With an assurance that I would remain at her side until her father took her under his protection, she left her babe with her mother and we departed for Richmond. We met her father, with whom I felt she would be safe. I find these extremes of love and hate more prevalent in the South than in the North.
On the 18th of October, after visiting fifteen suffering families, I called at the office for an ambulance and driver to go to Libby Prison for supplies. These were obtained and distributed, and such gratitude from the recipients I never found elsewhere. Same of them wept aloud. A number of the women kissed my hands as I left them, and the hearty "God bless you, honey," was an everyday blessing from these poor-crushed spirits.
One of our officers came to me with the urgent request of two women, living in a large brick house, to see me. I obeyed the summons at once. As I rang the door-bell, a genteelly dressed lady in black satin met me at the door. I inquired if there were two ladies here who had sent for me? She replied in the affirmative. By this time the other lady appeared in the hall, also dressed in rich silk.
"What are your greatest needs," I asked, "that will come within my power to supply?"
"We want money, madam," they said, "and must have it."
"Are any of your family sick?"
"No, madam, but money we must have."
"Will rations answer your purpose?"
"No, madam, we want no such thing; we want money, and must have it."
I told them I had no money to disburse, and only supplied food and clothing to those who were suffering from greatest destitution, and left them without being invited inside their house. I saw at once they were most accustomed to the imperative mood.