One of the great needs of the patients who had to fight the winning or losing battle of life was good reading, and I speedily sought to obtain a supply.  Hearts and purses at the North responded promptly and liberally; publishers threw off fifty per cent from their prices; and I was eventually able to collect, by gift and purchase, about three thousand volumes.  In gathering this library, I provided what may be distinctly termed religious reading in abundance; but I also recognized the need of diversion.  Long wards were filled with men who had lost a leg or an arm, and who must lie in one position for weeks.  To help them get through the time was to help them to live.  I therefore made the library rich in popular fiction and genial books of travel and biography.  Full sets of Irving, Cooper, Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, Marryat, and other standard works were bought; and many a time I have seen a poor fellow absorbed in their pages while holding his stump lest the jar of a footstep should send a dart of agony to the point of mutilation.  My wife gave much assistance in my hospital duties, often reaching and influencing those beyond me.  I recall one poor fellow who was actually six months in dying from a very painful wound.  Profanity appeared to be his vernacular, and in bitter protest at his fate, he would curse nearly every one and everything.  Mrs. Roe’s sympathy and attentions changed him very much, and he would listen quietly as long as she would read to him.  Some of the hospital attendants, men and women, had good voices, and we organized a choir.  Every Sunday afternoon we went from ward to ward singing familiar hymns.  It was touching to see rough fellows drawing their blankets over their heads to hide the emotion caused by words and melodies associated, in many instances, with home and mother.

Northern generosity, and, in the main, convalescent labor enabled me to build a large commodious chapel and to make great improvements in the hospital farm.  The site of the hospital and garden is now occupied by General Armstrong’s Normal and Agricultural Institute for Freedmen, and the chapel was occupied as a place of worship until very recently.  Thus a noble and most useful work is being accomplished on the ground consecrated by the life-and-death struggles of so many Union soldiers.

In 1865 the blessed era of peace began, bringing its many changes.  In October the hospital became practically empty, and I resigned.  The books were sent to Fortress Monroe for the use of the garrison, and I found many of them there long years after, almost worn out from use.

After a little rest and some candidating for a church, I took a small parish at Highland Falls, about a mile from West Point, New York, entering on my labors in January, 1866.  In this village my wife and I spent nine very happy years.  They were full of trial and many cares, but free from those events which bring the deep shadows into one’s life.  We soon became engaged in building a new stone church,