“ [351] they say. That same evening I found a poor, exhausted fellow lying on a stretcher, on which he had just been brought in. There was no bed for him just then, and he looked uncomfortable enough, with his knapsack for a pillow. ‘ I know some hot tea will do you good,’ I said. ‘Yes, ma'am,’ he answered, ‘but I am too weak to sit up with nothing to lean against; it's no matter-don't bother about me;’ but his eyes were fixed longingly on the smoking tea. Everybody was busy, not even a nurse in sight, but the poor man must have his tea. I pushed away the knapsack, raised his head, and seated myself on the end of the stretcher, and, as I drew his poor tired head back upon my shoulder, half holding him, he seemed, with all his pleasure and eager enjoyment of the tea, to be troubled at my being so bothered with him. He forgot I had come so many hundred miles on purpose to be ‘ bothered.’ ” Early in January of ‘63, Miss Breckinridge descended the Mississippi to Vicksburg, for the purpose of attending to the sick and wounded there, and rendering aid in bringing them up to St. Louis. It was a trip attended with great peril, because of the guerrillas lying in ambush, and the bands of rebels ever on the watch for the steamers and transports as they passed, but her mission was too important to allow herself to dwell upon danger. She reached her destination in safety, and returned to St. Louis on a small hospital boat, on which there were one hundred and sixty patients in care of herself and one other lady. A few extracts from one of her letters will show what brave work it gave her to do:
It was on Sunday morning, 25th of January,
