Going to the numerous hospitals with supplies of all kinds; cooking soups, puddings, custards; making tea, coffee, lemonade, milk-punch; preparing “special diet” for individual cases, dressing wounds, bathing burning brows, receiving dying messages, writing to friends of the disabled and deceased, were among our daily duties. Sad and distressing scenes met us at every turn. Death was a daily visitor. Graves almost hourly increased in numbers; and even then the demand was not fully met, for it was no uncommon sight to see, in going from tent to tent, from one to half-a-dozen lifeless forms wrapped in their blankets, mutely pleading for burial. Not unfrequently the sick and wounded were obliged to lie a long time upon the ground in the burning sun, before shelter could be provided. The 6th of the month, a large number belonging to the Ninth Corps were thus unsheltered and unprotected from the heat of day and the chilling dews of night. Among these there was one whose emaciated form and imploring look particularly attracted my attention, and seemed to demand special aid and sympathy. This was James E. Rouse, a member of the Michigan Second. Placing my umbrella over him, I finished distributing my lemonade and crackers, and then tried to find a vacant place in some tent to which I could remove him; but without success. The best I could do was to make a bed on the shady side of one of the tents, underneath the ropes, which I covered with a shelter-tent. To this he was taken, bathed, and provided with clean clothes. The few days he remained there, I took him his meals regularly. A cup of tea and a few mouthfuls of toast were about all he would take at a time. At length he was removed into a hospital. He still continued to fail, and in a few days he was gone. But instead of being sent to Washington, as I was told, he had been removed into another tent, where I found him the evening before leaving the place, dying. As I approached his bed--if bed it could be called--he recognized me, and tried to speak, but was too far gone to say much. A few words about home, in which I caught the words, “wife--my children,” were all I could understand. Soon he became unconscious, and apparently near his end. Remaining as long as I could be of any service, I returned to my quarters, and called again early next morning to see him, but he was gone. I learned from the nurse that he died during the night, and was already buried. Sunday, the 5th, among the many who were brought from the field, was the body of Major Lewis, of the Eighth Michigan volunteers, who fell mortally wounded at the battle of Coal Harbor. Dr. Fox, of the same regiment, came in with the body, and was the first to break the heart-rending news to the widowed wife.