The army was in motion and much confusion existed, but they found comfortable quarters at the Lacy House, where they were under the protection of the General and his staff.
Here Mrs. Parrish found much to do, there being a great deal of sickness among the troops. The weather was stormy, and the movement of the army was impeded; and though she underwent much privation for want of suitable food, and on account of the inclement season she continued faithful at her post and accomplished much good.
In December of the same year she accompanied her husband, with the Medical Director of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, on a tour of inspection to the hospitals of Yorktown, Fortress Monroe, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newbern, North Carolina. While at Old Point she learned that there was about to be an exchange of prisoners, and desiring to render some services in this direction obtained permission from General Butler to proceed, in company with a friend, Miss L. C. on the flag-of-truce boat to City Point, witness the exchange, and render such aid as was possible to our men on their return passage.
There were five hundred Confederate prisoners on board, who, as her journal records, "sang our National airs, and seemed to be a jolly and happy healthy company."
Our men were in a very different condition—"sick and weary," and needing the Sanitary Commission supplies, which had been brought for them, yet shouting with feeble voices their gladness at being once more under the old flag, and in freedom. Mrs. Parrish fed and comforted these poor men as best she could, till the steamer anchored off Old Point again.
It had been intended to continue the exchange much further, but a dispute arising concerning the treatment of negro prisoners, the operations of the cartel were arrested, and the exchange suspended. She found, therefore, no further need of her services in this direction, and so returned home.
For many months to come, as one of the managers of the women's branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, she found ample employment in preparation for the great Philadelphia Fair, in which arduous service she continued until its close, in July, 1864. The exhausting labors of these months, and the heat of the weather during the continuance of the Fair, made it necessary for her to have a respite for the remainder of the summer.
It was in the early winter of this year that she accompanied her husband on a tour of inspection to the hospitals of Annapolis, and became so interested in the condition of the returned prisoners, who needed so much done for them in the way of personal care, that she gladly consented, at the solicitation of the medical officers and agent of the Commission, to serve there for a season.
Of the usefulness of her work among the prisoners, testimony is abundant. What she saw, and what she did, is most touchingly set forth in the following letters from her pen, extracted from the Bulletin of the United States Sanitary Commission:
Annapolis, December 1, 1864.