Romantic Incident

A Cairo correspondent gives us a romantic incident as having occurred at that port on the arrival of the first steamer laden with wounded soldiers from Fort Donelson.  Our physicians immediately boarded her and found the brave fellows in a terrible condition from the suppuration of their wounds.  They immediately set about dressing them.  Dr. White, of Iowa City, requested an old lady, who had come aboard in search of a wounded son, to please look into the state rooms and find him a sheet to use as bandages.  She searched a number but found them all deficient in the article needed.  Stepping aside into an adjoining state room, she reappeared in a moment with her own skirt in hand, which was quickly torn into slips and bound around the limbs of the wounded men!  The fact becoming known afterwards to a member of the Chicago Sanitary Committee, he went out and purchased some cloth for a new garment which he presented to the good old lady.  We violate no confidence when we state that the lady’s name was Mrs. Lydia Freeman of Alconda, Ill.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 6, 1862, p. 1