Often amid the sickening scenes of the overcrowded hospitals, I met her on her weary round of holy service. And at the close of the war she was active in the establishment of a home for the orphan children of soldiers in Wisconsin. BURSTING OF A SHELL BEHIND MY CARRIAGE. The line of battle was so closely drawn around Vicksburg that every camp, and hospital, and wagon-train with provisions and ammunition, was under fire. Every worker of the Christian and Sanitary Commissions, who ventured out to labor with the sick and the dying, knew that the Confederate sharpshooters at many points were within easy range, and that the flying shot and shell, that at times almost darkened the sky, were liable to drop in the pathway of the worker, and blot him or her out of existence. None but the more courageous remained on the field. Curiosity-hunters, and bombastic dress-parade workers, fled from the scene as from a battle-field; for in truth every inch of ground about Vicksburg was a battle-field. The perplexities of the service, and the dangers attending every effort made to relieve the suffering, were so great, and the laborers in consequence so few, that every helper was overwhelmed and overworked. One day, coming in from a weary round, a day’s work of unusual peril and hardship, we reached a point in the road sheltered from the enemy by a clump of trees. Though at no great distance from the Confederate guns, it seemed more secure because we were out of sight of the frowning batteries. Suddenly there was a crash in the timber, and we knew and heard no more. We were all so stunned that we did not know that a shell, crushing through the tops of the trees, had struck the ground in the middle of the roadway not forty feet behind our carriage. If it had come a moment sooner, we would all have been scattered in fragments to the four winds. As it was, the road was torn up so that it was impossible for teams to pass till it was repaired; the horses fell to the earth, the driver seemed dazed for a time, the carriage was covered with the dirt thrown out, for an ox might have been buried in the pit that that one shell dug out. Though it was the main thoroughfare, along which much of the ammunition and provisions were hauled, fortunately no teams were nearer than our own, and no one was killed or hurt. If these lines should fall under the eyes of George, the driver, a soldier detailed for that service, he will excuse me for saying that he was about the worst frightened person I ever saw. That evening he said,-- “I wish you would release me, and ask for some one else. I’d rather be with my regiment behind the fortifications than driving around this way all the time.”