"You must get me over it. Bring Dr. Kelly!"
Next morning, I had them carry me into a larger room, where the morning sun shone on me, and ten days after, started for Pennsylvania, where I spent three weeks with my old Swissvale neighbors, Col. Hawkins and Wm. S. Haven.
When I returned to Washington, I found an official document, a recommendation from the Quarter-Master General, of my dismissal for absence without leave. It was addressed to Secretary Stanton, who had written on the outside:
"Respectfully referred to Mrs. Swisshelm, by Edwin M. Stanton."
I went back to work, and learned that Mrs. Gen. Barlow had died of typhoid fever, in Washington. No man died more directly for the Government. Thousands who fell on the battle-field, exhibited less courage and devotion to that service, and did less to secure its success. I know not where her body lies, but wherever it does, no decoration-day should pass in which her memory is not crowned with immortelles.
She died at a time when my life was despaired of, and when Mrs. Ingersol wrote to a Maine paper of my illness, adding:
"I hope the Lord will not take her away, until He has made another like her."
She told me afterwards that just then she held the world at a grudge; but it must have been relieved of my presence long ere this, if I had not found in homoepathy relief from pain, which for eight months made life a burden, and for which the best old-school physicians proposed no cure.