indelible. A more gentle, kindly,
generous nature never existed, and yet his soldierly instincts were
strong, and almost before he could walk about well he "reported for
duty," but was soon relegated to his room and to special diet.

Spring proved hardly less disagreeable in Upper Georgia than winter
had been. The mud was horrible, and I could not avoid it, as the wards
were detached, occupying all together a very wide space. The pony was
no longer available, because he splashed mud all over me. Old Peter
brought me one day an immense pair of boots large enough for me to
jump into when going from one place to another, and to jump out of and
leave at the entrance of the sick wards. With these, an army blanket
thrown over my shoulders and pinned with a thorn, and my dress kilted
up like a washerwoman's, I defied alike the liquid streets and the
piercing wind. My "nursery" was at this time filled to overflowing. My
mind's eye takes in every nook and corner of that large room. It is
very strange, but true, that I remember the position of each bed and
the faces of those who lay there at different times. As I said before,
they were principally