For the last few days we have been constantly meeting and caring for the wounded and broken-down from Wilson’s cavalry raid; they have endured more than could be expected of men, and are still brave and cheerful under their sufferings. I hope I shall not surprise you by the information that we celebrated the Fourth (yesterday) by giving an extra dinner. We invited in the lame, the halt, and the blind to the number of some two hundred or more to partake of roast beef, new potatoes, squash, blancmange, cake, etc., etc. We had music, not by the band, but from the vicinity of Petersburg, and, if not so sweet and perfectly timed as that discoursed by some of your excellent city bands, it must be acknowledged as both startling and thrilling, and was received with repeated “_bursts_.” I thank you much for your kind solicitude for my health. I beg to assure you that I am perfectly well at present and, with the blessing of Heaven, I hope to remain so. Of the length of the campaign I have no adequate idea, and can form none. I should be happy to write you pages of events as they transpire every day, but duty must not be neglected for mere gratification. Thus far I have remained at the Corps (which is, in this instance, only an overburdened and well-conducted field) hospital. This point, from its peculiar location, is peculiarly adapted to this double duty service, situated as it is at one terminus of the line of entrenchments. This part of Clara Barton’s war experience is least known of all that she performed. Her diaries were unkept and as her war lectures were mostly occupied with her earlier service in the field, they make almost no reference to this important part of her work. It is through her letters that we know something of what she experienced and accomplished in the closing months of 1864, and the early months of 1865. There is less material here of the kind that makes good newspaper copy or lecture material than was afforded by her earlier work in the open field, and it is probably on this account that this period has fallen so much into the shadow of forgetfulness that it has sometimes been said that Clara Barton retired from active service after the Wilderness campaign. Two letters, one to Frances Childs Vassall, and the other to Annie Childs, give somewhat intimate pictures of her life in this period, and may be selected out of her correspondence for that purpose. TENTH ARMY CORPS HOSPITAL September 3rd, 1864 MY DARLING SIS FANNIE: