. . . turn—some I have to visit every day or evening (there are husbands & young lads, of good farmers' families &c, brought up at home, never having left), while they are in critical state, pet them, cheer them, caress them, give them some trifle. I always carry a stout double-pocket haversack, filled with things—also large pockets in my coat &c—I have articles of many kinds, I have learnt what is appropriate—I generally carry a bottle of wine—I buy oranges by the box, & fill my pockets with them before going into a ward, they are very refreshing to feverish men this weather—I have nice preserved peaches or something of the jelly sort—to many I give little sums of money—the soldiers very largely come up here without one cent—every day I find cases proper for small gifts of money, & where it is indeed more blest to give, than the good it can do them. (You hear north there quite too much of the rum drinking, rowdyism &c. & thieving of the soldiers—in general, that is confined to the foreign regiments, & I must say to the Philadelphia & N. Y. City regiments—the soldiers from the States, from the country, especially the West & from New England and the country parts of N. Y. & Penn, are noblest specimens of young men, well brought up, intelligent, singularly free from intemperance &c—you ought to see them as I have for the last five months.)1