LETTER L.
Dear Mother,—I am happy to inform you that I
continue to gain. This afternoon the Doctor came
over and made me some tea in the wonderful teapot.
I must say my opinion of tea remains unchanged. So
I made the Doctor drink it up. The teakettle will be
useful for many purposes. There is no need of your
coming out to me, and I am afraid the climate would
make you sick. I enclose a letter that may interest
you, it is from a woman whose only son died here.
She came and took care of him during his last days.
She recovered from this attack and resumed her
usual duties. The change of the Institution at
Benton Barracks from a hospital for sick and
wounded soldiers to a home for "contrabands " and
refugees became more complete. Most of the nurses
with whom she had been associated left the hospital,
and Dr. Russell proposed to leave it. As the
season advanced, the malarial fever which had attacked
her on her coming back from Vicksburg
returned with much severity. She recovered sufficiently
to come home, but was exceedingly feeble
and exhausted when she reached Cambridge in
August, 1864. Her health and strength were not
restored until winter; and then she labored in
such ways as she could for the freedmen and
refugees; of this however I can add nothing to
the account already quoted from " Women's Work
in the War." She then began her efforts for the
establishment of a hospital in Cambridge. The
extracts I make from the reports which she printed
will tell her own story of this matter.
