Dotting a ward here and there are always cases of poor fellows, long-suffering under obstinate wounds, or weak and disheartened from typhoid fever, or the like: marked cases, needing special and sympathetic nourishment.  These I sit down and either talk to, or silently cheer them up.  They always like to hugely (and so do I).
    I distribute tobacco in small plugs, with clay pipes, and so on.  I think smoking ought not only to be allowed, but rather encouraged, among the men in every ward.  I myself never used a pinch of tobacco in any way, but I am clear that in soldiers' hospitals, in barracks, it would be good for the men and neutralized exhalations.
    Reading matter is always acceptable.  I always carry some--the cheerful kind.  A good deal of writing is done in every hospital.  The men like to have a pencil and something to write in.  I have given them cheap pocket-diaries, and almanacs for 1863; interleaved with blank paper.  For reading I generally have some old pictorial magazines or story papers--they are always acceptable.  Also the morning or evening papers of the day.  The best books I do not give, but lend to read through, and then take them to others, and so on.  They are very punctual about returning the books.  Sometimes I walk slowly through a ward with a couple of quires of note-paper and a package of envelopes, and sing out whoever wants a little paper to signify it.  Of course there are plenty of customers.

    May, '63.--As I write this the wounded have begun to arrive from Hooker's command from bloody Chancellorsville.  I was down among the first arrivals.  The men in charge of them told me the bad cases were yet to come.  If that is so I pity them, for these are bad enough.  You ought to see the scene of the wounded arriving at the landing here foot of Sixth street at night.  Two boat-loads came about half-past last night.  A little after eight it rained a long and violent shower.  The poor, pale, helpless soldiers had been debarked, and lay around on the wharf and neighborhood anywhere.  The rain was, probably, grateful to them; at any rate they were exposed to it.
    The few torches light up the spectacle.  All around--on the wharf, on the ground, out on side places--the men are lying on blankets, old quilts, &c., with the bloody rags bound round heads, arms, and legs.  The attendants are few, and at night few outsiders also--only a few hard-worked transportation men and drivers.  (The wounded are getting to be common, and people grow callous.)  The men, whatever their condition, like there, and patiently wait till their turn comes to be taken up.  Near by the ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is called to back up and take its load.  Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers.  The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their  sufferings.  A few groans that cannot be suppressed, and occasionally a scream of pain as they lift a man into the ambulance.
    To-day, as I write, hundreds more are expected, and to-morrow and the next day more, and so on for many days.

    The brave, grand soldiers are not comprised in those of one side, any more than the other.  Here is a sample of an unknown Southerner, a lad of seventeen.  At the War Department, a few days ago, I witnessed a presentation of captured flags to the Secretary.  Among others, a soldier named Gant, of the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio Volunteers, presented a rebel battle flag, which one of the officers stated to me was borne to the [missing text] our cannon and planted there by a [missing text] seventeen [missing text] age, who actually endeavored to stop the muzzle of the gun with fence rails.  He was killed in the effort, and the flag staff was severed by a shot from one of our men.  Perhaps, in that Southern boy of seventeen untold in history, unsung in poems, altogether unnamed, fell as strong a spirit, and as sweet, as any in all time.

    As I turned off the avenue one evening into Thirteenth street, a soldier, with knapsack and overcoat on, stood at the corner inquiring his way.  I found he wanted to go part of the road in my direction, so we walked on together.  We soon fell into conversation.  He was small and not very young, and, a tough little fellow, as I judged in the evening light, catching glimpses by the lamps we passed.  His answers were short, but clear.  His name was Charles Carroll; he belonged to one of the Massachusetts regiments, and was born in or near Lynn.  His parents were living, but were very old.  There were four sons, and all had enlisted.  Two had died of starvation and misery in the prison at Andersonville, Ga., and one had been killed in battle in the West.  He only was left.  He was now going home, and, by the way he talked, I inferred that his time was nearly out.  He made great calculations on being with his parents to comfort them the rest of their days.

    June 25 (Thursday, sundown).--As I sit writing this paragraph I see a train of about thirty huge four-horse wagons, used as ambulances, filed with wounded, passing up Fourteenth street, on their way, probably, to Columbian, Carver, and Mount Pleasant Hospitals.  This is the way the men come in now, seldom in small numbers, but almost always in these long, sad processions.  Through the past winter, while our army lay opposite Fredericksburgh, the like strings of ambulances were of frequent occurrence along Seventh street, passing slowly up from the steamboat wharf, from Aquia Creek.

    The soldiers are nearly all young men, and far more American than is generally supposed--I should say nine-tenths are native-born.  Among the arrivals from Chancellorsville I find a large proportion of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois men.  As usual, there are all sorts of wounds.  Some of the men are fearfully burnt from the explosion of artillery caissons.  One ward has a long row of officers, some with ugly hurts.  Yesterday was perhaps worse than usual.  Amputations are going on--the attendants are dressing wounds.  As you pass by you must be on your guard where you look.  I saw the other day a gentleman, a visitor apparently from curiosity, in one of the wards stop and turn a moment to look at an awful wound they were probing, &c.  He turned pale, and in a moment more he had fainted away and fallen on the floor.

    There are many women in one position or another, mostly as nurses here in Washington, and all around among the military stations; most of them are young ladies acting as volunteers.  They are a great help in certain ways, and deserve to be mentioned with praise and respect.  Then it remains to be distinctly said that few or no young ladies, under the irresistible conventions of society, answer the real practical requirements of nurses for these collections of soldiers.  Middle-aged or healthy and good-conditioned, elderly women, mothers of children [missing text] always best.  Many of the wounded [missing text] led.  A hundred things which [missing text]insaid, must occur and must be done.  The presence of a good middle-aged or elderly woman, the magnetic touch of hands, the expressive features of the mother, the silent soothing of her presence, her words, her knowledge, and privileges arrived at only through having had children, are precious and final qualifications.  It is a natural faculty that is required; it is not merely having a genteel young woman at the table in a ward.  One of the finest nurses I have met was a red-faced old Irish woman: I have seen her take the poor, wasted, naked boys so tenderly up in her arms.  There are plenty of excellent clean old black women that would make tip-top nurses.
    Here is an incident that has just occurred in one of the hospitals.  A lady named Miss or Mrs. Billings, who has long been a practical friend of soldiers and nurse in the army, and had become attached to it in a way that no one can realize but him or her who has had experience, was taken sick early this winter, lingered some time, and finally died in the hospital.  It was her request that she should be buried among the soldiers, and after the military method.  This request was fully carried out.  Her coffin was carried to the grave by soldiers, with the usual escort, buried, and a salute fired over the grave.  This was at Annapolis a few days since.

Monday, June 29.--Today, about half-past six P. M., I saw the President going by in his two-horse barouche toward his nightly retreat, the Soldiers' Home.  HE was guarded by about twenty-five calvalry.  The barouche goes on the lead under a slow trot, driven by one man on the box and no servant or footman beside: the cavalry all follow closely two and two with a lieutenant at their head, riding at the side of the carriage.  I had a good view of the President.  He looks more careworn even than usual, his face with deep lines and his complexion kind of gray through his dark brown swarthy skin.  I said to a lady who was looking with me, "Who can see that man without losing all disposition to be sharp upon him personally? He has certainly a good soul."  The lady assented, although she condemns the course of the President as not pronounced enough.
    The equipage is far from showy; indeed, rather shabby; the horses second-rate.  The President dresses in plain black clothes, wears what is called the dress hat (the cylinder with a rim).  He first drove over to the house of secretary of War Mr. Stanton, on K street, where, in a couple of minutes, [missing text] came out, and the two had a talk of several minutes when the Presidential equipage drove off.

    This afternoon, July 22, 1863 I spent a long time with a young man I had been with considerable, named Oscar F. Wilber, Company G, One Hundred and Fifty-fourth New York, low with chronic diarrhea, and a bad wound also.  He asked me to read him a chapter in the New Testament.  I complied, and asked him what I should read.  He said: "Make your own choice."  I opened at the close of one of the first books of the Evangelists, and read of the chapters describing the latter hours of Christ and the scenes at the crucifixion.  The poor, wasted young man asked me to read the following chapter also, how Christ rose again.  I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble.  It pleased him very much, yet the tears were in his eyes.  He asked me if I enjoyed religion.  I said: "Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you mean, and yet, maybe, it is the same thing."  He said: "It is my chief reliance."  He talked of death, and said he did not fear it.  I said: "Why Oscar, don't you think you will get well?"  he said: "I may, but it is not probable."  He spoke calmly of his condition.  The wound was very bad; it discharged much.  Then the diarrhea had prostrated him, and I felt that he was even then the same as dying.  He behaved very manly and affectionate.  The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving he returned fourfold.  He gate me his mother's address, Mrs. Sally D. Wilber, Alleghany Post-office, Cattaraugus County, N. Y.  I had several such interviews with him.  He died a few days after the one just described.

    This city, its suburbs, the Capitol, the front of the White House, the places of amusement, the avenue, and all the main streets swarm with soldiers this winter more than every before.  Some are out from the hospitals, some from the neighboring camps, &c.  Out of one source or another they pour in plenteously, and make, I should say, the marked feature in the human movement and costume appearance of our national city.  Their blue pants and overcoats are everywhere.  The clump of crutches is heard, and up the stairs of the Paymaster's offices; and there are characteristic groups around the doors of the same, often waiting long and wearily in the cold.
    Toward the latter part of [missing text] afternoon you see the furloughed men, sometimes singly, sometimes in small squads, making their way to the Baltimore depot.  At all times, except early in the morning, the patrol detachments are moving around, especially during the earlier hours of the evening, examining passes and arresting all without them. They do not question the one-legged, or men badly disabled or maimed, but all others are stopped.  They also go around through the auditoriums of the theatres, and make officers and all show their passes, or other authority, for being there.