When Clara went to the front, she dressed in a plain black print skirt with a jacket. She wished to dress so that she could easily get about and not consume much time in dressing. Her clothing received hard usage, and when she returned from any campaign to Washington, she was in need of a new outfit. At one time the women of Oxford sent her a box for her own personal use. Friends in Oxford furnished the material, and Annie Childs made the dresses. The box was delivered at her room during her absence, and she returned from the field, weary and wet, her hair soaked and falling down her back, and entered her cold and not very cheerful room. There she found this box with its complete outfit, and kneeling beside it she burst into happy tears. The author counts it especially fortunate that he has been able to find a letter from Clara relating to this very experience, which was on the occasion of her return from the battle of Fredericksburg. It was addressed to Annie Childs, and dated four months later: PORT ROYAL, May 28th, 1863 MY DEAR ANNIE: I remember, four long months ago, one cold, dreary, windy day, I dragged me out from a chilly street-car that had found me ankle-deep in the mud of the 6th Street wharf, and up the slippery street and my long flights of stairs into a room, cheerless, in confusion, and alone, looking in most respects as I had left it some months before, with the exception of a mysterious _box_ which stood unopened in the middle of the floor. All things looked strange to me, for in that few months I had taken in so much that yet I had no clear views. The great artist had been at work upon my brain and sketched it all over with life scenes, and death scenes, never to be erased. The fires of _Fredericksburg_ still blazed before my eyes, and her cannon still thundered at my ear, while away down in the depths of my heart I was smothering the groans and treasuring the prayers of her dead and dying heroes; worn, weak, and heartsick, I was _home from Fredericksburg_; and when, there, for the first time I looked at myself, shoeless, gloveless, ragged, and blood-stained, a new sense of desolation and pity and sympathy and weariness, all blended, swept over me with irresistible force, and, perfectly overpowered, I sank down upon the strange box, unquestioning its presence or import, and wept as I had never done since the soft, hazy, winter night that saw our attacking guns silently stealing their approach to the river, ready at the dawn to ring out the shout of death to the waiting thousands at their wheels.