She “had just commenced”; that was characteristic of her. She had been ministering to the soldiers ever since the day when the first blood was shed on the 19th of April, 1861, and had been at it without rest or stint ever since. But she had just commenced; she had just learned how to do it in the way that was hereafter to characterize her methods. The defeat at Harper’s Ferry threw Washington into a panic. But it moved McClellan to a long-deferred engagement with the Union forces in the offensive. The long maneuvering and skirmishing [she wrote], had yielded no fruit. Pope had been sacrificed and all the blood shed from Yorktown to Malvern Hill seemed to have been utterly in vain. But the minor keys, upon which I played my infinitesimal note in the great anthem of war and victory which rang through the land when these two fearful forces met and closed, with gun-lock kissing gun-lock across the rocky bed of Antietam, are yet known only to a few. Washington was filled with dismay, and all the North was moved as a tempest stirs a forest. Maryland lay temptingly in view, and Lee and Jackson with the flower of the rebel army marched for its ripening fields. Who it was that whispered hastily on Saturday night, September 13,--“_Harper’s Ferry, not a moment to be lost_”--I have never dared to name. In thirty minutes I was waiting the always kindly spoken “_Come in_,” of my patron saint, Major, now Quartermaster-General, Rucker. “Major,” I said--“I want to go to Harper’s Ferry; can I go?” “Perhaps so,” he replied, with genial but doubtful expression. “Perhaps so; do you want a conveyance?” “Yes,” I said. “But an army wagon is the only vehicle that will reach there with any burden in safety. I can send you one of these to-morrow morning.” I said, “I will be ready.” But here was to begin a new experience for me. I was to ride eighty miles in an army wagon, and straight into battle and danger at that. I could take no female companion, no friend, but the stout working-men I had use for. You, who are accustomed to see a coach and a pair of fine horses with a well-dressed, gentlemanly driver draw up to your door, will scarcely appreciate the sensation with which I watched the approach of the long and high, white-covered, tortoise-motioned vehicle, with its string of little, frisky, long-eared animals, with the broad-shouldered driver astride, and the eternal jerk of the single rein by which he navigated his craft up to my door. The time, you will remember, was Sunday; the place, 7th Street, just off Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington City. Then and there, my vehicle was loaded, with boxes, bags, and parcels, and, last of all, I found a place for myself and the four men who were to go with me. I took no Saratoga trunk, but remembered, at the last moment, to tie up a few articles in my handkerchief.