our pillows and every bit of bedding we could spare. We went to our
home in Cass County, Missouri.

Shortly after this we, with all families living in that country, were
commanded by an order from Jim Lane, to move into an army post. This
reached several counties in Missouri. It was done to depopulate the
country, so that the "Bushwhackers" would be forced to leave, because of
not being able to get food from the citizens. This caused much suffering.
But such is war. We moved to Kansas City. I was in Independence, Mo.,
during the battle, when Price came through. I went with a good woman
to the hospital to help with the wounded. My duty was to comb the
heads of the wounded. I had a pan of scalding water near and would use
the comb and shake off the animated nature into the hot water. The southern
and northern wounded were in the same rooms. In health they were
enemies, but I only saw kindly feeling and sympathy.

Mothers ought to give their daughters the experience of sitting with
the sick; of preparing food for them; of binding up wounds. It is a pitiful
sight to see a helpless woman in the sick room, ignorant through lack
of experience and education, of ways to be useful at the time and place
where these characteristics of woman adorn her the most of all others.

After we returned from Texas, being the oldest child and the servants all
gone, my mother sick, and the younger children going to
school, I had the house work, cooking and most of the washing to do. It
was a new experience for me, and it was twice as hard as it ought to have
been. I exposed my health; would slop up myself when I washed, and
almost ruined my health, because I had not been properly educated. Herein
was the curse of slavery. My father saw this, and I don't believe he
had a regret when the slaves were free. Mother, it matters not what else