INTRODUCTION.
THE author of this most interesting and historic volume, Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer, I very often met whilst on my frequent visits to the headquarters of my husband, General Ulysses S. Grant.
She there on her mission of mercy as she came to the front with supplies for the sick and wounded; I there simply to give the general a glimpse of his dear ones (some of the children being always with me). And I would gladly have joined Mrs. Wittenmyer in all her works of devotion; but the general forbade it, saying, when I returned from the hospitals ladened with petitions and heart-breaking stories, “Julia, cease, cease; I cannot listen; I hear this all day, every day, and I must have some rest from all this sorrow and misery. If you insist on going again to the hospitals, I will have to send you home.”
Mrs. Wittenmyer was ever deeply interested in her efforts to relieve suffering; ever appealing for the discharge of the brave men who were made helpless by their wounds; ever braving dangers and enduring hardships in the performance of her self-assumed, patriotic heart duties.
I used to look upon this brave, heroic woman with profound respect and admiration, which, if it were possible, has grown the greater in the thirty years that have passed since then.
JULIA DENT GRANT.
2108 R Street, Washington, D.C.,
Nov. 27, 1894.