every capacity.

During the month of December, sickness in the form of pneumonia and
measles became fearfully prevalent, and by the middle of January
one-fifth of the army was said to be in the hospital. The prevalence
of disease was attributed by the surgeons to the constant rains,
the warm winter, and incessant labor day and night on the
fortifications.

Though up to this time I had enjoyed uninterrupted good health, the
pneumonia now seized me violently; and after a week of "heroic
treatment," I was put into a box-car and started for the hospital at
Nashville. This was the dreariest ride of my life thus far. Alone,
in darkness, suffering excruciating pain, going perhaps to die and
be buried in an unhonored grave, my "Christmas" was any thing but
"merry." And yet the month following my arrival in Nashville was
the most pleasant, on many accounts, that I had yet spent in Dixie.
I was carefully and tenderly nursed by Drs. Stout and Gambling and
the ladies of Nashville, who showed the true woman's heart in their
assiduous care of the poor suffering men, prostrated by disease and
home-sickness. Some of the ladies were strong Secessionists; but I
thought then, as I believe now, that most of them, not all, would
have shown the same kindness to any suffering soldiers who might
have come under their notice. I knew my mother would be a Good
Samaritan to a dying Rebel; why should not they to wounded
Unionists.

In two weeks I was convalescent, and yet I daily exhausted my
returning strength by gaining a knowledge of the Nashville
founderies, machine-shops, bridges, capitol, industry, and whatever