The train was well guarded. There were at least fifty well-armed Union soldiers on board to guard it, who took turns on the platform, ready to spring off, gun in hand, if the train were attacked. But when a volley was fired into the train, before the engineer could stop it, and the soldiers could get started in pursuit, the enemy had mounted their horses, and were far away. When the second volley crashed into the train, a bullet passed through the window beside me, and whizzed very near to my eyes. If it had come a little closer, it would have gone through both of them. Fortunately I had just leaned back against the seat; for if I had been sitting in an upright position, as I was a few moments before, the ball would have gone through my head. A mother and her little girl, who was five or six years old, sat in the seat in front of me. The poor little child was so terrified that she tried to hide under the seat. Her appeals, as she lifted her beautiful tear-stained face, were very touching. “Do you think they’ll fire again, mamma?” “I hope not, my darling,” and the mother would tenderly cover her with the skirts of her dress, and try to soothe her. “O mamma! do get down on the floor; if you don’t, you might get killed.” It was pitiful to see a child in such terror, crouching on the floor. We did not reach Sedalia till midnight, and it was not till the train drew up at the station that the child could be comforted. The next morning early I went into the nearest hospital. The building was an old, dilapidated frame structure, that had been used as a store. Scores of wounded and sick men were crowded into these poor narrow quarters. But it is not my purpose just now to speak of them, or of the hospital management, but of a child I found there. He was lying on a cot in a little back room. They called him “Willie.” He said he was “goin’ on eight;” but if he was that old, he was very small of his age. His face was wondrous fair and beautiful, and his hair hung in golden ringlets about his head. He had been very ill, and was still too weak to leave his bed. But he was bright and happy, and a great favorite with the men, who, lying on their beds, whittled toys for Willie with their pocket-knives out of anything they could utilize for that purpose, such as sticks and bones. I took a great deal of pains to ascertain the facts about the boy. He was a fatherless, motherless child, who had followed the soldiers when they marched away from the town where he was temporarily staying. No one cared, and no one followed to bring him back, and so he went on with them. The simple story, as he told it, seemed to be sustained by the facts I afterwards gathered.