PREFACE.
In presenting the following unpretending story of the hospital-labors of Mrs. Sarah A. Palmer to the public, it was thought best to give it the autobiographical form, as it was found in her diary of three months, and in repeated and extended conversations with her almost daily during the period of its writing.
A full diary had been kept up to the occupation of City Point as a hospital-base, but was lost with a trunk of clothing, and never recovered.
She relies on memory for the date of many incidents, and should they be found incorrect, begs it to be remembered in extenuation of the errors, that her mind was so filled with the anxiety, and her body so wearied at times with watching, that it would be strange if everything was laid away in its proper niche in Memory's store-house.
There is no gild of fiction over this plain story; the events are related as they occurred, and hundreds will attest to their truthfulness.
