e usual out-houses, and a
feature of the place was the spring, which was situated at the foot of
the hill upon which the house stood. Water was supplied from this
spring by means of a ram-pump with pipes. Around the spring was a
growth of very fine walnut-and chestnut-trees, which made it a very
cool retreat during the warm days of summer. A large orchard of
apples, plums, and peaches was immediately in the rear of the
residence. Between the farm and the road which led from Lynchburg to
Amherst Court-House, a distance of about two miles, was a thick growth
of woods, consisting principally of chestnut-trees.

"The whole face of the country consisted of hills and dales, and was
rather rugged; the soil rather poor, probably having been exhausted by
long cultivation. The nearest house was fully a mile distant, that
section of country being but sparsely settled."

Their painful journey thitherward ended, just imagine what it must
have been to these suffering men to arrive at such a haven of rest!--a
"refuge" indeed. Think of the cool, breezy chambers, clean and white
and fragrant, _like home_, of the tender ministry of that gentle
woman, whose loving service was theirs to command, of the country
food, of the cool, sparkling water from the spring under the oaks,
held to fevered lips by ever-ready hands, while the favored patients
drank at the same time draughts of sympathy from eyes whose kindly
glances fell upon the humblest as upon their very own. The excellence
and faithfulness of the nursing is fully proved by the fact that while
three or four hundred patients were sent to this blessed "Refuge," no
mortality occurred among the soldiers, the only death being that of a
little son of Captain Laurence Nichols, who had fallen in battle at
Gaines's Mill, and whose widow found in this lovely, hospitable home a
temporary resting-place for the body of her gallant husband, and
shelter for herself and child, a lovely boy of three years, who was
thence transferred to the arms of the Good Shepherd. Sad, indeed, were
the hearts of the little band of women gathered at the "Refuge."

The trials of the bereaved wife and mother were indeed sore and hard
to be borne, but she could go to the graves of her dead and there pray
for faith to look upward, where she knew her treasures were safe for
time and for eternity. Under the same roof the wife of General Francis
T. Nichols passed days and nights of agonizing suspense. Her husband
was woun