The Portland daily press., 1865-03-30
Letter from an Agent Of the Maine Camp
Hospital Association.


wished for stores came at last, on wednesday
evening; but large amount is sun at wash
I1ngton for lack of transportation. MIR. Hayes
goes nm AGAIN this week, and will forward the
remainder We have received one large box
| from Free Street and another from Westbrook,
b,,b of which we have acknowledged.
should have written you earlier, but we
have been overburdened with work; rising
at half past six in the morning, and working
without intermission until eleven or twelve at
night. But we enjoy the work, and only wish
we were able to do ten times as much. Be
sides cooking all day for sick and invalid SOL
diers, we keep sort Of half way house or
general restaurant for all the Maine men on
their way to and from the front. Mr.. E. S., of
Portland, spent two nights with us recently,
and expressed himself very much interested
IN the operations of our Agency. He gave US
some money to buy condensed milk with
Major Baker, from Bingham, was here to-day,
just returned from furlough home. he
recommended our Agency to several delega-
lions of ladies while at home.
We have received the frkin of condensed
cider, and are delighted with it; we opened it
at once, and commenced issuing it to the pa
tients suffering from jaundice. 1t is very nice
and invaluable.
March S.-Dear M: 1t has been an unusu-
ally busy day with US, as our "help" left us
this morning. A soldier and his wife have
been living with us week or SO, she doing
the cooking for our mess; but this morning
he was ordered to the front, and she left US to
go home.
A man from Canaan, Maine, is with US; he
came to see his son, who was supposed to be
hopelessly i'll of typhoid fever, but to his
great delight he found him better, and will
probably be able to go home with him next
week. Tonight Lieutenant spends the
night here, for you must know we have a
spare bed in the reading-room for our friends
and fellow soldiers. There is hardly day we
do not have officers or chaplains to dine or
breakfast with us, besides feeding fifty or six
ty sick soldiers, and visiting the sick in the
wards, which is no small thing to do, as there
are about five thousand patients here in tents
and stockades. ~fE - rr 81
week ago received telegram to meet
/. at Washington. Mr.. T., from p, took
charge of me as far as Fortress Monroe. Soon
after he left me I fell into conversation with a
New York lieutenant, who had come from the
front with sixty rebel deserters In charge
They were nearly all fine looking men; among
them man and his wife and child from Rich
mond. had long conversation with her.
She said people were starving to death in Rich.
mond. She did not suffer, as she was dress.
maker and had plenty Of work, and her hus-
band was in Government employ inAthe Navy
Yard and drew rations for himself and her
"but there were plenty of people just dying
for the want of something to eat'--ssand the
soldiers declared they would fight no more; il
was no good; they would just be murdered
for nothing" She had been in Richmond six
years, and was now returning to her mother
in New Jersey. She said all the soldiers were
discouraged and would desert il they were
not afraid to. She got pass to one point and
her husband to another, and paid man four
Thousand dollars Confederate money to take
them through in an ambulance.
There was another woman and two chill
dren going through to Baltimore, without
money and without friends. reporting from
one Provost Marshal to another, and getting
sent on and provided for in that way. Some
OF the men said they were afraid we should
look upon them as towards, but 1t was MOI
| ee9swardice; they were willing to fight as long
that their cause was Hopeless hut thew "a"
March 4th it Fained SO hard and was SC
dark we had the gas lighted in the parlor. A,
half-past ten o'clock we started for the Capt.
tol prepared for a rainy day. On the steps
noticed a line of light around the western no
rizon, and said that in Maine we should con
slider that sign of fair weather, but my com
panion saw no promise in it, saying it would
take more than one day for that faint streai
to cover the heavens. We went to the House
and listened to Speaker Colfaxis valedictory
and at twelve o'clock met an old friend, who
took us through a Committee room and
through the window on to the balcony where
the President was to speak. Just at the mo
ment when the President stepped out from be-
meath the shelter of the Capitol on to the bal
cony, the sun, which, deaf to all the importu.
mites of the crowd of sovereigns who throng.
ed the city, had refused to shed ray of ligh,
or comfort for several days, now poured dowr
sucha food of light upon the uncovered head
of the newly elected President, that the whole
scene was illumined and TRANSPORTED by 1t
The effect was wonderful; every body wa
surprised and astonished by 1.-THE transi
ton from gloomy darkness to the clearest an,
most brilliant sunlight was so sudden and s,
beneicent. After two o'clock on the sam
day star was distinctly visible at Washing
ton. Mr.. r. saw it, and heard several gentle
men speak of it at the National. as Is R.