finding that her special diet supplies had been lost on the passage, she returned to Washing- ton, and went to Gettysburg, arriving a few hours after the last day^s fight. She worked here until the wounded had all been sent to Base Hospital. In October, November, and December, 1863, she worked in the hospitals on Folly and Morris Islands, South Carolina, when General Gilmore was besieging Fort Sumter. Early in 1864 she joined the army at Brandy Station, and in May went with the Auxiliary Corps of the Sanitary Commission to Fredericksburg, when the battle of the Wilderness was being fought."
She served in the tent, on the field, or in the hospitals at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chan- cellorsville, and Gettysburg. In the terrible campaigns of the Wilderness and in all the other engagements of the Army of the Potomac in 1864 and 1865 she labored unceasingly. She was often under fire and suffered many hardships, but with unselfish devotion, her only thought being that of duty.
William Howell Reed, in his book upon "Hospital Life in the Army of the Potomac," has much to say of Miss Gilson and her work, his first reminiscence being connected with Fredericksburg: "One afternoon just before the evacuation, when the atmosphere of our rooms was close and foul, and all were longing for a breath of cooler Northern air, while the men were moaning with pain or restless with fever, and our hearts were sick with pity for the sufferers, I heard a light step upon the stairs; and, looking up, I saw a young lady enter who brought with her such an atmosphere of calm and cheerful courage, so much fresh- ness, such an expression of gentle, womanly sympathy, that her mere presence seemed to revive the drooping spirits of the men and to give them new power of endurance through their long hours of suffering. First with one, then at the side of another, a friendly word here, a gentle word and smile there, a tender sympathy with each prostrate sufferer, a sympathy which could read in his eyes his longing for home love and for the presence of some absent one, in those few moments hers was in- deed an angel ministry. Before she left the room she sang to them, first some stirring national melody, then some sweet or plaintive hymn to strengthen the fainting heart; and I remember how her notes penetrated to every part of the building. Soldiers with less painful wounds, from the rooms above, began to crowd out into the entries, and men from below crept up on their hands and knees, to catch every note and to receive of the benediction of her presence, for such it was to them. Then she went away. I did not know who she was, but I was as much moved and melted as any soldier of them all."
When the steamer containing the wounded and the membrrs of the Auxiliary Corps left Fredericksburg (it being necessary to evacuate the town) and reached Port Royal, they were besieged by negroes. They came in such numbers and were so earnest in their appeals for rescue that a government barge was appropri- ated for their use. Mr. Reed says: "A thousand were stowed upon her decks. They had an evening service of prayer and song, and the members of the corps went on board to witness it. When their song had ceased. Miss Gilson addressed them. She pictured the reality of freedom, told them what it meant and what they would have to do. No longer would there be a master to deal out the peck of corn, no longer a mistress to care for the old f)eople or the children. They were to work for them- selves, provide for their own sick, and support their own infirm; but all this was to be done under new conditions. . . . Then in the simplest language she explained the difference between their former relations with their master and their new relations with the Northern p)eople, showing that labor here was voluntary, and that they could only expect to secure kind employers by faithfully doing all they had to do. She counselled them to be truthful, economical, unselfish, and to guide their lives by kindly deeds."
Cold Harbor and City Point were scenes of Miss Gilson's labors, and then in company with Mrs. Barlow, wife of General Francis C. Barlow, she went to the front of Petersburg. They ministered there to the wounded of the Second and Eighteenth Army Corps. Afterward for several months Miss Gilson was at the Base Hospital at City Point.
