When the news came that we were needed,
there was none so glad as I to leave teaching
contrabands, the new work I had taken up, and
go to nurse "our boys," as my dusky flock so
proudly called the wounded of the Fifty-Fourth.
Feeling more satisfaction, as I assumed my big
apron and turned up my cuffs, than if dressing for
the President's levee, I fell to work on board the
hospital-ship in Hilton-Head harbor. The scene
was most familiar, and yet strange; for only dark
faces looked up at me from the pallets so thickly
laid along the floor, and I missed the sharp accent
of my Yankee boys in the slower, softer voices
calling cheerily to one another, or answering my
questions with a stout, "We'll never give it up,
Ma'am, till the last Reb's dead," or, "If our
people's free, we can afford to die."
Passing from bed to bed, intent on making one
pair of hands do the work of three, at least, I
gradually washed, fed, and bandaged my way
down the long line of sable heroes, and coming to
the very last, found that he was my contraband.
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