After this I have not much choice in any of the hospitals near me. E Street Church is near, and so many of the churches, and perhaps being less in magnitude they are less strict. I don’t even know if you will be allowed to see me before making your report to the Medical Director, and there is one bare possibility that I may be out on a scout when you arrive. Lord knows the condition of our poor wretched soldiers down in the army; all communication cut off to and from, they must be dying from want of care, and I am promised to go to them the first moment access can be had, but this would not discourage you, for I should come home again when the poor fellows were a little comfortable. I am not certain when you can come, probably not until some Government boat comes up; one went down yesterday, and if I had had your order _then_, I should have come for you, but to start in one now after this I might miss you, as they only go some once a week or so. All sorts of rumors in town,--that we are whipping the rebels, they are whipping us, Jackson defeated, Pope defeated. But one thing I do suppose to be true, viz., that our army is isolated, cut off from supplies of food, and that we cannot reach them with more until they fight their way out. This is not generally believed or understood, but your cousin both understands and believes it. People talk like children about “_transporting supplies_” as if it were the easiest thing imaginable to transport supplies by wagon thirty miles across a country scouted by guerrilla bands. Our men _must_ be on part rations, tired and hungry, fighting like tigers, and dying like dogs. There! Doesn’t that sound impatient. I won’t speak again. Of course you will write me instantly and tell me if you are able to come, and when as nearly as possible, etc., etc. I will enclose $5.00 lest you may need and not have. Your affectionate Cousin CLARA H. BARTON Washington, D.C. Thus did Clara Barton at her father’s death-bed consecrate herself to a work more difficult than any woman had at that time undertaken for the relief of suffering caused by the war. Other women were equally brave; others, equally tender in their personal ministrations; but Clara Barton knew the difficulties of transportation and the awful agonies and loss of life endured by men through neglect and delay and the distance of the hospital from the battle-field. She was ready to carry relief right behind the battle lines. She had not long to wait for her opportunity. [6] From James Russell Lowell’s second series of “Biglow Papers,” then appearing in the _Atlantic_. [7] A reference to Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” then new. CHAPTER XIII CLARA BARTON TO THE FRONT