There were in this hospital, as in all the rest, some professional women nurses, and they were very efficient. They did their work not only with technical skill, but they had that prime quality that must ever characterize nurses of the highest order, heartfelt sympathy with those whose sufferings they strove to alleviate. But in addition to these, there were many volunteer nurses, women, who, by regular appointment, were there at all hours of the day and night. They were ready to do any service within their power. They worked under the direction of the physicians and in harmony with the professional nurses. They often brought with them, from their own household stores, such appetizing foods as reminded the sick soldiers of the tender nursing that in homes far away they had sometimes received from mother or sister. A little gruel or soup, or fruit, or jelly, how grateful to the palate, and cheering to the spirit! The very thought of it started many a sick soldier boy on the road to health and further service in the field. The tender sympathy which these women lavished on the suffering was often more healing than medicine. And when, sitting by the bedside of languishing heroes, sick it may be even unto death, they wrote letters for them to the loved ones at home, these missives throbbed with a mother’s love and were often wet with a mother’s tears. An incident of that kind comes vividly to mind as I write. A young man from Indiana lay on his death-bed. He was about twenty-two years old and fully six feet in height. He was muscular and strong. But pneumonia had seized upon him and had baffled the best skill of the surgeon. He had been told that he could not live more than five or six hours longer. But he was a Christian and had hope of a glorious immortality. In the final arrangement of his affairs he was as calm in spirit as if he were going out on dress parade. By his cot sat a young mother. He asked her to write to his family and tell them what to do with his things. She wrote as he suggested, her heart almost bursting with emotion. He gave one thing to this sister, another to that brother, and last of all he said, “I give Jeff. C. Davis to my youngest brother.” “But what is Jeff. C. Davis?” asked the one who was writing for him his last letter, and there were tears in her voice. He replied, a smile playing around his lips, “It is my colt. I named him for General Davis, who is an Indianian and very popular in our State.”