In mid-December General Burnside lost nearly 13,000 men at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and reading the long lists of wounded, the Whitmans came upon George's name among the more serious casualties.[346] Great was the distress in the home on Portland Avenue, and Walt set off at once to seek him at the front. His pocket was picked in a crush at Philadelphia Station, and he arrived penniless in Washington.[347] There, searching the hospitals for three days and nights, he could get no news of his brother's whereabouts, but managed somehow to make his way to the army's headquarters at Falmouth. It had been a long, melancholy journey; but arrived at the camp, he found his brother already well again, his wound having healed rapidly. This sudden journey had momentous consequences for Whitman. His stay in New York was, perhaps naturally, drawing to a close. There are indications in the last poems that he was contemplating a westward journey, and possibly a settlement beyond the Rockies.[348] Although he paid it frequent visits, he never lived again in Brooklyn. At Falmouth he found among the wounded a number of young fellows whom he had known in New York.[349] He took a natural interest in their welfare, and even though he felt he could do little for them, lingered till a party going up to Washington offered him an opportunity for usefulness in their escort. Arriving at the capital, he found innumerable similar occasions in the many hospitals which had been established in and about the city. These he began to visit daily, supporting himself by writing letters to the New York and Brooklyn press--to the _New York Times_ in particular--and by copying work in the paymaster's office.[350] It was not till two years later that he obtained regular employment in the Civil Service; but during the whole of that time he was paying almost daily visits to the wards, in his honorary and voluntary capacity, as friend of the wounded. The number of these was periodically swollen by great battles. On the 4th of May, 1863, General Hooker lost the day at Chancellorsville, and was replaced by Meade. Early in July, Lee made a second alarming dash into the North, but was turned back by General Meade from the bloody field of Gettysburg, where the total losses reached the appalling figure of 60,000.