The thankful heart that received them has long been stilled, but the letters have been preserved as sacred relics. I also have a very vivid recollection of your earnest appeal to us to notify our friends of our arrival by first mail for their sake. If to enjoy the gratitude of a single heart be a pleasure, to enjoy the benediction of a grateful world must be sweet to one’s declining years. To have earned it makes it sublime. I have also another tie which makes Oxford seem near to me. An old tent-mate, a member of our regimental quartette, a superb soldier and a very warm friend, lies mouldering there these many years. He survived, I think, more than thirty battles only to die of consumption in January, 1870. Whenever I can I run down from Worcester to lay a flower on George H. Amidon’s grave. I write not to tax you with a reply, but simply to wish for you all manner of blessings. Yours truly F. J. HOSMER Co. I, 4th Vt. Her headquarters at this time was theoretically at Arlington where she had a tent. Arlington was the headquarters receiving and discharging returned prisoners. But much of her work was in Washington, and the constant journeys back and forth caused her to ask for a conveyance. She made her application to General William Hoffman, Commissary-General of prisoners, on June 16, 1865. Her request went the official rounds, and by the 25th of October a horse was promised as soon as a suitable one could be found. It is to be hoped that within a year or two a horse either with sidesaddle or attached to a wheeled conveyance was found tethered in front of her bare lodging on the third floor of No. 488½ 7th Street, between D and E: WASHINGTON, D.C., June 16th, 1865 BRIG.-GEN’L. WM. HOFFMAN COMMSY. GEN’L OF PRISONERS GENERAL: It would not appear so necessary to explain to you the nature of my wants, as to apologize for imposing them upon you, but your great kindness to me has taught me not to fear the abuse of it in any request which seems needful. If I say that in my present undertaking I find the duties of each day quite equal to my strength, and often of a character which some suitable mode of conveyance at my own command like the daily use of a Government wagon would materially lighten, I feel confident that you would both comprehend and believe me, but if I were to desire you to represent my wishes to the proper authorities and aid in obtaining such a facility for me, I may have carried my request to a troublesome length and could only beg your kind pardon for the liberty taken which I would most humbly and cheerfully do. With grateful respect, I am, General Very truly yours CLARA BARTON HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON WASHINGTON, D.C., October 25, 1865 MISS CLARA BARTON: