9th.—All is bustle and confusion. Though there is no order to move, we are all packing, and ambulances are running with our sick to general hospital. This looks like clearing the decks for action. We are notified that when we do march, we shall do so without baggage or tents. So long have we been here that, notwithstanding we have been long impatient to move, it will be like breaking up our home. My home attachments are very strong. I shall feel sadly at breaking up, but I shall be glad to be again in active service.
Since the late ebullition of vindictiveness by Gen. ______, I have been schooling myself in the hardest lesson of my life —that is to sit and wait for orders, regardless of humanity, of everything, indeed, except the little eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents per month, and my own ease and comfort. This is a lofty ambition. A prize worthy a better patriot than I have ever claimed to be. Last night and this morning I labored in my hospital till three A.M. But that work is now over. We leave behind us those to whom my care and their suffering had attached me; and I will see to it that neither conscience nor humanity shall again so strongly attach me to the sick. It only lays me liable to indignities and insults.
