About the middle of November I received orders from General Loring to proceed from Huntersville to the Lewisburg line and to transport all the sick and convalescent belonging to his division to the hospitals at Warm, Hot and Bath Alum Springs. I accordingly left General Loring's headquarters one Friday at noon, and crossing the Greenbrier Bridge, six miles above Huntersville, took the road to Hillsboro, a little hamlet ten miles distant, where I spent the night very pleasantly, without charge, at the home of Mr. Baird. Thence I rode to the residence of Mr. Renick, sixteen miles, and found three of our regiment who had been sick for some weeks but were then greatly improved and glad to get away under my protection. On Sunday morning I rode five miles to the town of Frankford and my name (and fame) having preceded me, I was urged to have services in the Presbyterian Church. Of course I was very glad to do so and had a good and very attentive congregation.
At Frankford there lived a Dr. Renick who had been extremely kind to all of our Tennessee soldiers. He turned his home into a hospital and he and his wife devoted themselves most assiduously to the welfare of the sick, refusing any remuneration. I stopped at his house and at his request baptized his youngest child, a little girl about eighteen months old, born on Easter Sunday. The parents were quite unacquainted with the ecclesiastical calendar, yet the father said: "I'm going to give her a good Episcopal name, Doctor," and so he had me give her in baptism the name of "Margaret Easter Sunday." I was glad she was not born on Quinquagesima Sunday for I might in that case have had to give her that name.
The following day I went to Lewisburg and thence to White Sulphur Springs, hoping to be in part relieved by one of the surgeons, whom I ordered to join his regiment with the sick men belonging to it. There were more than one thousand patients at White Sulphur Springs and there had been forty deaths within the past thirteen days.
I shall never forget the dinner we had in camp one Sunday about the last of November. It was the best of the season. Beef, venison, preserved peaches, raspberries and plums, rice, fine old Madeira, currant wine and many other things,--most of which had been sent by Dr. Stribling,--made a real feast quite in contrast with our usual camp fare. At that time the boys were going into winter quarters and were building very snug, roofed cabins.