Saved by Lemonade by Annie Wittenmyer — Read

The many-colored signal lights of the fleet of steamers at Milliken's Bend, and the bright camp-fires on the land, that glowed with such unwonted splendor in the gloaming, soon all faded out of sight as our boat steamed away toward St. Louis; and soon the black curtain of night shut us in with its thick heavy folds like a funeral pall, and our fight with disease and death began in earnest.

Never before in the history of wars, so full of untold agonies, did the timbers of a steamer bear up such a burden of pain, despair, and death, as did the _City of Memphis_ as she steamed away from Sherman's army. Wherever there was room for a sick or wounded soldier, on the cabin floor without mattress or pillow, in the staterooms, under the stateroom berths, out on the guards, on the top, or hurricane deck, on the lower deck, every space was filled with sore, weary, aching human bodies, mangled or fever-smitten. Of the seven hundred and fifty sick and wounded on board, about twenty-five were delirious; and their pitiful cries mingled with the whirr of the wheels, and the splash of the waters, as the monster boat, with its heart of fire and its breath of steam, pulled heavily against the mighty tides of the Mississippi River, were heart-breaking. No one who was on that boat can ever forget that first night out. Nor can I be charged with over-drawing the picture. No pencil can paint it black enough.