This was all she found time to write in the diary. Of the letters she wrote to her cousin, Corporal Leander A. Poor, relating to her father’s death, one has been recovered: NORTH OXFORD, March 27th, 1862 Thursday Afternoon MY DEAR COUSIN LEANDER: Your welcome second letter came to me this noon--doubtless before this you have learned the answer to your kind inquiry, “How is Grandsire?” But if not, and the sentinel post is mine, I must answer, “All is well.” Down under the little pines, beside my mother, he rests quietly, sleeps peacefully, dreams happily. The old soldier’s heavy march is ended, for him the last tattoo has sounded, and, resting upon the unfailing arms of truth, hope, and faith, he awaits the “reveille of the eternal morning.” “Grandsire” had been steadily failing since I came home. For more than thirty days he did not taste a morsel of food, and could retain nothing stronger or more nourishing than a little milk and water--for over ten of the last days not that, simply a little cold water, which he dared not swallow. And still he lived and moved himself and talked strongly and sensibly and wisely as you had always heard him. Who ever heard of such constitutional strength? You will be gratified to know that he arranged all his business to his entire satisfaction some days previous to his death. After being raised up and writing his name, he said to me, “This is the last day I shall ever do any business; my work in this world is done.” He remained until Friday, the 21st [of March], sixteen minutes past ten o’clock at night. He spoke for the last time about five o’clock, but made us understand by signs until the very last, when he straightened himself in bed, closed his mouth firmly, gave one hand to Julia, and the other to me, and left us. Clara Barton’s hopes of going to the front received a severe disappointment when Governor Andrew returned Dr. Hitchcock’s communication with the refusal to endorse her application. But she was nothing if not persistent. Almost immediately after her receipt of the Governor’s letter, she began again seeking to bring influence to bear on a Massachusetts captain (Denney), whose wife she had come to know. In this she gives more detail of the so-called “leak” in stores, which had been sent more or less recklessly for the benefit of troops, and without the prepaying of express charges. An organization of Confederate sympathizers had been formed to purchase these goods from the express company, and slip them through the lines. In some way she had found this out, and so as to be morally certain of it before the exposure and arrest of the conspirators, she had relied upon advance information that she possessed of this system to commend her to Governor Andrew, and he was, evidently, favorably impressed. But she encountered the red tape of the surgeons who were not willing that she should go to the battle-field.