“But,” I said at last, “I am an officer’s wife, and he is wounded.” I broke down with the words, and in spite of my efforts to keep them back my eyes filled with tears. It was what I should have done in the beginning. I at once got permission. I went into the car, took my seat at the extreme end and shrunk into the smallest space possible. The car was packed with soldiers and I was the only woman on board. When we were about half-way a young lieutenant who occupied part of the seat in front of me said: “Madam, if I can be of any assistance to you, please command me. I suppose you know that our train stops within three miles of Petersburg.” “I did not know,” I said, “and I do not know what to expect, or what I shall do, or where I shall find my husband, although I suppose I shall be met.” “If not,” he said, “I am at your service.” No one was waiting for me at the depot; but the lieutenant secured an ambulance, got in it with me, and directed the driver to take us to Petersburg. We soon met Gus, Dan’s cousin, coming to meet me in a buggy. While I was getting out of the ambulance into the buggy I was plying Gus with questions about Dan. “Dan is at our house,” Gus told me. “His wound is a very ugly one, but the doctors say that he’ll get well. At first we thought he wouldn’t. He is shot through the thigh, and will be laid up for some time--that’s what he’s kicking about now.” Our most direct route to Mansfield, where Dan was, lay through Petersburg, but we could not follow that route. The Yankees were everywhere about the city, Gus said, so we went through the outer edge of Ettricks, skirting the city proper. When we reached Mansfield my husband on crutches met me at the door. He looked pale and weak, but he was very cheery and tried to joke. “He ought not to have got up, Nell,” whispered Grandmamma Grey. “He thought it would shock you to find him in bed--that is why he got up.” Of course I immediately put him under orders. He returned to bed meekly enough, and from that time I did all I could, and it was all I could do, to keep him still until his wound healed. We read and sang and played on the banjo and had a good time. But as soon as he was able to hobble he would go to camp every day and sit around. General Lee’s headquarters were about a mile and a half from our house. Colonel Taylor and a number of old friends were there, and Dan could talk fight if he couldn’t fight. At last he insisted that he was ready to join his division, and we set out to reach it in an ambulance drawn by three mules. When we came to Hatchers Run we found that creek very much swollen and the bridge not visible, but there were fresh tracks showing where a wagon had lately gone over.