day that she was sick and in trouble, and I went to see her. It seemed the poor thing had accumulated several hundred dollars by washing, baking pies for the soldiers, and sewing the clothes for them that had been refitted by the tailor. Her husband had obtained possession of the money and had deserted. She told me that she had lived a rough life before coming to the 7th, even dressing as a man in order to support herself by driving the ox-teams over the plains to New Mexico. The railroads had replaced that mode of transporting freight, and she was thrown out of employment. Finding the life as a laundress easier, she had resumed her woman's dress and entered the army, and thinking to make her place more secure, had accepted the hand of the man whose desertion she was now mourning. It was not long after this, however, before "Old Nash" (for through everything she kept her first husband's name) consoled herself. Without going through the ceremony or expense of a divorce, she married another soldier, and had come with us out to Dakota. Of course her husband was obliged to march with his company. It was a hard life for her, camping out with the other laundresses, as they are limited for room, and several are obliged to share a tent together. In the daytime they ride in an army wagon, huddled in with children and baggage. After all the rough summer out-of-doors, it was a great boon to her to get a little cabin in Laundress Row, at our post. Another trouble came to her, however: her new husband succeeded in stealing her savings and deserting like the first. "Old Nash" mourned her money a short time, but soon found solace in going to
