The boats from Washington to Belle Plain were loaded down with fresh troops, while the wagons from Fredericksburg to Belle Plain were loaded with wounded men and went back with supplies. The exchange was transacted on this narrow ridge, called the landing. I arrived from Washington with such supplies as I could take. It was still raining. Some members of the Christian Commission had reached an earlier boat, and, being unable to obtain transportation to Fredericksburg, had erected a tent or two on the ridge and were evidently considering what to do next. To nearly or quite all of them the experience and scene were entirely new. Most of them were clergymen, who had left at a day’s notice, by request of the distracted fathers and mothers who could not go to the relief of the dear ones stricken down by thousands, and thus begged those in whom they had the most confidence to go for them. They went willingly, but it was no easy task they had undertaken. It was hard enough for old workers who commenced early and were inured to the life and its work. I shall never forget the scene which met my eye as I stepped from the boat to the top of the ridge. Standing in this plain of mortar-mud were at least two hundred six-mule army wagons, crowded full of wounded men waiting to be taken upon the boats for Washington. They had driven from Fredericksburg that morning. Each driver had gotten his wagon as far as he could, for those in front of and about him had stopped. Of the depth of the mud, the best judgment was formed from the fact that no entire hub of a wheel was in sight, and you saw nothing of any animal below its knees and the mass of mud all settled into place perfectly smooth and glassy. As I contemplated the scene, a young, intelligent, delicate gentleman, evidently a clergyman, approached me, and said anxiously, but almost timidly: “Madam, do you think those wagons are filled with wounded men?” I replied that they undoubtedly were, and waiting to be placed on the boats then unloading. “How long must they wait?” he asked. I said that, judging from the capacity of the boats, I thought they could not be ready to leave much before night. “What can we do for them?” he asked, still more anxiously. “They are hungry and must be fed,” I replied. For a moment his countenance brightened, then fell again as he exclaimed: “What a pity; we have a great deal of clothing and reading matter, but no food in any quantity, excepting crackers.” I told him that I had coffee and that between us I thought we could arrange to give them all hot coffee and crackers. “But where shall we make our coffee?” he inquired, gazing wistfully about the bare wet hillside. I pointed to a little hollow beside a stump. “There is a good place for a fire,” I explained, “and any of this loose brush will do.” “Just here?” he asked. “Just here, sir.”