“Can I do anything for you, before you go, or perhaps after? Can I help you? tell me.” “Yes, ma’am, you can help me. If you would just let me shake hands with you, I think it would help me on the battle-field, to remember it. I saw the others come up, but somehow I didn’t dare to, and I was so afraid I would have to go without.” Poor George! Not many of the men are so troubled with modesty. Such a little boon to be asked for so earnestly! one, too, which half the men claim as a right in parting. “You didn’t think, George, after all our talks, I could have let you go without shaking hands with you, did you? No, my boy,” said I, holding out my hand; “but I will do what will be more likely to help you on the battle-field, pray for you; and now, goodbye.” He grasped my hand, and as he held it, a hot tear fell on it; he seemed shocked, dropped it, and rushed from the room into the crowd waiting at the door to start. The signal sounded, and they were gone. “God go with them!” said an earnest voice at my side. God will go with them! Doubt it not, Ye, whose fond, aching hearts Fear that your treasures are less safe, Because from you apart! Love, human love, is powerless, From Death or harm to shield; Our very lives, for theirs laid down, Could no protection yield. God will go with them! Rest on that, When partings make Life dark; He guideth every bullet’s course, To hit or miss its mark. Then trust them amid shot and shell, To His unfailing care; And bow, submissive hearts, howe’er The answer comes to Prayer. A VISIT TO THE WARDS. U. S. A. HOSPITAL. And so you really wish, dear C., to take that long-promised trip through the wards of our hospital? Most happy shall I be to escort you; and I promise, ere we start, to use every endeavor to prevent you from going any deeper than you wish into the “horrors of hospital life.” You shall not see an open wound if I can help it;--do not imagine that I have forgotten the effect upon you of the sight of that man’s arm the last time that you were here; and yet it was your own fault, for it was your expression of interest in him and his wound which led to the display; and we, hardened creatures that we have become, were not aware of your feelings till the harm was done. But put yourself under my guidance to-day, and I will pick out only the choice specimens. Yet no! I cannot do that exactly, for, in answer to a charge brought against me here a few days since, I have promised to select the worst cases--the _morally_ worst cases, I mean,--in the hospital, to show my friends. What was the charge? you ask. Nothing very heinous, to be sure. A friend, to whom I have very often talked of the hospital and its inmates, said to one of our medical cadets, as we walked through the wards: