Part II (part 2 of 2)

Part II (part 2 of 2)

In a few days the inflammation began to subside, even the surgeons decided the symptoms good, and began to watch the case with interest. The ragged edges of the wound, when the swelling subsided, could be closed up. Then, by direction of his kind nurse, he plunged his face into a basin of broth, and supped from it strength, since it did not all escape from the still unhealed wound. Every day witnessed an improvement. In a little time he took his food like a human being; each day witnessed new strength and healing, and then he was saved, and the nurse proved wiser, for once, than the doctor!

For three weeks Mrs. Spencer remained in the White Church Hospital. She then accompanied some wounded to New York City, and took a brief respite from her duties, and the awful scenes she had witnessed.

On her return to Gettysburg, she received as a mark of the esteem felt for her by those who had witnessed her labors and devotion to the work, and the confidence reposed in her, the appointment of Agent of the State of New York, in the care of its sick and wounded soldiers in the field. Large discretionary powers, both as to the purchase and the distribution of supplies, were granted her; and every effort was made to have this appointment distinguished as a mark of the high appreciation and esteem which she had won in the discharge of her duties.

As her husband was detailed as clerk in the Medical Purveyor's Office, at Gettysburg, she remained there in the active performance of her duties for a considerable time.

Beside the supplies furnished by the State of New York, a large amount were entrusted to her, by various Ladies' Aid Societies, and kindred associations.

After leaving Gettysburg, Mrs. Spencer was variously but usefully employed at various places, and in various ways, but always making her duties as State agent for the New York troops prominent, and of the first importance. She was for some time at Brandy Station. While there her husband received his discharge from the Volunteer Service, but immediately entered the regular service, as Hospital Steward, and was attached to the Medical Purveyor's Department.

From Brandy Station, Mrs. Spencer went to Alexandria, and remained there until after the battle of the Wilderness, when she was ordered by the Surgeon-General to repair to Rappahannock Station, with needful supplies for the wounded. On arriving there, no wounded were found, and it was rumored that the ambulances containing them had been intercepted by the enemy, and turned another way.

The party therefore returned to Alexandria, and there received orders to repair with stores to Belle Plain. The Steamer on which Mrs. Spencer was, arrived at day-break at its destination, but she could not for some time get on shore. As soon as possible she landed, anxious to let her services be of some avail to the many wounded who stood in immediate need of assistance, and thinking she might at least make coffee or tea for some of them.

After distributing what supplies she had, she found in another part of the field several Theological Students, delegates of the Sanitary Commission, who were making coffee in camp kettles for the wounded. Her services were thankfully accepted by them. All the day, and far into the night they worked, standing inches deep in the tenacious Virginia mud, till thousands had been served.

All the afternoon the wounded were arriving. Thousands were laid upon the ground, upon the hill-side, perhaps under the shelter of a bush, perhaps with only the sky above them, from which the rain poured in torrents.

All with scarcely an exception were patient, cheerful, and thoughtful--when asked as to their own condition, seeming more troubled by the risk she ran in taking cold, than of their own sufferings.

Late in the night, she remembered that she was alone, and must rest somewhere. A wagon driver willingly gave her his place in the wagon, and thoroughly drenched with rain, and covered with mud, she there rested for the first time in many hours. Her sad and anxious thoughts with her physical discomforts prevented sleep, but with the dawn she had rested so much, as to be able to resume her labors.

Another, and another day passed. The wounded from those fearful battles continued to arrive, and to be cared for, as well as was possible under the circumstances. The workers were shortly afterward made as comfortable as was possible. For two weeks Mrs. Spencer remained, and labored at Belle Plain, remained till her clothing of which, not expecting to remain, she had brought no change, was nearly worn out. The need was so pressing, of care for the wounded, that she scarcely thought of herself.

In the latter part of May, she left Belle Plain, and went to Port Royal, where similar scenes were enacted, save that there a shelter was provided. She had joined forces with the Sanitary Commission, and the facilities were now good and the workers numerous, yet it was barely possible, with all these, and with Government and Commission supplies, and private contributions, to feed the applicants.

The Medical Purveyor's boat with her husband on board, having arrived, Mrs. Spencer proceeded on that boat to White House, where she was placed in Superintendence of the Government Cooking Barge, continuing at the same time her supervision of the wants of the New York soldiery.

Here they fed the first wounded who arrived from the field, and here Mrs. Spencer continued many days directing the feeding of thousands more, ever remembering the regiments from her own State, as her special charge, and assisted by many volunteers and others in her arduous task.

On the 18th of June, 1864, Mrs. Spencer arrived at City Point. The wounded were still arriving, and there was enough for all to do. A Hospital was here established, a mile from the landing. The Government kitchen was kept up, till the hospitals and their kitchens were in full operation, when it was discontinued, and Mrs. Spencer relieved from her double task.

From that time, Mrs. Spencer confined herself mostly to the duties of her agency, and continued to make City Point her headquarters and base of operations until the close of the war closed the agency, and left her free once again to seek the welcome seclusion of her home.

She occasionally visited the General Hospitals to distribute supplies to her New York soldiers and others, but these being now well organized, did not, owing to the plenty of attendants greatly need her services, and they were mostly confined to visits to soldiers in the field, at the Front, Field Hospitals, and in the Rifle Pits.[I]

[Footnote I: Every facility was furnished her by the various officers in command, and a special and permanent pass by General Grant.]

Her equestrian skill now often came in use. Often a ride of from twenty to forty miles in the day would enable her to visit some outlying regiment or picket station, or even to reach the Rifle Pits that honeycombed plain and hill-side all about Petersburg and Richmond, and return the same day. On these occasions she was warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by the soldiers, not only for what she brought, but for the comfort and solace of her presence.

She was often in positions of great peril from whizzing shot and bursting shell, but was never harmed during these dangerous visits. On one occasion, she was probably by reason of her black hat and feather, mistaken for an officer, as she for a moment carelessly showed the upper part of her person, from a slight eminence near the rifle pits, and was fired at by one of the enemy's sharp-shooters. The ball lodged in a tree, close by her side, from which she deliberately dug it out with her penknife, retaining it as a memento of her escape.

Few of us whose days have been passed in the serene quietude of home, can imagine the comfort and joy her presence and cheering words brought to the "boys" undergoing the privations and discomforts of their station at the "Front," in those days of peril and siege. As she approached, her name would be heard passing from man to man, with electric swiftness, and often the shouts that accompanied it, would receive from the enemy a warlike response in the strange music of the whistling shot, or the bursting shell.

Through all this she seemed to bear a charmed life. "I never believed I should be harmed by shot or shell," she says, and her simple faith was justified.

She even escaped nearly unharmed the fearful peril of the great explosion at City Point, when, as it is now supposed, by rebel treachery, the ammunition barge was fired, and hundreds of human beings without an instant's warning, were hurried into eternity.

When this event occurred, she was on horseback near the landing, and in turning to flee was struck, probably by a piece of shell, in the side. Almost as by a miracle she escaped with only a terrible and extensive bruise, and a temporary paralysis of the lower limbs. The elastic steel wires of her crinoline, had resisted the deadly force of the blow, which otherwise would undoubtedly have killed her. A smaller missile, nearly cut away the string of her hat, which was found next day covered by the ghastly smear of human blood and flesh, which also sprinkled all her garments.

After the surrender of Richmond, Mrs. Spencer, with a party of friends, visited that city, and she records that she experienced a very human sense of satisfaction, as she saw some rebel prisoners marching into that terrible Libby Prison, to take the place of the Union prisoners who had there endured such fearful and nameless sufferings.

On the 8th of April the President came to visit the hospitals at City Point, shaking hands with the convalescents, who were drawn up to receive him, and speaking cheering words to all. A week later he had fallen the victim of that atrocious plot which led to his assassination.

Mrs. Spencer remained at City Point, engaged in her duties, till all the wounded had been removed, and the hospitals broken up. On the 31st of May, she went on the medical supply boat to Washington. She there offered her services to aid in any way in care of the wounded, while she remained, which she did for several days. About the middle of June she once more found herself an inmate of her own home, and, after the long season of busy and perilous days, gladly retired to the freedom and quiet of private life. She remained in the service about three years, and the entire time, with only the briefest intervals of rest, was well and profitably occupied in her duties, a strong will and an excellent constitution having enabled her to endure fatigues which would soon have broken down a person less fitted, in these respects, for the work.

Mrs. Spencer has received from soldiers, (who are all her grateful friends) from loyal people in various parts of the country, and from personal friends and neighbors, many tokens of appreciation, which she enumerates with just pride and gratitude. Not the least of these is her house and its furniture, a horse, a sewing machine, silver ware, and expensive books; beside smaller articles whose chief value arises from the feeling that caused the gifts. Her health has suffered in consequence of her labors but she now hopes for permanent recovery.

MRS. HARRIET FOOTE HAWLEY.

Among the many heroic women who gave their services to their country in our recent warfare, few deserve more grateful mention than Mrs. Harriet Foote Hawley, wife of Brevet Major-General Hawley, the present Governor of Connecticut.

Mrs. Hawley is of a fragile and delicate constitution, and one always regarded by her friends as peculiarly unfitted to have part in labors or hardships of any kind. But from the beginning to the end of the war, she was an exemplification of how much may be done by one "strong of spirit," even with the most delicate physical frame.

She went alone to Beaufort, South Carolina, in November, 1862, to engage in teaching the colored people. While there she regularly visited the army hospitals, and interested herself in the practical details of nursing, to which she afterwards more particularly devoted herself, and that spring and summer did the same at Fernandina and St. Augustine.

In November, 1863, she rejoined her husband on St. Helena Island, to which he had returned with his regiment from the siege of Charleston. She visited the Beaufort and Hilton Head General Hospitals, as well as the post hospital at St. Helena frequently during the winter, especially after the severe battle of Olustee, in February, 1864. When the Tenth Corps went to Fortress Monroe, to join General Butler's army, Mrs. Hawley went with them, and failing to find work in the Chesapeake Hospital, went to Washington and was assigned the charge of a ward in the Armory Square Hospital, on the very morning when the wounded began to arrive from the battles of the Wilderness.

Her ward was one of the two in the armory itself, which for a considerable time contained more patients than any other in that hospital. "Armory Square" being near the Potomac, usually received the most desperate cases, which could with difficulty be moved far. There could be no operating room connected with this ward, and the operations, however painful or dreadful, were of necessity performed in the ward itself. The scenes presented were enough to appal the stoutest nerves. The men exhausted by marching and by a long journey after their wounds, died with great rapidity--in one day forty-eight were carried out dead--many reaching the hospital only in time to die.

Among scenes like these Mrs. Hawley took up her abode, and labored with an untiring zeal over four months in the hottest of the summer weather--never herself strong--often suffering to a degree that would have confined others to the bed of an invalid. She was ever at her post, a guiding, directing, and comforting presence, until worn-out nature required a temporary rest. After two months of repose she again returned to the same ward, and continued her labors from November to the last of March, 1865.

About the first of March, directly after its capture, her husband had been assigned to the command of Wilmington, North Carolina.

She arrived at Wilmington, directly after nine thousand Union prisoners had been delivered there, of whom more than three thousand needed hospital treatment.

The army was entirely unprovided with any means of meeting this exigency. The horrible condition of the prisoners, and the crowds of half-fed whites and blacks collected in the town, bred a pestilence. Typhus or jail fever appeared in its most dreadful form, and the deaths were terribly frequent. The medical officers tried all their energies to get supplies.

The garrison, the loyal citizens, and all good people gave their spare clothing, and all delicacies of food within reach, to alleviate the suffering. At one time nearly four thousand sick soldiers, together with some wounded from the main army, were scattered through the dwellings and churches of the town, and a considerable time elapsed before one clean garment could be found for each sufferer. The principal surgeon, Dr. Buzzell, of New Hampshire, died of over exertion and typhoid fever. Of five northern ladies, professional nurses, three were taken sick and two died. Chaplain Eaton died of the fever, and other chaplains were severely sick. To the detailed soldiers the fever and climate proved a greater danger than a battle-field. Through all these scenes of trial and danger Mrs. Hawley exerted herself to the utmost, in the hospitals, and among the poor of the town, avoiding no danger of contagion, not even that of small-pox.

Gradually supplies arrived, better hospitals were provided, the town was cleansed, and by the latter part of June--though the city was still unhealthy--but few cases remained in the hospitals.

Mrs. Hawley accompanied her husband to Richmond about the 1st of July, where he had been appointed chief of staff to General Terry. In October, while returning from the battle-ground of Five Forks, where she had been with an uncle to find the grave of his son (Captain Parmerlee, First Connecticut Cavalry) she received an injury on the head by the upsetting of the ambulance, through which unfortunately she remains still an invalid.

Her name and memory must be dear to hundreds whose sufferings she has shared and relieved, and she will be followed in her retirement by the prayers of grateful hearts.

Although it does not perhaps belong to the purpose of this book, it seems not inappropriate to make mention of the labors of Mrs. Hawley in the education of the freedmen and their families. Both she and her sister, Miss Kate Foote, labored in this sphere long and assiduously.

Governor Hawley was one of the speakers at the Boston anniversaries, in May, 1866. Colonel Higginson, in alluding to his personal services, said he would tell of his better half. When Colonel Hawley went as commander of the Seventh Connecticut to Port Royal, to do his share of conquering and to conquer, he took with him a thousand bayonets on one side, and a Connecticut woman with her school-books on the other (applause). Where he planted the standard of the Union, she planted its institutions; and where he waved the sword, she waved the primer.

ELLEN E. MITCHELL.

This lady, better known among those to whom she ministered as "Nellie Mitchell," was at the opening of the late war a resident of Montrose, Pennsylvania, where, surrounded by friends, the inmate of a pleasant home, amiable, highly educated and accomplished, her early youth had been spent. Her family was one of that standing often named as "our first families," and her position one every way desirable.

Perhaps her own words extracted from a letter to the writer of this sketch will give the best statement of her views and motives.

"I only did my duty, did what I could, and did it because it would have been a great act of self-denial not to have done it.

"I have ever felt that those who cheerfully gave their loved ones to their country's cause, made greater sacrifices, manifested more heroism, were worthy of more honor by far, than those of us who labored in the hospitals or on the fields. I had not these 'dear ones' to give, so gave heartily what I could, myself to the cause, with sincere gratitude, I trust, to God, for the privilege of thus doing."

Miss Mitchell left her home in Montrose early in May, 1861, and proceeded to New York city, where she went through a course of instruction in surgical nursing at Bellevue Hospital, preparatory to assuming the duties of an army nurse. The unwonted labors, the terrible sights, and close attendance so impaired her health that after six weeks she concluded to go to Woodbury, Connecticut, where she remained with friends while awaiting orders, and in consequence did not join the army as soon as she otherwise would. Being absent from New York, one or two opportunities were lost, and it was not until September that her labors in the military hospitals commenced.

She had intended to give her services to her country, but after witnessing the frequent destitution of comforts among those to whom she ministered, she decided to receive the regular pay of a nurse from the Government, and appropriated it entirely to the benefit of the suffering ones around her.

Luxuries sent by her friends for her own use she applied in the same manner. The four years of her service were filled with self-sacrifice and faithful devoted labor.

Miss Mitchell spent the first three months in Elmore Hotel Hospital, Georgetown, District of Columbia. Around this place cluster some of the pleasantest, as well as the saddest memories of her life. The want of a well-arranged, systematic plan of action in this hospital, made the tasks of the nurses peculiarly arduous and trying. Yet Miss Mitchell records that she never found more delight in her labors, and never received warmer expressions of gratitude from her "boys." On being brought for the first time to a place associated in their minds only with gloom and suffering the joyful surprise of these poor fellows at finding kind hearts and willing hands ready to minister to their wants with almost motherly, or sisterly affection, exceeded words and called forth such manifestations of gratitude as amply rewarded those who thus watched over them for all their toils. Often as they saw these kindly women engaged in their busy tasks of mercy, their eyes would glisten as they followed them with the most intense earnestness, and their lips would unconsciously utter remarks like these, so homely and spontaneous as to leave no doubt of their sincerity. "How good! how home-like to see women moving around! We did not expect anything like this!"

But much as she loved her work and had become attached to her charges, circumstances of a very painful nature soon compelled Miss Mitchell to resign her post in this hospital. Very unworthy hands sometimes assume a ministry of kindness. There were associations here so utterly repugnant to Miss Mitchell, that with a sorrowful heart she at last forced herself to turn her back upon the suffering, in order to be free from them.

But Providence soon opened the way to another engagement. In less than two weeks she entered St. Elizabeth's Hospital. This was situated in Washington across the Eastern branch of the Potomac in an unfinished wing of the Insane Retreat.

Her initiation here was a sad, lonely night-watch, by the bed-side of a dying nurse, who about ten o'clock the following day, with none but strangers to witness her dying conflicts, passed from this scene of pain and struggle.

It was about the last of December that she entered here, and in February she was compelled to relinquish the care of her ward by a severe and dangerous illness which lasted seven weeks. Her greatest joy in returning health consisted in her restoration to the duties in which she had learned to delight.

During this illness Miss Mitchell was constantly attended and nursed by Miss Jessie Home, a young woman of Scottish birth, of whom mention is made in another place, a most excellent and self-sacrificing woman who afterwards lost her life in the cause of her adopted country.

This kindly care and the assiduous and skilful attentions of Dr. Stevens, who was the surgeon of the hospital were, as she gratefully believes, the means of preserving her life.

Miss Mitchell had scarcely recovered from this illness when she was unexpectedly summoned home to stand by the death-bed of a beloved mother. After a month's absence, sadly occupied in this watch of affection, she again returned to Washington, whence she was sent directly to Point Lookout, in Maryland, at the entrance of the Potomac into Chesapeake Bay, where a hospital had recently been established.

She remained about two months at Point Lookout, and was surrounded there with great suffering in all its phases, besides meeting with peculiar trials, which rendered her stay at this hospital the most unsatisfactory part of her "soldier life."

Her next station was at the Ware House Hospital, Georgetown, District of Columbia, where she was employed in the care of the wounded from the second battle of Bull Run. Most of these poor men were suffering from broken limbs, had lain several days uncared for upon the field, and were consequently greatly reduced in strength. They had besides suffered so much from their removal in the jolting ambulances, that many of them expressed a wish that they had been left to die on the field, rather than to have endured such torment. Miss Mitchell found here a sphere decidedly fitted to her peculiar powers, for she was always best pleased to labor in the surgical wards, and would dress and care for wounds with almost the skill, and more than the tenderness of a practiced surgeon.

After some time this hospital being very open, became untenantable, and in February was closed, and Miss Mitchell was transferred to Union Hotel Hospital, where five of the nurses being at that time laid up by illness, her duties became unusually arduous.

Since her former labors here the hospital had been closed, refitted, and reopened under every way improved auspices. The "boys" found themselves in every respect so kindly cared for, and so surrounded by home-like experience that it was with great regret they saw the hospital broken up, in March.

Miss Mitchell's inclination would then, as often before, have led her to the front, but she was forced to obey orders, "soldier-like," and found herself transferred to Knight Hospital, New Haven, as the next scene of her labors. Here she remained three months actively and usefully employed, but at the end of that time she had become so worn out with her long continued and arduous services, as to feel compelled to resign her position as army nurse. She soon after accepted a desirable situation in the Treasury Department, upon the duties of which she entered in July, 1863.

Miss Mitchell has never quite reconciled her conscience to this act, which she fears was too much tinged with selfishness and induced by interested motives. Feeling thus, she again enlisted as army nurse after a few months, resolving never again to abandon the service, while the war continued and strength was given her to labor.

This was in the beginning of May, 1864, and she was immediately sent to Fredericksburg to assist in caring for the wounded from the battle of the Wilderness. The scenes and labors of that terrible period are beyond description. Miss Mitchell was amidst them all, and like an angel of mercy made herself everywhere useful to the crowds of ghastly sufferers from those fields of awful carnage, which marked the onward march of Grant to victory, and the suppression of the rebellion.

When our army left Fredericksburg, most of the wounded were transferred to Washington, Miss Mitchell would again have preferred to go to the front, but obeyed orders, and went instead to Judiciary Square Hospital, Washington, where she found many of her former patients. After she had spent one day there, she would not willingly have left those poor men whom she found so greatly needing a woman's care. For weeks the mortality was fearful, and she found herself surrounded by the dead and dying, but gradually this was lessened, and she became engaged in the more delightful duty of superintending the improvement of convalescents, and watching the return to health of many a brave hero who had perhaps sacrificed limbs, and well-nigh life, in the service of his country. Here she remained, with ever-increasing satisfaction in her labors, until the final closing of the Hospital in June, 1865.

Here also ended her army services, with the occasion for them. She had rendered them joyfully, and she resigned them with regret and sadness at parting with those who had so long been her charge, and whom she would probably see no more forever. But in all joy or sadness, in all her life, she will not cease to remember with delight and gratitude how she was enabled to minister to the suffering, and thus perform a woman's part in the great struggle which redeemed our country from slavery, and made us truly a free people.

Few have done better service, for few have been so peculiarly adapted to their work. In all she gratefully acknowledges the aid and sustaining sympathy of her friends in New Milford, Pa., and elsewhere, to which she was so greatly indebted for the ability to minister with comforts to the sufferers under her charge.

As these lines are written some letters from a soldier who was long under her kind care in Washington, lie upon the writer's table with their appreciative mention of this excellent woman; which coming from one who knew and experienced her goodness, may well be regarded as the highest testimony of it. Here is one brief extract therefrom.

"As for Miss Mitchell herself--she has a cheerful courage, faith and patience which take hold of the duties of this place with a will that grasps the few amenities and pleasures found here, and works them all up into sunshine; and looks over and beyond the fatiguing work, and unavoidable brutalities of the present. Do we not call this happiness? Happiness is not to be pitied--nor is she!"

In another place he speaks of her unswerving, calm devotion--her entire self-abnegation, as beyond all he has seen of the like traits elsewhere. And still there were many devoted women--perhaps many Ellen Mitchells! Again he compares the hospital work of Miss Mitchell and her fellow-laborers with that of the sisters of charity, in whose care he had previously been--the one human, alert, sympathizing--not loving sin, nor sinful men, but laboring for them, sacrificing for them, pardoning them as Christ does--the other working with machine-like accuracy, but with as little apparent emotion, showing none in fact beyond a prudish shrinking from these sufferers from the outer world, of which they know nothing but have only heard of its wickedness. The contrast is powerful, and shows Miss Mitchell and her friends in fairest colors.

MISS JESSIE HOME.

Jessie Home was a native of Scotland. No ties bound her to this, her adopted land. No relative of hers, resided upon its soil. She was alone--far from kindred and the friends of her early youth. But the country of her adoption had become dear to her. She loved it with the ardor and earnestness which were a part of her nature, and she was willing, nay anxious, to devote herself to its service.

At the commencement of the war Miss Home was engaged in a pleasant and lucrative pursuit, which she abandoned that she might devote herself to the arduous and ill-paid duties of a hospital nurse.

She entered the service early in the war, and became one of the corps of Government nurses attached to the hospitals in the vicinity of Washington. Like others, regularly enlisted, and under orders from Miss Dix, the Government Superintendent of nurses, she was transferred from point to point and from hospital to hospital, as the exigencies of the service required. But she had only to be known to be appreciated, and her companions, her patients, and the surgeons under whom she worked, were equally attached to her, and loud in her praises. She entered into her work with her whole soul--untiring, faithful, of a buoyant temperament, she possessed a peculiar power of winning the love and confidence of all with whom she came in contact.

She was quite dependent upon her own resources, and in giving herself to the cause yielded up a profitable employment and with it her means of livelihood. Yet she denied herself all luxuries, everything but the merest necessities, that out of the pittance of pay received from the Government, out of the forty cents per day with which her labors were rewarded, she might save something for the wants of the suffering ones under her care.

And be it remembered always, that in this work it was not alone the well-born and the wealthy who made sacrifices, and gave grand gifts. Not from the sacrifice of gauds and frippery did the humble charities of these hired nurses come, but from the yielding up of a thousand needed comforts for themselves, and the forgetfulness of their own wants, in supplying the mightier wants of the suffering. It is impossible to mention them with words of praise beyond their merit.

For about two years Miss Home labored thus untiringly and faithfully, always alert, cheerful, active. During this time she had drawn to herself hosts of attached friends.

At the end of that period she fell a martyr to her exertions in the cause to which she had so nobly devoted herself.

When attacked with illness, she must have felt all the horrors of desolation--for she was without means or home. But Providence did not desert her in this last dread hour of trial. Miss Rebecca Bergen of Brooklyn, N. Y., who had learned her worth by a few months' hospital association, deemed it a privilege to receive the sufferer at her own home, and to watch over the last hours of this noble life as it drew to a close, ministering to her sufferings with all the kindness and affection of a sister, and smoothing her passage to the grave.

Thus, those, who without thought for themselves, devote their lives and energies to the welfare of others, are often unexpectedly cared for in the hour of their own extremity, and find friends springing up to protect them, and to supply their wants in the day of their need. Far from kindred and her native land, this devoted woman thus found friends and kindly care, and the stranger hands that laid her in an alien grave were warm with the emotion of loving hearts.

M. VANCE AND M. A. BLACKMAR.

Miss Mary Vance is a Pennsylvanian. Before the War, she was teaching among the Indians of Kansas or Nebraska, but it becoming unsafe there, she was forced to leave. She came to Miss Dix, who sent her to a Baltimore Hospital, in which she rendered efficient service, as she afterward did in Washington and Alexandria. In September, 1863, she went to the General Hospital, Gettysburg, where she was placed in charge of six wards, and no more indefatigable, faithful and judicious nurse was to be found on those grounds. She labored on continuously, going from point to point, as our army progressed towards Richmond, at Fredericksburg, suffering much from want of strengthening and proper food, but never murmuring, doing a vast amount of work, in such a quiet and unpretending manner, as to attract the attention from the lookers-on. Few, but the recipients of her kindness, knew her worth. At City Point, she was stationed in the Second Corps Hospital, where she, as usual, won the respect and esteem of the Surgeons and all connected with her.

Miss Vance labored the whole term of the War, with but three weeks' furlough, in all that time. A record, that no other woman can give, and but few soldiers.

Miss Blackmar, one of Michigan's worthy daughters, was one of the youngest of the band of Hospital nurses. She, for ten months, labored unceasingly at City Point. More than usually skilful in wound dressing, she rendered efficient service to her Surgeons, as well as in saving many poor boys much suffering from the rough handling of inexperienced soldier-nurses. A lad was brought to her Wards, with a wound in the temple, which, in the course of time, ate into the artery. This she had feared, and was always especially careful in watching and attending to him. But, in her absence, a hemorrhage took place, the nurse endeavored to staunch the blood, but at last, becoming frightened, sent for a Surgeon. When she came back to the Ward, there lay her boy pale and exhausted, life almost gone. But she persevered in her efforts, and at last had the satisfaction of witnessing his recovery.

At City Point, Miss Vance and Miss Blackmar were tent-mates, and intimate friends--both noted for their untiring devotion to their work, their prudent and Christian deportment. As an instance of the wearying effects of the labors of a Hospital nurse, Mrs. Husband, who was the firm friend, and at City Point, the associate of these two young ladies, relates the following; these two ladies, wearied as usual, retired one very cold night, Miss Blackmar taking a hot brick with her, for her feet. They slept the sound sleep of exhaustion for some time, when Miss Vance struggled into consciousness, with a sensation of smothering, and found that the tent was filled with smoke. After repeatedly calling her companion, she was forced to rise and shake her, telling her that she must be on fire. This at last aroused Miss Blackmar, who found that the brick had burned through the cloth in which it was wrapped, the straw-bed and two army blankets. By the application of water, the fire was quenched, and after airing the tent, they were soon sleeping as soundly as ever. But, in the morning, Miss Blackmar, to her consternation, found that her feet and ankles were badly burned, covered with blisters and very painful, though her sleep had been too sound to feel it before.

H. A. DADA AND S. E. HALL.

Miss Hattie A. Dada and Miss Susan E. Hall, were among the most earnest and persistent workers in a field which presented so many opportunities for labor and sacrifice. Both offered themselves to the Women's Central Association of Relief, New York, immediately on the formation of that useful organization for any service, or in any capacity, where their aid could be made available. Both had formerly been employed by one of the Missionary Societies, in mission labors among the Indians of the Southwest, and were eminently fitted for any sphere of usefulness which the existing condition of our country could present to woman.

They were received by the Association, and requested to join the class of women who, with similar motives and intentions, were attending the series of lectures and surgical instructions which was to prepare them for the duties of nurses in the army hospitals.

On Sunday, July 21st, 1861, a memorable day, the first battle of Bull Run took place. On the following day, the 22d, the disastrous tidings of defeat and rout was received in New York, and the country was thrilled with pain and horror.

At noon, on Monday, the 22d, Miss Dada and Miss Hall received instructions to prepare for their journey to the scene of their future labors, and at six P.M. they took the train for Washington, with orders to report to Miss Dix. Tuesday morning found them amidst all the terrible excitement which reigned in that city. The only question Miss Dix asked, was, "Are you ready to work?" and added, "You are needed in Alexandria."

And toward Alexandria they were shortly proceeding. There were apprehensions that the enemy might pursue our retreating troops, of whom they met many as they crossed the Long Bridge, and passed the fortifications all filled with soldiers watching for the coming foe who might then so easily have invaded the Federal City.

In some cabins by the road-side they first saw some wounded men, to whom they paused to administer words of cheer, and a "cup of cold water." They were in great apprehension that the road might not be safe, and a trip to Richmond, in the capacity of prisoners was by no means to be desired.

At last they reached Alexandria, and in a dark stone building on Washington Street, formerly a seminary, found their hospital. They were denied admittance by the sentinel, but the surgeon in charge was called, and welcomed them to their new duties.

There they lay, the wounded, some on beds, many on mattresses spread upon the floor, covered with the blood from their wounds, and the dust of that burning summer battle-field, many of them still in their uniforms. The retreat was so unexpected, the wounded so numerous, and the helpers so few, that all were at once extremely busy in bringing order and comfort to that scene of suffering.

Their labors here were exceedingly arduous. No soldiers were detailed as attendants for the first few weeks, and even the most menial duties fell upon these ladies. Sometimes a contraband was assigned them as assistant, but he soon tired of steady employment and left. They had little sleep and food that was neither tempting nor sufficient. So busy were they that two weeks elapsed before Miss Dada, whose letters furnish most of the material for this sketch, found time to write home, and inform her anxious friends "where she was."

A busy month passed thus, and then the numbers in the hospital began to decrease, many of the convalescent being sent North, or having furloughs, till only the worst cases remained.

As the winter approached typhus fever began to prevail among the troops, and many distressing cases, some of which despite all their efforts proved mortal, came under the care of these ladies.

About the beginning of April, 1862, soon after the battle of Winchester, and the defeat of Stonewall Jackson by General Shields, Miss Dada and Miss Hall were ordered thither to care for the wounded. Here they were transferred from one hospital to another, without time to become more than vaguely interested in the individual welfare of their patients. At length at the third, the Court-House Hospital, they were permitted to remain for several weeks. Here many interesting cases were found, and they became much attached to some of the sufferers under their care, and found great pleasure in their duties.

On the 22d of May they were ordered to Strasburg, and proceeded thither to the care of several hundred sick, entirely unsuspicious of personal danger, not dreaming that it could be met with beside the headquarters of General Banks. But on the following day troops were observed leaving the town on the Front Royal road, and the same night the memorable retreat was ordered.

It was indeed a sad sight which met their eyes in the gray of early dawn. Ambulances and army wagons filled the streets. Soldiers from the hospitals, scarcely able to walk, crawled slowly and painfully along, while the sick were crowded into the overfilled ambulances.

Pressing forward they arrived at Winchester at noon, but the ambulances did not arrive till many hours later, with their dismal freight. The fright and suffering had overpowered many, and many died as they were carried into the hospitals. A little later the wounded began to come in, and the faithful, hard-worked surgeons and nurses had their hands full. The retreating Union forces came pouring through the town, the rebels in close pursuit. The shouts of the combatants, and the continued firing, created great confusion. Fear was in every heart, pallor on every cheek, anxiety in every eye, for they knew not what would be their fate, but had heard that the wounded had been bayonetted at Front Royal the previous day. Many dying men, in their fright and delirium, leaped from their beds, and when laid down soon ceased to breathe.

Soon the rebels had possession of the town, and the ladies found themselves prisoners with a rebel guard placed about their hospital.

Their supplies were now quite reduced, and it was not until personal application had been made by the nurses to the rebel authorities, that suitable food was furnished.

When the army left Winchester, enough men were ordered to remain to guard the hospitals, and an order was read to all the inmates, that any of them seen in the streets would be shot.

Miss Dada and her friend remained at this place until the months of June and July were passed. In August they were assigned to Armory Square Hospital, Washington.

Previous to the second battle of Bull Run, all the convalescent men were sent further North, and empty beds were in readiness for the wounded, who on the evening after the battle were brought in, in great numbers, covered with the dust and gore of the field of conflict. Here the ministering care of these ladies was most needed. They hastened with basins and sponges, cold water and clean clothes, and soon the sufferers felt the benefits of cleanliness, and were laid, as comfortably as their wounds would admit, in those long rows of white beds that awaited them. All were cheerful, and few regretted the sacrifices they had made. But in a few days many of these heroes succumbed before the mighty Conqueror. Their earthly homes they were never to see, but, one by one, they passed silently to their last home of silence and peace, where the war of battle and the pain of wounds never disturb. One poor fellow, a Michigan soldier, wounded in the throat, could take no nourishment, nor scarcely breathe. His sufferings were intense, and his restlessness kept him constantly in motion as long as the strength for a movement remained. But at last, he silently turned his face to the wall, and so died. Another, a victim of lockjaw, only yielded to the influence of chloroform. Another, whom the surgeons could only reach the second day, had his arm amputated, but too late. Even while he believed himself on the road to recovery, bad symptoms had intervened; and while with grateful voice he was planning how he would assist Miss Dada as soon as he was well enough, in the care of other patients, the hand of death was laid upon him, and he soon passed away.

Such are a few of the heart-rending scenes and incidents through which these devoted ladies passed.

The month of November found Miss Dada at Harper's Ferry. Miss Hall had been at Antietam, but the friends had decided to be no longer separated.

They found that the Medical Director of the Twelfth Army Corps was just opening a hospital there, and the next day the sick and wounded from the regimental hospitals were brought in. They had suffered for lack of care, but though the new hospital was very scantily furnished, they found that cause of trouble removed. Many of them had long been ill, and want of cleanliness and vermin had helped to reduce them to extreme emaciation. Their filthy clothes were replaced by clean ones, and burned or thrown into the river, their heads shaven, and their revolting appearance removed. But many a youth whom sickness and suffering had given the appearance of old age, succumbed to disease and suffering, and joined the long procession to the tomb.

These were sad days, the men were dying rapidly. One day a middle-aged woman came in inquiring for her son. Miss Dada took from her pocket a slip of paper containing the name of one who had died a day or two previously--it was the name of the son of this mother. She sought the surgeon, and together they undertook the painful task of conveying to the mother the tidings that her visit was in vain. Poor mother! How many, like her, returned desolate to broken homes, from such a quest!

May and June, 1863, Miss Dada and Miss Hall spent at Acquia Creek, in care of the wounded from the battle of Chancellorsville, and the 8th of July found them at Gettysburg--Miss Dada at the hospital of the Twelfth Army Corps, at a little distance from the town, and Miss Hall at that of the First Army Corps, which was within the town. The hospital of the Twelfth Army Corps was at a farm-house. The house and barns were filled with wounded, and tents were all around, crowded with sufferers, among whom were many wounded rebel prisoners, who were almost overwhelmed with astonishment and gratitude to find that northern ladies would extend to them the same care as to the soldiers of their own army.

The story of Gettysburg, and the tragical days that followed, has been too often told to need repetition. The history of the devotion of Northern women to their country's defenders, and of their sacrifices and labors was illustrated in brightest characters there. Miss Hall and Miss Dada remained there as long as their services could be made available.

In December, 1863, they were ordered to Murfreesboro', Tennessee, once a flourishing town, but showing everywhere the devastations of war. Two Seminaries, and a College, large blocks of stores, and a hotel, had been taken for hospitals, and were now filled with sick and wounded men. A year had passed since the awful battle of Stone River,--the field of which, now a wide waste lay near the town--but the hospitals had never been empty.

When they arrived, they reported to the medical director, who "did not care whether they stayed or not," but, "if they remained wished them to attend exclusively to the preparation of the Special Diet." They received only discouraging words from all they met. They found shelter for the night at the house of a rebel woman, and were next day assigned--Miss Hall to No. 1 Hospital, Miss Dada to No. 3.

When they reported, the surgeon of No. 1 Hospital, for their encouragement, informed them that the chaplain thought they had better not remain. Miss Dada also was coldly received, and it was evident that the Surgeons and chaplains were very comfortable, and desired no outside interference. They believed, however, that there was a work for them to do, and decided to remain.

Miss Dada found in the wards more than one familiar face from the Twelfth Army Corps, and the glad enthusiasm of her welcome by the patients, contrasted with the chilling reception of the officers.

Most of these men had been wounded at Lookout Mountain, a few days before, but many others had been suffering ever since the bloody battle of Chickamauga.

Miss Hall was able to commence her work at once, but Miss Dada was often exhorted to patience, while waiting three long weeks for a stove, before she could do more than, by the favor of the head cook of the full diet kitchen, occasionally prepare at his stove, some small dishes for the worst cases.

Here the winter wore away. Many a sad tale of the desolations of war was poured into their ears, by the suffering Union women who had lost their husbands, fathers, sons, in the wild warfare of the country in which they lived. And many a scene of sorrow and suffering they witnessed.

In January, they had a pleasant call from Dr. M----, one of the friends they had known at Gettysburg. This gentleman, in conversation with the medical director, told him he knew two of the ladies there. The reply illustrates the peculiar position in which they were placed. "Ladies!" he answered with a sneer, "We have no ladies here! A hospital is no place for a lady. We have some women here, who are cooks!"

But they remembered that one has said--"The lowest post of service is the highest place of honor," and that Christ had humiliated himself to wash the feet of his disciples.

In the latter part of the ensuing May, they went to Chattanooga. They were most kindly received by the surgeons, and found much to be done. Car-loads of wounded were daily coming from the front, all who could bear removal were sent further north, and only the worst cases retained at Chattanooga. They were all in good spirits, however, and rejoicing at Sherman's successful advance--even those upon whom death had set his dark seal.

Miss Dada often rejoiced, while here, in the kindness of her friends at home, which enabled her to procure for the sick those small, but at that place, costly luxuries which their condition demanded.

As the season advanced to glowing summer, the mortality became dreadful. In her hospital alone, not a large one, and containing but seven hundred beds, there were two hundred and sixty-one deaths in the month of June, and there were from five to twenty daily. These were costly sacrifices, often of the best, noblest, most promising,--for Miss Dada records--"Daily I see devoted Christian youths dying on the altar of our country."

With the beginning of November came busy times, as the cars daily came laden with their freight of suffering from Atlanta. On the 26th, Miss Dada records, "One year to-day since Hooker's men fought above the clouds on Lookout. To-day as I look upon the grand old mountain the sun shines brightly on the graves of those who fell there, and all is quiet."

Again, after the gloomy winter had passed, she writes, in March, 1865, "Many cases of measles are being brought in, mostly new soldiers, many conscripts, and so down-spirited if they get sick. It was a strange expression a poor fellow made the other day, 'You are the God-blessedest woman I ever saw.' He only lived a few days after being brought to the hospital."

Their work of mercy was now well-nigh over, as the necessity for it seemed nearly ended. Patients were in May being mustered out of the service, and the hospitals thinning. Miss Dada and Miss Hall thought they could be spared, and started eastward. But when in Illinois, word reached them that all the ladies but one had left, and help was needed, and Miss Dada returned to Chattanooga. Here she was soon busy, for, though the war was over, there were still many sick, and death often claimed a victim.

Miss Dada remained till the middle of September, engaged in her duties, when, having given more than four years to the service of her country, she at last took her leave of hospital-life, and returned to home and its peaceful pleasures.

Before leaving she visited the historical places of the vicinity--saw a storm rise over Mission Ridge, and heard the thunders of heaven's artillery where once a hundred guns belched forth their fires and swept our brave boys to destruction. She climbed Lookout, amidst its vail of clouds, and visited "Picket Rock," where is the spring at which our troops obtained water the night after the battle, and the "Point" where, in the early morn, the Stars and Stripes proclaimed to the watching hosts below, that they were victors.

MRS. SARAH P. EDSON.

Mrs. Edson is a native of Fleming, Cayuga County, New York, where her earlier youth was passed. At ten years of age she removed with her parents to Ohio, but after a few years again returned to her native place. Her father died while she was yet young, and her childhood and youth were clouded by many sorrows.

Gifted with a warm imagination, and great sensitiveness of feeling, at an early age she learned to express her thoughts in written words. Her childhood was not a happy one, and she thus found relief for a thousand woes. At length some of her writings found their way into print.

She spent several years as a teacher, and was married and removed to Pontiac, Michigan, in 1845. During her married life she resided in several States, but principally in Maysville, Kentucky.

Here she became well known as a writer, but her productions, both in prose and poetry, were usually written under various nommes de plume, and met very general acceptance.

She at various times edited journals devoted to temperance and general literature in the Western States, and became known as possessing a keenly observing and philosophic mind. This experience, perhaps, prepared and eminently fitted her for the service into which she entered at the breaking out of the war, and enabled her to comprehend and provide for the necessities and emergencies of "the situation."

Mrs. Edson arrived in Washington November 1st, 1861, and commenced service as nurse in Columbia College Hospital. She remained there serving with great acceptance until early in March when the army was about to move and a battle was in anticipation, when by arrangement with the Division Surgeon, Dr. Palmer, she joined Sumner's Division at Camp California, Virginia, where she was to remain and follow to render her services in case the anticipation was verified. The enemy, however, had stolen away, and "Quaker" guns being the only armament encountered, her services were not needed.

She soon after received an appointment from Surgeon-General Finley to proceed to Winchester, Virginia, to assist in the care of the wounded from General Banks' army. She found the hospital there in a most deplorable condition. Gangrene was in all the wards, the filth and foulness of the atmosphere were fearful. Men were being swept off by scores, and all things were in such a state as must ever result from inexperience, and perhaps incompetence, on the part of those in charge. Appliances and stores were scanty, and many of the surgeons and persons in charge, though doing the least that was possible, were totally unfit for their posts through want of experience and training.

The Union Hotel Hospital was placed in charge of Mrs. Edson, and the nurses who accompanied her were assigned to duty there. It was to be thoroughly cleansed and rendered as wholesome as possible.

The gratitude of the men for their changed condition, in a few days amply attested the value of the services of herself and associates, and demonstrated the fact that women have an important place in a war like ours.

Mrs. Edson next proceeded to join the army before Yorktown, about the 1st of May, 1862, and was attached to the Hospital of General Sumner's corps. She arrived the day following the battle of Williamsburg, and learning that her son was among the wounded left in a hospital several miles from Yorktown, she at once started on foot to find him. After a walk of twelve miles she discovered him apparently in a dying state, he and his comrades imperatively demanding care. Here she spent four sleepless days and nights of terrible anxiety, literally flying from hut to hut of the rebel-built hospitals, to care for other sick and wounded men, whenever she could leave her son.

She remained thus till imperative orders were received to break up this hospital and go to Yorktown. The men were laid in army wagons and transported over the rough roads from nine in the morning till six in the evening. Arriving exhausted by their terrible sufferings, they found no provision made for their reception. That was a dreadful day, and to an inexperienced eye and a sympathetic heart the suffering seemed frightful!

The 21st of May, Mrs. Edson went to Fortress Monroe, to care for her son and others, remaining a week. From thence she proceeded to White House and the "front." Arriving here the enemy were expected, and it was forbidden to land. At daylight the "only woman on board" was anxiously inquiring if there was any suffering to relieve. Learning that some wounded had just been brought in, she left the boat notwithstanding the prohibition, and found over three hundred bleeding and starved heroes lying upon the ground. The Sanitary Commission boats had gone, and no supplies were left but coffee and a little rice. As she stepped ashore, a soldier with a shattered arm came up to her, almost timidly, and with white trembling lips asked her if she could give them something to eat--they had lost everything three days before, and had been without food since. What an appeal to the sympathy of a warm heart!

It was feared that no food could be obtained, but after great search a barrel of cans of beef was found. Some camp kettles were gathered up, and a fire kindled. In the shortest possible time beef soup and coffee were passing round among these delighted men. Their gratitude was beyond words. At four o'clock, that afternoon, the last man was put on board the ship which was to convey them within reach of supplies and care.

Mrs. Edson was left alone. One steamer only of the quartermaster's department remained. The quartermaster had no authority to admit her on board. But in view of the momently expected arrival of the enemy he told her to go on board and remain, promising not to interfere with her until she reached Harrison's Landing. And this was all that could be gained by her who was so busily working for the soldier--this the alternative of being left to the tender mercy of the enemy.

She remained at Harrison's Landing until the 12th of August, and passed through all the terrible and trying scenes that attended the arrival of the defeated, demoralized, and depressed troops of McClellan's army. These baffle description. Enough, that hands and heart were full--full of work, and full of sympathy, with so much frightful suffering all around her! She was here greatly aided and sustained by the presence and help of that excellent man, Chaplain Arthur B. Fuller, who passed away to his reward long ere the close of the struggle, into which he had entered with so true an appreciation and devotion. Again, here as everywhere, gratitude for kindness, and cheerfulness in suffering marked the conduct of the poor men under her care.

When the army left she repaired again to Fortress Monroe, and was on duty there at Hygeia Hospital during the transit of the army.

She returned to Alexandria the 30th of August, and almost immediately heard rumors of the fighting going on at the front. She applied for permission to proceed to the field, but was informed that the army was retreating. The next tidings was of the second battle of Bull Run, and the other disastrous conflicts of Pope's campaign. As she could not go to the front to give aid and comfort to that small but heroic army in its retreat she did what she could for the relief of any sufferers who came under her notice, until the news of the conflict at Antietam was received, with rumors of its dreadful slaughter. Her heart was fired with anxiety to proceed thither, but permission was again denied her, the surgeon-general replying that she was evidently worn out and must rest for a time. He was right, for on the ensuing day she was seized with a severe illness which prevented any further exertion for many weeks.

During the slow hours of convalescence from this illness she revolved a plan for systematizing the female branch of the relief service. Her idea was to provide a home for volunteer nurses, where they could be patiently educated and instructed in the necessities of the work they were to assume, and where they could retire for rest when needed, or in the brief intervals of their labors.

Her first labor on recovery was to proceed to Warrenton with supplies, but she found the army moving and the sick already on board the cars. She did what was possible for them under the circumstances. The trains moved off and she was left to wait for one that was to convey her back to Alexandria. This, however, was cut off by the rebels, and she found herself with no resource but to proceed with the army to Acquia Creek. She records that she reached Acquia, after several days, and a new and interesting experience, which was kindness and courtesy from all with whom she came in contact.

Immediately after her return to Washington, Mrs. Edson attempted to systematize her plan for a home and training school for nurses. A society was formed, and Mrs. Caleb B. Smith at first (but soon after in consequence of her resignation) Mrs. B. F. Wade, was appointed President, and Mrs. Edson, Secretary.

Many meetings were held. The attention of commanding and medical officers was drawn to the plan. Almost unanimously they expressed approval of it.

Mrs. Edson was the soul of the work, hers was the guiding brain, the active hand, and as is usual in similar cases most of the labor fell upon her. She visited the army at Fredericksburg, and carefully examined the hospitals to ascertain their needs in this respect. This with other journeys of the same kind occupied a considerable portion of the winter.

State Relief Societies had been consulted and approved the plan. Mrs. Edson visited the Sanitary Commission and laid the plan before them, but while they admitted the necessity of a home and place of rest for nurses, which they soon after established, they regarded a training school for them unnecessary, believing that those who were adapted to their work would best acquire the needed skill in it in the hospital itself, and that their imperative need of attendants in the hospitals and in the departments of special and field relief, did not admit of the delay required to educate nurses for the service.

The surgeon-general, though at first favorably impressed with the idea, on more mature consideration discouraged it, and withheld his approval before the Senate Committee, who had a bill before them for the establishment of such an institution. Thus thwarted in the prosecution of the plan on which she had set her heart, Mrs. Edson did not give up in despair, nor did she suffer her sympathy and zeal in its prosecution to prevent her from engaging in what she rightly regarded as the paramount work of every loyal woman who could enter upon it, the care of the sick and wounded after the great battles. The fearfully disastrous battle of Fredericksburg in December, 1862, called her to the front, and she was for several weeks at Falmouth caring tenderly for the wounded heroes there. This good work accomplished she returned to Washington, and thence visited New York city, and made earnest endeavors to enlist the aid of the wealthy and patriotic in this movement. She was familiar with Masonic literature and with the spirit of Masonry. Her husband had been an advanced member of the Order, and she had herself taken all the "Adoptive Degrees." These reasons induced her to seek the aid of the Order, and she was pleased to find that she met with much encouragement. The "Army Nurses' Association" was formed in New York, and commenced work under the auspices of the Masons. In the spring of 1864, when Grant's campaign commenced with the terrible battles of the Wilderness, Mrs. Edson hastened to the "front." Almost immediately the surgeons requested her to send for ten of the nurses then receiving instruction as part of her class at Clinton Hall, New York.

She did so. They were received, transportation found, and rations and pay granted. And they were found to be valuable workers, Mrs. Edson receiving from the Surgeons in charge, the highest testimonials of their usefulness. She had at first mentioned it to the Surgeons as an experiment, and said that funds and nurses would not be wanting if it proved a success. The day on which the order for the evacuation of Fredericksburg was issued, she was told that her "experiment was more than a success--it was a triumph." And this by one of the highest officials of the Medical department.

Eighty more nurses were at once ordered.

The interest taken by the Masons in this movement, led to the formation of the "Masonic Mission," with a strong "Advisory Board," composed of leading and wealthy Masons.

Mrs. Edson, with unquestioning confidence in the integrity of Masons, and in the honor of the gentlemen who had given the movement the great strength of their names, continued ardently carrying out her plan. More nurses were sent out, and all received the promise of support by the "Mission." Much good--how much none may say, was performed by these women. They suffered and labored, and sacrificed much. They gave their best efforts and cares. Many of them were poor women, unable to give their time and labor without remuneration. But, alas! the purposes and promises of the Masonic Mission, were never fulfilled. Many of the women received no remuneration, and great suffering and dissatisfaction was the result. The good to the suffering of the army was perhaps the same.

Amidst all her sorrows and disappointments, Mrs. Edson continued her labors till the end of the war. Nothing could keep her from the fulfilment of what she regarded as an imperative duty, and nobly she achieved her purpose, so far as her individual efforts were concerned.

A lady, herself ardently engaged in the work of relief, and supply for the soldiers, visited the Army of the Potomac in company with Mrs. Edson, in the winter of 1865, not long before the close of the war. She describes the reception of Mrs. Edson, among these brave men to whom she had ministered during the terrific campaign of the preceding summer, as a complete ovation. The enthusiasm was overwhelming to the quiet woman who had come among them, not looking nor hoping for more than the privilege of a pleasant greeting from those endeared to her by the very self-sacrificing efforts by which she had brought them relief, and perhaps been the means of saving their lives.

Irrepressible shouts, cheers, tears and thanks saluted her on every side, and she passed on humbled rather than elated by the excess of this enthusiastic gratitude.

MISS MARIA M. C. HALL.

Although the Federal City, Washington, was at the outbreak of the war more intensely Southern in sentiment than many of the Southern cities, at least so far as its native, or long resident inhabitants could make it so, yet there were even in that Sardis, a few choice spirits, reared under the shadow of the Capitol, whose patriotism was as lofty, earnest and enduring as that of any of the citizens of any Northern or Western state.

Among these, none have given better evidence of their intense love of their country and its institutions, than Miss Hall. Born and reared in the Capital, highly educated, and of pleasing manners and address, she was well fitted to grace any circle, and to shine amid the gayeties of that fashionable and frivolous city. But the religion of the compassionate and merciful Jesus had made a deep lodgment in her heart, and in imitation of his example, she was ready to forsake the halls of gayety and fashion, if she might but minister to the sick, the suffering and the sorrowing. Surrounded by Secessionists, her father too far advanced in years to bear arms for the country he loved, with no brother old enough to be enrolled among the nation's defenders, her patriotism was as fervid as that of any soldier of the Republic, and she resolved to consecrate herself to the service of the nation, by ministrations to the sick and wounded. Her first opportunity of entering upon this duty was by the reception into her father's house of one of the sick soldiers before the first battle of Bull Run, who by her kindly care was restored to health. When the Indiana Hospital was established in the Patent Office building on the 1st of August, 1861, Miss Hall sought a position there as nurse; but Miss Dix had already issued her circular announcing that no nurses under thirty-five years of age would be accepted; and in vain might she plead her willingness and ability to undergo hardships and the uncomfortable duties pertaining to the nurse's position. She therefore applied to the kind-hearted but eccentric Mrs. Almira Fales, whose hearty and positive ways had given her the entree of the Government hospitals from the first, but she too discouraged her from the effort, assuring her, in her blunt way, that there was no poetry in this sort of thing, that the men were very dirty, hungry and rough, and that they would not appreciate refinement of manner, or be grateful for the attention bestowed on them by a delicate and educated lady. Finding that these representations failed to divert Miss Hall, and her sister who accompanied her, from their purpose, Mrs. Fales threw open the door of one of the wards, saying as she did so, "Well, girls, here they are, with everything to be done for them. You will find work enough."

There was, indeed, work enough. The men were very dirty, the "sacred soil" of Virginia clinging to their clothing and persons in plenty. Their hair was matted and tangled, and often, not free from vermin, and they were as Mrs. Fales had said, a rough set. But those apparently fragile and delicate girls had great energy and resolution, and the subject of our sketch was not disposed to undertake an enterprise and then abandon it. She had trials of other kinds, to bear. The surgeons afforded her few or no facilities for her work; and evidently expected that her whim of nursing would soon be given over. Then came the general order for the removal of volunteer nurses from the hospitals; this she evaded by enrolling herself as nurse, and drawing army pay, which she distributed to the men. For nearly a year she remained in this position, without command, with much hard work to do, and no recognition of it from any official source; but though the situation was not in any respect agreeable, there was a consciousness of usefulness, of service of the Master in it to sustain her; and while under her gentle ministrations cleanliness took the place of filth, order of disorder, and profanity was banished, because "the lady did not like it," it was also her privilege occasionally to lead the wanderer from God back to the Saviour he had deserted, and to point the sinner to the "Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." In the summer of 1862, Miss Hall joined the Hospital Transport service, first on the Daniel Webster, No. 2, a steamer which had been used for the transportation of troops from Washington. After the sick and wounded of this transport had been disposed of, Miss Hall was transferred to the Daniel Webster, the original hospital transport of the Sanitary Commission, where she labored faithfully for some weeks after the change of base to Harrison's Landing, when she was associated with Mrs. Almira Fales in caring for the suffering wounded on shore. They found the poor fellows in a terrible plight, in rotten and leaky tents, and lying on the damp soil, sodden with the heavy rains, and poisonous from the malarial exhalations, in need of clothing, food, medicine, and comfort; and though but scantily supplied with the needful stores, these ladies spared no labor or exertion to improve their condition, and they were successful to a greater extent than would have seemed possible. When the army returned to Alexandria, Miss Hall visited her home for a short interval of rest; but the great battle of Antietam called her again to her chosen work; she went to the battle-field, intending to join Mrs. Harris, of the Ladies' Aid Society of Philadelphia, who was already at work there, and had telegraphed for her; but being unable to find her at first, she entered a hospital of wounded Rebel prisoners, and ministered to them until Mrs. Harris having ascertained her situation, sent for her to come to Smoketown General Hospital, where at that time the wounded of French's Division were gathered, and which ultimately received the wounded of the different corps who were unable to endure the fatigue of transportation to Washington, Baltimore or Philadelphia. Dr. Vanderkieft, an accomplished physician and a man of rare tenderness, amiability and goodness, was at this time the surgeon of the Smoketown Hospital, and appreciating Miss Hall's skill and adaptation to her work, he welcomed her cordially, and did everything in his power to render her position pleasant. Mrs. Harris was soon called to other scenes, and after Fredericksburg, went to Falmouth and remained there several months, but Miss Hall, and Mrs. Husband who was now associated with her remained at Smoketown; and when Mrs. Husband left, Miss Hall still continued till May, 1863, when the hospital was broken up, and the remaining inmates sent to other points.[J]

[Footnote J: The following letter addressed to Miss Hall, by one of the wounded soldiers under her care at the Smoketown Hospital, a Frenchman who, while a great sufferer, kept the whole tent full of wounded men cheerful and bright with his own cheerfulness, singing the Marseillaise and other patriotic songs, is but one example of thousands, of the regard felt for her, by the soldiers whose sufferings she had relieved by her gentle and kindly ministrations.

"MANCHESTER, MASS. June 28th, 1866.

"Miss M. M. C. Hall:--There are kind deeds received which a man cannot ever forget, more especially when they are done by one who does not expect any rewards for them, but the satisfaction of having helped humanity.

"But as one who first unfortunate, and next fortunate enough to come under your kind cares, I come rather late perhaps to pay you a tribute of gratitude which should have been done ere this. I say pay,--I do not mean that with few lines in a broken English, I expect to reward you for your good care of me while I was lying at Smoketown--no, words or gold could not repay you for your sufferings, privations, the painful hard sights which the angels of the battle-field are willing to face,--no, God alone can reward you. Yet, please accept, Miss, the assurance of my profound respect, and my everlasting gratitude. May the God of Justice, Freedom and love, ever protect you, and reward you for your conduct on this earth is the wish of

"Your obedient and respectful servant, "JULIUS F. RABARDY."

The Frenchman who sometimes sang the Marseillaise--formerly of the 12th Massachusetts Volunteers.]

One feature of this Hospital-life both at Smoketown, and the other Hospitals with which Miss Hall was connected, a feature to which many of those under her care revert with great pleasure, was the evening or family prayers. Those of the convalescent soldiers who cared to do so were accustomed to assemble every evening at her tent, and engage in social worship, the chaplain usually being present and taking the lead of the meeting, and in the event of his absence, one of the soldiers being the leader. This evening hour was looked for with eagerness, and to some, we might say, to many, it was the beginning of new hopes and a new life. Many, after rejoining their regiments, wrote back to their friends, "We think of you all at the sweet hour of prayer, and know that you will remember us when you gather in the little tent." The life in the Hospital, was by this and other means, rendered the vestibule of a new and holy life, a life of faith and Christian endeavor to many, and this young Christian woman was enabled to exercise an influence for good which shall endure through the untold ages of eternity.

After a short period of rest, Miss Hall again reported for duty at the Naval Academy Hospital, Annapolis, whither considerable numbers of the wounded from Gettysburg were brought, and where her old friend Dr. Vanderkieft was the Surgeon-in-charge. After a time, the exchanged prisoners from Belle Isle and Libby Prison, and subsequently those from Andersonville, Florence, Salisbury and Wilmington, began to come into this Hospital, and it was Miss Hall's painful privilege to be permitted to minister to these poor victims of Rebel cruelty and hate, who amid the horrors of the charnel houses, had not only lost their health, but almost their semblance to humanity, and reduced by starvation and suffering to a condition of fatuity, often could not remember their own names. In these scenes of horror, with the patience and tenderness born only of Christianity, she ministered to these poor helpless men, striving to bring them back to life, and health, and reason, comforting them in their sufferings, pointing the dying to a suffering Saviour, and corresponding with their friends as circumstances required.

It was at Dr. Vanderkieft's request, that she came to this Hospital, and at first she was placed in charge of Section Five, consisting of the Hospital tents outside of the main building. Mrs. Adaline Tyler, (Sister Tyler), was at this time lady Superintendent of the entire Hospital, and administered her duties with great skill and ability. When, in the spring of 1864, as we have elsewhere recorded, the impaired health of Mrs. Tyler rendered her further stay in the Hospital impossible. Miss Hall, though young, was deemed by Dr. Vanderkieft, most eminently qualified to succeed her in the general superintendency of this great Hospital, and she remained in charge of it till it was closed in the summer of 1865. Here she had at times, more than four thousand of these poor sufferers under her care, and although she had from ten to twenty assistants, each in charge of a section, yet her own labors were extremely arduous, and her care and responsibility such as few could have sustained. The danger, as well as the care, was very much increased by the prevalence of typhus-fever, in a very malignant form in the Hospital, brought there by some of the poor victims of rebel barbarity from Andersonville. Three of her most valued assistants contracted this fearful disease from the patients whom they had so carefully watched over and died, martyrs to their philanthropy and patriotism.

During her residence at this Hospital, Miss Hall often contributed to "THE CRUTCH," a soldier's weekly paper, edited by Miss Titcomb, one of the assistant superintendents, to which the other ladies, the officers and some of the patients were also contributors. This paper created much interest in the hospital.

Our record of the work of this active and devoted Christian woman is but brief, for though there were almost numberless instances of suffering, of heroism and triumph passing constantly under her eye, yet the work of one day was so much like that of every other, that it afforded little of incident in her own labors to require a longer narrative. Painful as many of her experiences were, yet she found as did many others who engaged in it that it was a blessed and delightful work, and in the retrospect, more than a year after its close, she uttered these words in regard to it, words to which the hearts of many other patriotic women will respond, "I mark my Hospital days as my happiest ones, and thank God for the way in which He led me into the good work, and for the strength which kept me through it all."

THE HOSPITAL CORPS AT THE NAVAL ACADEMY HOSPITAL, ANNAPOLIS.

Though the Naval Academy buildings at Annapolis had been used for hospital purposes, from almost the first months of the war, they did not acquire celebrity, or accommodate a very large number of patients until August, 1863, when Surgeon Vanderkieft took charge of it, and it received great numbers of the wounded men from Gettysburg. As the number of these was reduced by deaths, convalescence and discharge from the army, their places were more than supplied by the returning prisoners, paroled or discharged, from Libby, Belle Isle, Andersonville, Millen, Salisbury, Florence and Wilmington. These poor fellows under the horrible cruelties, systematically practiced by the rebel authorities, with the avowed intention of weakening the Union forces, had been starved, frozen, maimed and tortured until they had almost lost the semblance of humanity, and one of the noble women who cared for them so tenderly, states that she often found herself involuntarily placing her hand upon her cheek to ascertain whether their flesh was like hers, human and vitalized. The sunken hollow cheeks, the parchment skin drawn so tightly over the bones, the great, cavernous, lackluster eyes, the half idiotic stare, the dreamy condition, the loss of memory even of their own names, and the wonder with which they regarded the most ordinary events, so strange to them after their long and fearful experience, all made them seem more like beings from some other world, than inhabitants of this. Many of them never recovered fully their memory or reason; the iron had entered the soul. Others lingered long on the confines of two worlds, now rallying a little and then falling back, till finally the flickering life went out suddenly; a few of the hardiest and toughest survived, and recovered partial though seldom or never complete health. During a part of the first year of Dr. Vanderkieft's administration, Mrs. Adaline Tyler ("Sister Tyler") was Lady Superintendent of the hospital, and the sketch elsewhere given of her life shows how earnestly and ably she labored to promote the interest of its inmates. During most of this time Miss Maria M. C. Hall had charge of section five, consisting of the hospital tents which occupied a part of the academical campus. Miss Helen M. Noye, a young lady from Buffalo, a very faithful, enthusiastic and cheerful worker, was her assistant, and remained for nearly a year in the hospital.

When in the spring of 1864, Miss Hall was appointed Mrs. Tyler's successor as Lady Superintendent of the hospital, its numerous large wards required several assistant superintendents who should direct the preparation of the special diet, and the other delicacies so desirable for the sick, attend to the condition of the men, ascertain their circumstances and history, correspond with their friends, and endeavor so far as possible to cheer, comfort and encourage their patients.

When the number of patients was largest twenty of these assistants were required, and the illness of some, or their change to other fields, rendered the list a varying one, over thirty different ladies being connected with the hospital during the two years from July, 1863, to July, 1865.

A considerable number of these ladies had accompanied Mrs. Tyler to Annapolis, having previously been her assistants in the general hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania. Among these were nine from Maine, viz., Miss Louise Titcomb, Miss Susan Newhall, Miss Rebecca R. Usher, Miss Almira Quimby, Miss Emily W. Dana, Miss Adeline Walker, Miss Mary E. Dupee, Miss Mary Pierson, and Mrs. Eunice D. Merrill, all women of excellent abilities and culture, and admirably adapted to their work. One of this band of sisters, Miss Adeline Walker, died on the 28th of April, 1865, of malignant typhus, contracted in the discharge of her duties in the hospital.

Of her Miss Hall wrote in the Crutch, "She slept at sunset, sinking into the stillness of death as peacefully as a melted day into the darkness of the night. For two years and a half--longer than almost any other here--she had pursued her labors in this hospital, and with her ready sympathy with the suffering or wronged, had ministered to many needy ones the balm of comfort and healing. Her quick wit and keen repartee has served to brighten up many an hour otherwise dull and unhomelike in our little circle of workers, gathered in our quarters off duty.

"So long an inmate of this hospital its every part was familiar to her; its trees and flowers she loved; in all its beauties she rejoiced. We could almost fancy a hush in nature's music, as we walked behind her coffin, under the beautiful trees in the bright May sunshine.

"It was a touching thing to see the soldier-boys carrying the coffin of her who had been to them in hours of pain a minister of good and comfort. Her loss is keenly felt among them, and tears are on the face of more than one strong man as he speaks of her. One more veteran soldier has fallen in the ranks, one more faithful patriot-heart is stilled. No less to her than to the soldier in the field shall be awarded the heroic honor.

'For God metes to each his measure; And the woman's patient prayer, No less than ball or bayonet Brings the victory unaware.'

"Patient prayer and work for the victory to our country was the life of our sister gone from us; and in the dawning of our brighter days, and the coming glory of our regenerated country, it is hard to lay her away in unconsciousness; hard to close her eyes against the bright sunshine of God's smile upon a ransomed people; hard to send her lifeless form away from us, alone to the grave in her far off home; hard to realize that one so familiar in our little band shall go no more in and out among us. But we say farewell to her not without hope. Her earnest spirit, ever eager in its questioning of what is truth, was not at rest with simply earthly things. Her reason was unsatisfied, and she longed for more than was revealed to her of the Divine. To the land of full realities she is gone. We trust that in his light she shall see light; that waking in his likeness, she shall be satisfied, and evermore at rest. We cannot mourn that she fell at her post. Her warfare is accomplished, and the oft-expressed thought of her heart is in her death fulfilled. She has said, 'It is noble to die at one's post, with the armor on; to fall where the work has been done.'"

One of her associates from her own State thus speaks of her: "Miss Walker left many friends and a comfortable home in Portland, in the second year of the war. Her devotion and interest in the work so congenial to her feelings, increased with every year's experience, until she found herself bound to it heart and hand. Her large comprehension, too, of all the circumstances connected with the soldier's experience in and outside of hospital, quickened her sympathies and adapted her to the part she was to share, as counsellor and friend. Many a soldier lives, who can pay her a worthy tribute of gratitude for her care and sympathy in his hour of need; and in the beyond, of the thousands who died in the cause of liberty, there are many who may call her 'blessed.'"

Massachusetts was also largely represented among the faithful workers of the Naval Academy Hospital, at Annapolis. Among these Miss Abbie J. Howe, of Brookfield; Miss Kate P. Thompson, of Worcester, whose excessive labors and the serious illness which followed, have probably rendered her an invalid for life; Miss Eudora Clark, of Boston, Miss Ruth L. Ellis, of Bridgewater, Miss Sarah Allen, of Wilbraham, Miss Agnes Gillis, of Lowell, and Miss Maria Josslyn, of Roxbury, were those who were most laborious and faithful. From New Jersey there came a faithful and zealous worker, Miss Charlotte Ford, of Morristown. From New York there were Miss Helen M. Noye, of Buffalo, already named, Mrs. Guest, also of Buffalo, Miss Emily Gove, of Peru, Miss Mary Cary, of Albany, Miss Ella Wolcott, of Elmira, and Miss M. A. B. Young, of Morristown, New York. This lady, one of the most devoted and faithful of the hospital nurses, was also a martyr to her fidelity and patriotism, dying of typhus fever contracted in her attendance upon her patients, on the 12th of January, 1865.

Miss Young left a pleasant home in St. Lawrence County, New York, soon after the commencement of the war, with her brother, Captain James Young, of the Sixtieth New York Volunteers, and was an active minister of good to the sick and wounded of that regiment. She took great pride in the regiment, wearing its badge and having full faith in its valor. When the Sixtieth went into active service, she entered a hospital at Baltimore, but her regiment was never forgotten. She heard from it almost daily through her soldier-brother, between whom and herself existed the most tender devotion and earnest sympathy. From Baltimore she was transferred to Annapolis early in Mrs. Tyler's administration. In 1864, she suffered from the small-pox, and ever after her recovery she cared for all who were affected with that disease in the hospital.

Her thorough identity with the soldier's life and entire sacrifice to the cause, was perhaps most fully and touchingly evidenced by her oft repeated expression of a desire to be buried among the soldiers. When in usual health, visiting the graves of those to whom she had ministered in the hospital, she said, "If I die in hospital, let me buried here among my boys." This request was sacredly regarded, and she was borne to her last resting-place by soldiers to whom she had ministered in her own days of health.

Another of the martyrs in this service of philanthropy, was Miss Rose M. Billing, of Washington, District of Columbia, a young lady of most winning manners, and spoken of by Miss Hall as one of the most devoted and conscientious workers, she ever knew--an earnest Christian, caring always for the spiritual as well as the physical wants of her men. She was of delicate, fragile constitution, and a deeply sympathizing nature. From the commencement of the war, she had been earnestly desirous of participating in the personal labors of the hospital, and finally persuaded her mother, (who, knowing her frail health, was reluctant to have her enter upon such duties), to give her consent. She commenced her first service with Miss Hall, in the Indiana Hospital, in the Patent Office building, in the autumn of 1861, and subsequently served in the Falls Church Hospital, and at Fredericksburg. Early in 1863 she came to Annapolis, and no one of the nurses was more faithful and devoted in labors for the soldiers. Twice she had been obliged to leave her chosen work for a short time in consequence of illness, but she had hastened back to it with the utmost alacrity, as soon as she could again undertake her work. She had been eminently successful, in bringing up some cases of the fever, deemed by the surgeons, hopeless, and though she herself felt that she was exceeding her strength, or as she expressed it, "wearing out," she could not and would not leave her soldier boys while they were so ill; and when the disease fastened upon her, she had not sufficient vital energy left to throw it off. She failed rapidly and died on the 14th of January, 1865, after two weeks' illness. Her mother, after her death, received numerous letters from soldiers for whom she had cared, lamenting her loss and declaring that but for her faithful attentions, they should not have been in the land of the living. Among those who have given their life to the cause of their country in the hospitals, no purer or saintlier soul has exchanged the sorrows, the troubles and the pains of earth for the bliss of heaven, than Rose M. Billing.

OTHER LABORS OF SOME OF THE MEMBERS OF THE ANNAPOLIS HOSPITAL CORPS.

Some of the ladies named in the preceding sketch had passed through other experiences of hospital life, before becoming connected with the Naval Academy Hospital at Annapolis. Among these, remarkable for their fidelity to the cause they had undertaken to serve, were several of the ladies from Maine, the Maine-stay of the Annapolis Hospital, as Dr. Vanderkieft playfully called them. We propose to devote a little space to sketches of some of these faithful workers.

Miss Louise Titcomb, was from Portland, Maine, a young lady of high culture and refinement, and from the beginning of the War, had taken a deep interest in working for the soldiers, in connection with the other patriotic ladies of that city. When in the early autumn of 1862, Mrs. Adaline Tyler, as we have already said in our sketch of her, took charge as Lady Superintendent of the Hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania, which had previously been in the care of a Committee of ladies of the village, she sought for volunteer assistants in her work, who would give themselves wholly to it.

Miss Titcomb, Miss Susan Newhall, and Miss Rebecca R. Usher, all from Portland, were among the first to enter upon this work. They remained there eight months, until the remaining patients had become convalescent, and the war had made such progress Southward that the post was too far from the field to be maintained as a general hospital.

The duties of these ladies at Chester, were the dispensing of the extra and low diet to the patients; the charge of their clothing; watching with, and attending personally to the wants of those patients whose condition was most critical; writing for and reading to such of the sick or wounded as needed or desired these services, and attending to innumerable details for their cheer and comfort. Dr. Le Comte, the Surgeon-in-charge, and the assistant Surgeons of the wards, were very kind, considerate and courteous to these ladies, and showed by their conduct how highly they appreciated their services.

In August, 1863, when Mrs. Tyler was transferred to the Naval Academy Hospital, at Annapolis, these ladies went thither with her, where they were joined soon after by Miss Adeline Walker, Miss Almira F. Quimby, and Miss Mary Pierson, all of Portland, and Miss Mary E. Dupee, Miss Emily W. Dana, and Mrs. Eunice D. Merrill, all from Maine. Their duties here were more varied and fatiguing than at Chester. One of them describes them thus: "The Hospital was often crowded with patients enduring the worst forms of disease and suffering; and added to our former duties were new and untried ones incident to the terrible and helpless condition of these returned prisoners. Evening Schools were instituted for the benefit of the convalescents, in which we shared as teachers; at the Weekly Lyceum, through the winter, the ladies in turn edited and read a paper, containing interesting contributions from inmates of the Hospital; they devised and took part in various entertainments for the benefit of the convalescents; held singing and prayer-meetings frequently in the wards; watched over the dying, were present at all the funerals, and aided largely in forwarding the effects, and where it was possible the bodies of the deceased to their friends." Five of these faithful nurses were attacked by the typhus fever, contracted by their attention to the patients, exhausted as they were by overwork, from the great number of the very sick and helpless men brought to the hospital in the winter of 1864-5; and the illness of these threw a double duty upon those who were fortunate enough to escape the epidemic. To the honor of these ladies, it should be said that not one of them shrank from doing her full proportion of the work, and nearly all who survived, remained to the close of the war. For twenty months, Miss Titcomb was absent from duty but two days, and others had a record nearly as satisfactory. Nearly all would have done so but for illness.

Miss Rebecca Usher, of whom we have spoken as one of Miss Titcomb's associates, in the winter of 1864-5, accepted the invitation of the Maine Camp and Hospital Association, to go to City Point, and minister to the sick and wounded, especially of the Maine regiments there. She was accompanied by Miss Mary A. Dupee, who was one of the assistants at Annapolis, from Maine.

The Maine Camp and Hospital Association, was an organization founded by benevolent ladies of Portland, and subsequently having its auxiliaries in all parts of the state, having for its object the supplying of needful aid and comfort, and personal attention, primarily to the soldiers of Maine, and secondarily to those from other states. Mrs. James E. Fernald, Mrs. J. S. Eaton, Mrs. Elbridge Bacon, Mrs. William Preble, Miss Harriet Fox, and others were the managers of the association. Of these Mrs. J. S. Eaton, the widow of a Baptist clergyman, formerly a pastor in Portland, went very early to the front, with Mrs. Isabella Fogg, the active agent of the association, of whom we have more to say elsewhere, and the two labored most earnestly for the welfare of the soldiers. Mrs. Fogg finally went to the Western armies, and Mrs. Eaton invited Miss Usher and Miss Dupee, with some of the other Maine ladies to join her at City Point, in the winter of 1864-5. Mrs. Ruth S. Mayhew had been a faithful assistant at City Point from the first, and after Mrs. Fogg went to the West, had acted as agent of the association there. Miss Usher joined Mrs. Eaton and Mrs. Mayhew, in December, 1864, but Miss Dupee did not leave Annapolis till April, 1865. The work at City Point was essentially different from that at Annapolis, and less saddening in its character. The sick soldiers from Maine were visited in the hospital and supplied with delicacies, and those who though in health were in need of extra clothing, etc., were supplied as they presented themselves. The Maine Camp and Hospital Association were always ready to respond to a call for supplies from their agents, and there was never any lack for any length of time. In May, 1865, Mrs. Eaton and her assistants established an agency at Alexandria, and they carried their supplies to the regiments encamped around that city, and visited the comparatively few sick remaining in the hospitals. The last of June their work seemed to be completed and they returned home.

Miss Mary A. Dupee was devoted to the cause from the beginning of the war. She offered her services when the first regiment left Portland, and though they were not then needed, she held herself in constant readiness to go where they were, working meantime for the soldiers as opportunity presented. When Mrs. Tyler was transferred to Annapolis, she desired Miss Susan Newhall, a most faithful and indefatigable worker for the soldiers, who had been with her at Chester, to bring with her another who was like-minded. The invitation was given to Miss Dupee, who gladly accepted it. At Annapolis she had charge of thirteen wards and had a serving-room, where the food was sent ready cooked, for her to distribute according to the directions of the surgeons to "her boys." Before breakfast she went out to see that that meal was properly served, and to ascertain the condition of the sickest patients. Then forenoon and afternoon, she visited each one in turn, ministering to their comfort as far as possible. The work, though wearing, and at times accompanied with some danger of contagion, she found pleasant, notwithstanding its connection with so many sad scenes. The consciousness of doing good more than compensated for any toil or sacrifice, and in the review of her work, Miss Dupee expresses the belief that she derived as much benefit from this philanthropic toil as she bestowed. As we have already said, she was for three months at City Point and elsewhere ministering to the soldiers of her native State.

Miss Abbie J. Howe, of Brookfield, Massachusetts, was another of the Annapolis Hospital Corps deserving of especial mention for her untiring devotion to the temporal and spiritual welfare of the sick and wounded who were under her charge. We regret our inability to obtain so full an account of her work and its incidents as we desired, but we cannot suffer her to pass unnoticed. Miss Howe had from the beginning of the war been earnestly desirous to enter upon the work of personal service to the soldiers in the hospitals, but considerations of duty, the opposition of her friends, etc., had detained her at home until the way was unexpectedly opened for her in September, 1863. She came directly to Annapolis, and during her whole stay there had charge of the same wards which she first entered, although a change was made in the class of patients under her care in the spring of 1864. At first these wards were filled with private soldiers, but in April, 1864, they were occupied by the wounded and sick officers of the Officers' Hospital at that time established in the Naval Academy under charge of Surgeon Vanderkieft.

Miss Howe brought to her work not only extraordinary skill and tact in the performance of her duties, but a deep personal interest in her patients, a care and thoughtfulness for what might be best adapted to each individual case, as if each had been her own brother, and beyond this, an intense desire to promote their spiritual good. An earnest and devoted Christian, whose highest motive of action was the desire to do something for the honor and glory of the Master she loved, she entered upon her duties in such a spirit as we may imagine actuated the saints and martyrs of the early Christian centuries.

We cannot forbear introducing here a brief description of her work from one who knew her well:--"She came to Annapolis with a spirit ready and eager to do all things and suffer all things for the privilege of being allowed to work for the good of the soldiers. Nothing was too trivial for her to be engaged in for their sakes,--nothing was too great to undertake for the least advantage to one of her smallest and humblest patients. This was true of her regard to their bodily comfort and health--but still more true of her concern for their spiritual good. I remember very well that when she had been at work only a day or two she spoke to me with real joy of one of her sick patients, telling me of a hope she had that he was a Christian and prepared for death. * * * She loved the soldiers for the cause for which they suffered--but she loved them most, because she was actuated in all things by her love for her Saviour, and for them He had died. * * * I used to feel that her presence and influence, even if she had not been strong enough to work at all, would have been invaluable--the soldiers so instinctively recognized her true interest in them,--her regard for the right and her abhorrence of anything like deceit or untruthfulness, that they could not help trying to be good for her sake."

Miss Howe took a special interest in the soldier-nurses--the men detailed for extra duty in the wards. She had a very high opinion of their tenderness and faithfulness in their most trying and wearying work, and of their devotion to their suffering comrades. This estimate was undoubtedly true of most of those in her wards, and perhaps of a majority of those in the Naval Academy Hospital; but it would have been difficult for them to have been other than faithful and tender under the influence of her example and the loyalty they could not help feeling to a woman "so nobly good and true." Like all the others engaged in these labors among the returned prisoners, Miss Howe speaks of her work as one which brought its own abundant reward, in the inexpressible joy she experienced in being able to do something to relieve and comfort those poor suffering ones, wounded, bleeding, and tortured for their country's sake, and at times to have the privilege of telling the story of the cross to eager dying men, who listened in their agony longing to know a Saviour's love.

MRS. A. H. AND MISS S. H. GIBBONS.

Mrs. Gibbons is very well known in the City of New York where she resides, as an active philanthropist, devoting a large portion of her time and strength to the various charitable and reformatory enterprises in which she is engaged. This tendency to labors undertaken for the good of others, is, in part, a portion of her inheritance. The daughter of that good man, some years ago deceased, whose memory is so heartily cherished, by all to whom the record of a thousand brave and kindly deeds is known, so warmly by a multitude of friends, and by the oppressed and suffering--Isaac T. Hopper--we are justified in saying that his mantle has fallen upon this his favorite child.

The daughter of the noble and steadfast old Friend, could hardly fail to be known as a friend of the slave. Like her father she was ready to labor, and sacrifice and suffer in his cause, and had already made this apparent, had borne persecution, the crucial test of principle, before the war which gave to the world the prominent idea of freedom for all, and thus wiped the darkest stain from our starry banner, was inaugurated.

The record of the army work of Mrs. Gibbons, does not commence until the autumn of 1861. Previous to that time, her labors for the soldier had been performed at home, where there was much to be done in organizing a class of effort hitherto unknown to the women of our country. But she had always felt a strong desire to aid the soldiers by personal sacrifices.

It was quite possible for her to leave home, which so many mothers of families, whatever their wishes, were unable to do. Accordingly, accompanied by her eldest daughter, Miss Sarah H. Gibbons, now Mrs. Emerson, she proceeded to Washington, about the time indicated.

There, for some weeks, mother and daughter regularly visited the hospitals, of which there were already many in the Capitol City, ministering to the inmates, and distributing the stores with which they were liberally provided by the kindness of friends, from their own private resources, and from those of "The Woman's Central Association of Relief," already in active and beneficent operation in New York.

Their work was, however, principally done in the Patent Office Hospital, where they took a regular charge of a certain number of patients, and rendered excellent service, where service was, at that time, greatly needed.

While thus engaged they were one day invited by a friend from New York to take a drive in the outskirts of the city. Washington was at that time like a great camp, and was environed by fortifications, with the camps of different divisions, brigades, regiments, to each of which were attached the larger and smaller hospitals, where the sick and suffering languished, afar from the comforts and affectionate cares of home, and not yet inured to the privations and discomforts of army life. It can without doubt be said that they were patient, and when we remember that the most of them were volunteers, fresh from home, and new to war, that perhaps was all that could reasonably be expected of them.

The drive of Mrs. Gibbons, and her friends extended further than was at first intended, and they found themselves at Fall's Church, fifteen miles from the city. Here was a small force of New York troops, and their hospital containing about forty men, most of them very sick with typhoid fever.

Mrs. Gibbons and her daughter entered the hospital. All around were the emaciated forms, and pale, suffering faces of the men--their very looks an appeal for kindness which it was hardly possible for these ladies to resist.

One of them, a young man from Penn Yan, New York, fixed his sad imploring gaze upon the face of Mrs. Gibbons. Pale as if the seal of death had already been set upon his features, dreadfully emaciated, and too feeble for the least movement, except those of the large, dark, restless eyes, which seemed by the very intensity of their expression to draw her toward him. She approached and compassionately asked if there was anything she could do for him. The reply seemed to throw upon her a responsibility too heavy to be borne.

"Come and take care of me, and I shall get well. If you do not come, I shall die."

It was very hard to say she could not come, and with the constantly recurring thought of his words, every moment made it harder. It was, however, impossible at that time.

After distributing some little offerings they had brought, the party was forced to leave, carrying with them a memory of such suffering and misery as they had not before encountered. Fall's Church was situated in a nest of secessionists, who would have been open rebels except for the presence of the troops. No woman had ever shown her face within the walls of its hospital. The routine of duty had probably been obeyed, but there had been little sympathy and only the blundering care of men, entirely ignorant of the needs of the sick. The men were dying rapidly, and the number in the hospital fast diminishing, not by convalescence, but by death.

After she had gone away, the scene constantly recurred to Mrs. Gibbons, and she felt that a field of duty opened before her, which she had no right to reject. In a few days an opportunity for another visit occurred, which was gladly embraced. The young volunteer was yet living, but too feeble to speak. Again his eyes mutely implored help, and seemed to say that only that could beat back the advances of death. This time both ladies had come with the intention of remaining.

The surgeon was ready to welcome them, but told them there was no place for them to live. But that difficulty was overcome, as difficulties almost always are by a determined will. The proprietor of a neighboring "saloon," or eating-house, was persuaded to give the ladies a loft floored with unplaned boards, and boasting for its sole furniture, a bedstead and a barrel to serve as table and toilet. Here for the sum of five dollars per week, each, they were allowed to sleep, and they took their meals below.

There were at the date of their arrival thirty-nine sick men in the hospital, and six lay unburied in the dead-house. Two or three others died, and when they left, five or six weeks afterward, all had recovered, sufficiently at least to bear removal, save three whom they left convalescing. The young volunteer who had fastened his hope of life on their coming, had been able to be removed to his home, at Penn Yan, and they afterwards learned that he had entirely recovered his health.

Under their reign, cleanliness, order, quiet, and comfortable food, had taken the place of the discomfort that previously existed. The sick were encouraged by sympathy, and stimulated by it, and though they had persisted in their effort through great hardship, and even danger, for they were very near the enemy's lines, they felt themselves fully rewarded for all their toils and sacrifices.

During the month of January, their patients having nearly all recovered, Mrs. and Miss Gibbons, cheerfully obeyed a request to proceed to Winchester, and take their places in the Seminary Hospital there. This hospital was at that time devoted to the worst cases of wounded.

There were a large number of these in this place, most of them severely wounded, as has been said, and many of them dangerously so. The closest and most assiduous care was demanded, and the ladies found themselves at once in a position to tax all their strength and efforts. They were in this hospital over four months, and afterwards at Strasburg, where they were involved in the famous retreat from that place, when the enemy took possession, and held the hospital nurses, even, as prisoners, till the main body of their army was safely on the road that led to Dixie.

Many instances of that retreat are of historical interest, but space forbids their repetition here. It is enough to state that these ladies heroically bore the discomfort of their position, and their own losses in stores and clothing, regretting only that it was out of their power to secure the comforts of the wounded, who were hurried from their quarters, jolted in ambulances in torture, or compelled to drag their feeble limbs along the encumbered road.

After the retreat, and the subsequent abandonment of the Valley by the enemy, Mrs. Gibbons and her daughter returned for a short time to their home in New York.

Their rest, however, was not long, for on the 19th of July, they arrived at Point Lookout, Maryland, where Hammond United States General Hospital was about to be opened.

On the 20th, the day following, the first installment of patients arrived, two hundred and eighteen suffering and famished men from the rebel prison of Belle Isle.

A fearful scene was presented on the arrival of these men. The transport on which they came was full of miserable-looking wretches, lying about the decks, many of them too feeble to walk, and unable to move without help. Not one of the two hundred and eighty, possessed more than one garment. Before leaving Belle Isle, they had been permitted to bathe. The filthy, vermin-infected garments, which had been their sole covering for many months, were in most cases thrown into the water, and the men had clothed themselves as best they could, in the scanty supply given them. Many were wrapped in sheets. A pair of trowsers was a luxury to which few attained.

They were mostly so feeble as to be carried on stretchers to the hospital. Mrs. Gibbons' first duty was to go on board the transport with food, wine and stimulants, to enable them to endure the removal; and when once removed, and placed in their clean beds, or wards, there was sufficient employment in reducing all to order, and nursing them back to health. Many were hopelessly broken down by their past sufferings, but most eventually recovered their strength.

Mrs. and Miss Gibbons remained at Point Lookout fifteen months. After a short time Mrs. Gibbons finding her usefulness greatly impaired by being obliged to act under the authority of Miss Dix, who was officially at the head of all nurses, applied for, and received from Surgeon-General Hammond an independent appointment in this hospital, which gave her sole charge of it, apart from the medical supervision. In this appointment the Surgeon-General was sustained by the War Department. In her application Mrs. Gibbons was influenced by no antagonism to Miss Dix, but simply by her desire for the utmost usefulness.

The military post of Point Lookout was at that time occupied by two Maryland Regiments, of whom Colonel Rogers had the command. If not in sympathy with rebellion, they undoubtedly were with slavery. Large numbers of contrabands had flocked thither, hoping to be protected in their longings for freedom. In this, however, they were disappointed. As soon as the Maryland masters demanded the return of their absconding property, the Maryland soldiers were not only willing to accede to the demand, but to aid in enforcing it.

Mrs. Gibbons found herself in a continual unpleasant conflict with the authorities. Sympathy, feeling, sense of justice, the principles of a life, were all on the side of the enslaved, and their attempt to escape. She worked for them, helped them to evade the demands of their former masters, and often sent them on their way toward the goal of their hopes and efforts, the mysterious North.

She endured persecution, received annoyances, anonymous threats, and had much to bear, which was borne cheerfully for the sake of these oppressed ones. General Lockwood, then commander of the post, was always the friend of herself and her proteges, a man of great kindness of heart, and a lover of justice.

As has been said, they remained at Point Lookout fifteen months. The summer following her introduction to the place, Mrs. Gibbons visited home, and after remaining but a short time returned to her duties. She had left all at home tranquil and serene, and did not dream of the hidden fires which were even then smouldering, and ready to burst into flame.

She had not long returned before rumors of the riots in New York, the riots of July, 1863, reached Point Lookout.

"If private houses are attacked, ours will be one of the first," said Miss Gibbons, on the reception of these tidings, and though her mother would not listen to the suggestion, she very well knew it was far from impossible.

That night they retired full of apprehension, and had not fallen asleep when some one knocked at their door with the intimation that bad news had arrived for them. They asked if any one was dead, and on being assured that there was not, listened with comparative composure when they learned that their house in New York had been sacked by the mob, and most of its contents destroyed.

The remainder of the night was spent in packing, and in the morning they started for home.

It was a sad scene that presented itself on their arrival. There was not an unbroken pane of glass in any of the windows. The panels of the doors were many of them beaten in as with an axe. The furniture was mostly destroyed, bureaus, desks, closets, receptacles of all kinds had been broken open, and their contents stolen or rendered worthless; the carpets, soaked with a trampled conglomerate of mud and water, oil and filth, the debris left by the feet of the maddened, howling crowd, were entirely ruined; beds and bedding, mirrors, and smaller articles had been carried away, the grand piano had had a fire kindled on the key-board, as had the sofas and chairs upon their velvet seats, fires that were, none knew how, extinguished.

Over all were scattered torn books and valuable papers, the correspondence with the great minds of the country for years, trampled into the grease and filth, half burned and defaced. The relics of the precious only son, who had died a few years before--the beautiful memorial room, filled with pictures he had loved, beautiful vases, where flowers always bloomed; and a thousand tokens of the loved and lost, had shared the universal ruin. So had the writings and the clothing of the lamented father, Isaac T. Hopper--of all these priceless mementoes, there remained only the marble, life-size, bust of the son, which Mr. Gibbons had providentially removed to a place of safety, and a few minor objects. And all this ruin, and irreparable loss, had been visited upon this charitable and patriotic family, by a furious, demoniac mob, because they loved Freedom, Justice, and their country.

After this disaster the family were united beneath a hired roof for some time, while their own house was repaired, and the fragments of its scattered plenishing, and abundant treasures, were gathered together and reclaimed.

Mrs. Gibbons returned for a brief space to Point Lookout, where her purpose was to instal the Misses Woolsey, and then leave them in charge of the hospital.

Circumstances, however, prevented her from leaving the Point for a much longer period than she had intended to stay, and when she did leave, she was accompanied by the Misses Woolsey, and the whole party returned to New York together.

We have no record of the further army work of Mrs. and Miss Gibbons until the opening of the grand campaign of the Army of the Potomac, the following May.

Immediately after the battle of the Wilderness, Mrs. Gibbons received a telegram desiring her to come to the aid of the wounded. She resolved at once to go, and urged her daughter to accompany her, as she had always done before. Miss Gibbons had, in the meantime, married, and in the course of a few weeks become a widow. She felt reluctant to return to the work she had so loved, but her mother's wish prevailed. The next day they started, and in a very short space of time found themselves amidst the horrible confusion and suffering which prevailed at Belle Plain.

Their stay there was but brief, and in a short time they were themselves established at Fredericksburg. There Mrs. Gibbons was requested to take charge of a hospital, or rather a large unfurnished building, which was to be used as one. In great haste straw was found to fill the empty bed-sacks, which were placed upon the floor, and the means to feed the suffering mass who were expected. The men, in all the forms of suffering, were placed upon these beds, and cared for as well as they could be, as fast as they arrived, and Mrs. Emerson prepared food for them, standing unsheltered in rain or sultry heat.

For weeks they toiled thus. One day when the town was beautiful and fragrant with the early roses, some regiments of Northern soldiers landed and marched through the town, on their way to the front. The patriotic women gathered there, cheered them as they marched on, and gathered roses which they offered in a fragrant shower, with which the men decorated caps and button-holes. They passed on; but two days later the long train of ambulances crept down the hill, bringing back these heroes to their pitying countrywomen, the roses withering on their breasts, and dyed with their sacred patriot blood.

Through all the horrors of this sad campaign, Mrs. Gibbons and Mrs. Emerson remained, doing whatever their hands could find to do. When Fredericksburg was evacuated, they accompanied the soldiers, riding in the open box-cars, and on the way administering to them as they could.

They were for a time at White House, where thousands of wounded required and received their aid, and afterwards at City Point, where they remained for several weeks in charge of the hospital of the Second Division, being from first to last, among the most useful of the many noble women who were engaged in this work.

After their return home, Mrs. Gibbons accepted an appointment at the hospital in Beverly, New Jersey, where she had charge under Dr. Wagner, the excellent surgeon she had known, and to whom she had become much attached, at Point Lookout. As usual, Mrs. Emerson accompanied her to this place, and lent her efforts to the great work to which both had devoted themselves.

There were about nineteen hundred patients in this hospital, and the duties were arduous. They boarded with the family of Dr. Wagner, adjacent to the hospital, and after the labors of the day were mostly finished, they went there to dine, at seven o'clock. Often, despite pleasant conversation, and attractive viands, the sense of fatigue, before unfelt, would attack Mrs. Gibbons, and at the table she would fall asleep. But the morning would find her with strength restored, and ready for the toil of the coming day.

The winter of 1865 will long be remembered in New York for the ravages of small-pox in that city. The victims were not confined to any class, or locality, and there were perhaps as many in the homes of wealth, as in the squalid dwelling-places of the poor.

Mrs. Gibbons was suddenly summoned home to nurse her youngest daughter, in an attack of varioloid. This was accomplished, and the young lady recovered. But this closed the army labors of the mother. She did not return, though Mrs. Emerson remained till the close of the hospital the following spring, when the end of the war rendered their further services in this work unnecessary, and they once more found themselves settled in the quiet of home.

MRS. E. J. RUSSELL.

We have spoken in previous sketches of the faithfulness and devotion of many of the government nurses, appointed by Miss Dix. No salary, certainly not the meagre pittance doled out by the government could compensate for such services, and the only satisfactory reason which can be offered for their willingness to render them, is that their hearts were inspired by a patriotism equally ardent with that which actuated their wealthier sisters, and that this pitiful salary, hardly that accorded to a green Irish girl just arrived in this country from the bogs of Erin, was accepted rather as affording them the opportunity to engage more readily in their work, than from any other cause. In many instances it was expended in procuring necessary food or luxuries for their soldier-patients, and in others, served to prevent dependence upon friends, who had the disposition but perhaps hardly the ability to furnish these heroic and self-denying nurses with the clothing or pocket-money they needed in their work.

It is of one of these nurses, a lady of mature age, a widow, that we have now to speak. Mrs. E. J. Russell, of Plattekill, Ulster County, New York, was at the commencement of the war engaged in teaching in New York city. In common with the other ladies of the Reformed Dutch Church, in Ninth Street, of which she was a member, she worked for the soldiers at every spare moment, but the cause seemed to her to need her personal services in the hospital, and in ministrations to the wounded or sick, and when the call came for nurses, she waited upon Miss Dix, was accepted, and sent first to the Regimental Hospital of the Twentieth New York Militia, National Guard, then stationed at Annapolis Junction. On arriving there she found that the regiment consisted of men from her own county, her former neighbors and acquaintances. The regiment was soon after ordered to Baltimore, and being in the three months' service, was mustered out soon after, and Mrs. Russell was assigned by Miss Dix to Columbia College Hospital, Washington. Here she remained in the quiet discharge of her duties, until June, 1864, not without many trials and discomforts, for the position of the hired nurse in these hospitals about Washington, was often rendered very uncomfortable by the discourtesy of the young assistant surgeons. Her devotion to her duties had been so intense that her health was seriously impaired, and she resigned, but after a short period of rest, her strength was sufficiently recruited for her to resume her labors, and she reported for duty at West Building Hospital, Baltimore, where she remained until after Lee's surrender. She was in the service altogether four years, lacking eighteen days. During this time nine hundred and eighty-five men were under her care, for varying periods from a few days to thirteen months; of these ninety died, and she closed the eyes of seventy-six of them. Her service in Baltimore was in part among our returned prisoners, from Belle Isle, Libby and other prisons, and in part among the wounded rebel prisoners.

Many of the incidents which Mrs. Russell relates of the wounded who passed under her care are very touching. Many of her earlier patients were in the delirium of typhoid fever, and her ears and heart were often pained in hearing their piteous calls for their loved ones to come to them,--to forgive them--or to help them. Often had she occasion to offer the consolations of religion to those who were evidently nearing the river of death, and sometimes she was made happy in finding that those who were suffering terribly from racking pain, or the agony of wounds, were comforted and cheered by her efforts to bring them to think of the Saviour. One of these, suffering from an intense fever, as she seated herself by the side of his cot, and asked him in her quiet gentle way, if he loved Jesus as his Saviour, clasped her hand in his and folding it to his heart, asked so earnestly, "Do you love Jesus too? Oh, yes, I love him. I do not fear to die, for then I shall join my dear mother who taught me to love him." He then repeated with great distinctness a stanza of the hymn, "Jesus can make a dying bed," etc., and inquired if she could sing. She could not, but she read several hymns to him. His joy and peace made him apparently oblivious of his suffering from the fever, and he endeavored as well as his failing strength would permit, to tell her of his hopes of immortality, and to commend to her prayers his only and orphaned sister.

Another, a poor fellow from Maine, dying of diphtheria, asked her to pray for him and to read to him from the Bible. She commended him tenderly to the Good Shepherd, and soon had the happiness of seeing, even amid his sufferings, that his face was radiant with joy. He selected a chapter of the Bible which he wished her to read, and then sent messages by her to his mother and friends, uttering the words with great difficulty, but passing away evidently in perfect peace.

Since the war, Mrs. Russell has resumed her profession as a teacher at Newburgh, New York.

MRS. MARY W. LEE.

It is somewhat remarkable that a considerable number of the most faithful and active workers in the hospitals and in other labors for the soldier during the late war, should have been of foreign birth. Their patriotism and benevolence was fully equal to that of our women born under the banner of the stars, and their joy at the final triumph of our arms was as fervent and hearty. Our readers will recall among these noble women, Miss Wormeley, Miss Clara Davis, Miss Jessie Home, Mrs. General Ricketts, Mrs. General Turchin, Bridget Divers, and others.

Among the natives of a foreign land, but thoroughly American in every fibre of her being, Mrs. Mary W. Lee stands among the foremost of the earnest persistent toilers of the great army of philanthropists. She was born in the north of Ireland, of Scotch parentage, but came with her parents to the United States when she was five years of age, and has ever since made Philadelphia her home. Here she married Mr. Lee, a gold refiner, and a man of great moral worth. An interesting family had grown up around them, all, like their parents thoroughly patriotic. One son enlisted early in the war, first, we believe, in the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, and afterward in the Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers, and served throughout the war, and though often in peril, escaped any severe wounds. A daughter, Miss Amanda Lee, imbued with her mother's spirit, accompanied her in most of her labors, and emulated her example of active usefulness.

Mrs. Lee was one of the noble band of women whose hearts were moved with the desire to do something for our soldiers, when they were first hastening to the war in April, 1861, and in the organization of the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon at Philadelphia, an institution which fed, during the war, four hundred thousand of our soldiers as they passed to and from the battle-fields, and brought comfort and solace to many thousands of the sick and wounded, she was one of the most active and faithful members of its committee. The regiments often arrived at midnight; but whatever the hour, whether night or day, at the firing of the signal gun, which announced that troops were on their way to Philadelphia, Mrs. Lee and her co-workers hastened to the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, near the Navy Yard, and prepared an ample repast for the soldiers, caring at the same time for any sick or wounded among them. No previous fatigue or weariness, no inclemency of the weather, or darkness of the night was regarded by these heroic women as a valid excuse from these self-imposed duties or rather this glorious privilege, for so they deemed it, of ministering to the comfort of the defenders of the Union. And through the whole four and a-third years during which troops passed through Philadelphia, no regiment or company ever passed unfed. The supplies as well as the patience and perseverance of the women held out to the end, and scores of thousands who but for their voluntary labors and beneficence must have suffered severely from hunger, had occasion to bless God for the philanthropy and practical benevolence of the women of Philadelphia.

But this field of labor, broad as it was, did not fully satisfy the patriotic ardor of Mrs. Lee. She had heard of the sufferings and privations endured by our soldiers at the front, and in hospitals remote from the cities; and she longed to go and minister to their wants. Fortunately, she could be spared for a time at least from her home. Though of middle age, she possessed a vigorous constitution, capable of enduring all necessary hardships, and was in full health and strength. She was well known as a skilful cook, an admirable nurse, and an excellent manager of household affairs. The sickness of some members of her family delayed her for a time, but when this obstacle was removed, she felt that she could not longer be detained from her chosen work. It was July, 1862, the period when the Army of the Potomac exhausted by its wearisome march and fearful battles of the seven days, lay almost helpless at Harrison's Landing. The sick poisoned by the malaria of the Chickahominy Swamps, and the wounded, shattered and maimed wrecks of humanity from the great battles, were being sent off by thousands to the hospitals of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and New England, and yet other thousands lay in the wretched field hospitals around the Landing, with but scant care, and in utter wretchedness and misery. The S. R. Spaulding, one of the steamers assigned to the United States Sanitary Commission for its Hospital Transport Service, had brought to Philadelphia a heavy cargo of the sick and wounded, and was about to return for another, when Mrs. Lee, supplied with stores by the Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee, and her personal friends, embarked upon it for Harrison's Landing, where she was to be associated with Mrs. John Harris in caring for the soldiers. The Spaulding arrived in due time in the James River, and lay off in the stream while the Ruffin house was burning. On landing, Mrs. Lee found Mrs. Harris, and the Rev. Isaac O. Sloan, one of the Agents of the Christian Commission ready to welcome her to the toilsome duties that were before her. Wretched indeed was the condition of the poor sick men, lying in mildewed, leaky tents without floors, and the pasty tenacious mud ankle deep around them, the raging thirst and burning fever of the marshes consuming them, with only the warm and impure river water to drink, and little even of this; with but a small supply of medicines, and no food or delicacies suitable for the sick, the bean soup, unctuous with rancid pork fat, forming the principal article of low diet; uncheered by kind words or tender sympathy, it is hardly matter of surprise that hundreds of as gallant men as ever entered the army died here daily.

The supplies of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and those sent to Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Lee, from the Ladies' Aid Society, and the Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee, administered by such skilful nurses as Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Fales, Mrs. Husband, and Miss Hall, soon changed the aspect of affairs, and though the malarial fever still raged, there was a better chance of recovery from it, and the sick men were as rapidly as possible transferred to a better climate, and a healthier atmosphere. In the latter part of August, the Army of the Potomac having left the James River for Acquia Creek and Alexandria, Mrs. Lee returned home for a brief visit.

On the 5th of September, she started for Washington, to enter again upon her chosen work. Finding that the Army were just about moving into Maryland, she spent a few days in the Hospital of the Epiphany at Washington, nursing the sick and wounded there; but learning that the Army of the Potomac were in hot pursuit of the Rebel Army, and that a severe battle was impending, she could not rest; she determined to be near the troops, so that when the battle came, she might be able to render prompt assistance to the wounded. It was almost impossible to obtain transportation, the demand for the movement of sustenance and ammunition for the army filling every wagon, and still proving insufficient for their wants; but by the kind permission of Captain Gleason of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, she was permitted to follow with her stores in a forage wagon, and arrived at the rear of the army the night before the battle of Antietam. The battle commenced with the dawn on the 17th of September, and during its progress, she was stationed on the Sharpsburg road, where she had her supplies and two large tubs of water, one to bathe and bind up the wounds of those who had fallen in the fight, and the other to refresh them when suffering from the terrible thirst which gun-shot wounds always produce. As the hours drew on, the contents of one assumed a deeper and yet deeper crimson hue and the seemingly ample supply of the other grew less and less. Her supply of soft bread had given out, and she had bought of an enterprising sutler who had pushed his way to a place of danger in the hope of gain, at ten and twenty cents a loaf, till her money was nearly exhausted; but to the honor of this sutler, it should be said, that the noble example of Mrs. Lee, in seeking to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded so moved his feelings, that he exclaimed, "Great God! I can't stand this any longer; Take this bread, and give it to that woman," (Mrs. Lee), and forgetting for the time the greed of gain which had brought him thither, he lent a helping hand most zealously to the care of the wounded. During the day, General McClellan's head-quarters were at Boonsboro', and his aids were constantly passing back and forth over the Sharpsburg road, near which Mrs. Lee had her station.

The battle closed with the night-fall, and Mrs. Lee immediately went into the Sedgwick Division Hospital, where were five hundred severely wounded men, and among the number, Major-General Sedgwick. Here she commenced preparing food for the wounded, but was greatly annoyed by a gang of villainous camp followers, who hung around her fires and stole everything from them if she was engaged for a moment. At last she entered the hospital, and inquired if there was any officer there who had the authority to order her a guard. General Sedgwick immediately responded to her request, by authorizing her to call upon the first soldier she could find for the purpose, and she had no further annoyance.

She remained for several days at this hospital, doing all she could with the means at her command, to make the condition of the wounded comfortable, but on the arrival of Mrs. Arabella Barlow, whose husband, then Colonel, afterward Major-General Barlow, was very severely wounded, she gave up the charge of this hospital to her, and went to the Hoffman Farm's Hospital, where there were over a thousand of the worst cases. Here she was the only lady for several weeks, until the hospital was removed to Smoketown, where she was joined by Miss M. M. C. Hall, Mrs. Husband, Mrs. Harris, and Miss Tyson, of Baltimore. She remained at Smoketown General Hospital, nearly three months. The worst cases, those which could not bear removal to Washington, Baltimore, or Philadelphia, were collected in this hospital, and there was much suffering and many deaths in it.

Mrs. Lee returned home on the 14th of December, 1862, and on the 29th of the same month, she again set out for the front, arriving safely at Falmouth on the 31st, where the wounded of Fredericksburg were gathered by thousands. After four weeks of earnest labor here, she again returned home, but early in March, she was again at the front, in the Hospital of the Second Corps, which had been removed from Falmouth to Potomac Creek. She continued in this Hospital until the battle of Chancellorsville, when she went up to the Lacy House, at Falmouth, to assist Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Beck. She accompanied Mrs. Harris, and several of the gentlemen of the Christian Commission in an Ambulance to take nourishment to the wounded of General Sedgwick's command, and witnessed the taking of Marye's Heights, the balls from the batteries passing over the heads of her company. Her anxiety in regard to this conflict was heightened by the fact that her son was in one of the regiments which made the charge upon the Heights, and great was her gratitude in finding that he was not among the wounded.

After the wounded were sent to Washington she returned to Potomac Creek, where she remained until Lee's second invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, when she moved with the army as far as Fairfax Court-House, enduring many hardships. From Fairfax Court-House she went to Alexandria to await the result of the movement, and after some delay returned home. The battle of Gettysburg called her again into the field. Arriving several days after the battle, she went directly to the Second Corps Hospital, and labored there until it was broken up. For her services in this hospital she received from the officers and men a gold medal--a trefoil, beautifully engraved, and with an appropriate inscription. She went next to Camp Letterman General Hospital, where she remained for some weeks, her stay at Gettysburg being in all about two months. Her health was impaired by her excessive labors at Gettysburg and previously in Virginia, and she remained at home for a longer time than usual, giving her attention, however, meanwhile to the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, but early in February, 1864, she established herself in a new hospital of the Second Division, Second Corps, at Brandy Station, Virginia. Here, soon after, her daughter joined her, and the old routine of the hospital at Potomac Creek was soon established. Mrs. Lee has the faculty of making the most of her conveniences and supplies. Her daughter writing home from this hospital thus describes the furniture of her "Special Diet Kitchen:"--"Mother has a small stove; until this morning it has smoked very much, but it is now doing very well. The top is about half a yard square. On this she is now boiling potatoes, stewing some chicken-broth, heating a kettle of water, and has a large bread-pudding inside. She has made milk-punch, lemonade, beef-tea, stewed cranberries, and I cannot think what else since breakfast." With all this intense activity the spiritual interests of her patients were not forgotten. Mrs. Lee is a woman of deep and unaffected piety, and her tact in speaking a word in season, and in bringing the men under religious influences was remarkable. This hospital soon became remarkable for its order, neatness and cheerfulness.

The order of General Grant on the 15th of April, 1864, for the removal of all civilians from the army, released Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Husband, who had been associated with her, from their duties at Brandy Station. But in less than a month both were recalled to the temporary base of the army at Belle Plain and Fredericksburg, to minister to the thousands of wounded from the destructive battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania. At Fredericksburg, where the whole town was one vast hospital, the surgeon in charge entrusted her with the care of the special diet of the Second Corps' hospitals. Unsupplied with kitchen furniture, and the surgeon being entirely at a loss how to procure any, her woman's wit enabled her to improvise the means of performing her duties. She remembered that Mrs. Harris had left at the Lacy House in Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, the year before, an old stove which might be there yet. Procuring an ambulance, she crossed the river, and found the old stove, much the worse for wear, and some kettles and other utensils, all of which were carefully transported to the other side, and after diligent scouring, the whole were soon in such a condition that boiling, baking, stewing and frying could proceed simultaneously, and during her stay in Fredericksburg, the old stove was kept constantly hot, and her skilful hands were employed from morning till night and often from night till morning again in the preparation of food and delicacies for the sick. Nothing but her iron constitution enabled her to endure this incessant labor.

From Fredericksburg she went over land to White House and there, aided by Miss Cornelia Hancock, her ministrations to the wounded were renewed. Thence soon after they removed to City Point. Here for months she labored amid such suffering and distress that the angels must have looked down in pity upon the accumulated human woe which met their sympathizing eyes. Brave, noble-hearted men fell by hundreds and thousands, and died not knowing whether their sacrifices would be sufficient to save their country. At length wearied with her intense and protracted labors, Mrs. Lee found herself compelled to visit home and rest for a time. But her heart was in the work, and again she returned to it, and was in charge of a hospital near Petersburg at the time of Lee's surrender. She remained in the hospitals of Petersburg and Richmond, until the middle of May, and then returned to her quiet home, participating to the very last in the closing work of the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, where she had commenced her labors for the soldiers. Other ladies may have engaged in more extended enterprises, may have had charge of larger hospitals, or undertaken more comprehensive and far-reaching plans for usefulness to the soldier--but in untiring devotion to his interests, in faithfully performed, though often irksome labor, carried forward patiently and perseveringly for more than four years, Mrs. Lee has a record not surpassed in the history of the deeds of American women.

MISS CORNELIA M. TOMPKINS.

Miss Cornelia M. Tompkins, of Niagara Falls, was one of the truly heroic spirits evoked by the war. Related to a distinguished family of the same name, educated, accustomed to the refinements and social enjoyments of a Christian home she left all to become a hospital nurse, and to aid in saving the lives of the heroes and defenders of her native land. Recommended by her friend, the late Margaret Breckinridge, of whom a biographical notice is given in this volume, she came to St. Louis in the summer of 1863, was commissioned as a nurse by Mr. Yeatman, and assigned to duty at the Benton Barracks Hospital, under the superintendence of Miss Emily E. Parsons, and the general direction of Surgeon Ira Russell. In this service she was one of the faithful band of nurses, who, with Miss Parsons, brought the system of nursing to such perfection at that hospital.

In the fall of that year she was transferred to the hospital service at Memphis, by Mr. Yeatman, to meet the great demand for nurses there, where she became favorably known as a most judicious and skilful nurse.

In the spring of 1864 she returned to St. Louis, and was again assigned to duty at Benton Barracks, where she remained till mid-summer, when having been from home a year, she obtained a furlough, and went home for a short period of rest, and to visit her family.

On her return to St. Louis she was assigned to duty at the large hospital at Jefferson Barracks, and continued there till the end of the war, doing faithful and excellent service, and receiving the cordial approbation of the surgeons in charge, and the Western Sanitary Commission, as well as the gratitude of the sick and wounded soldiers, to whom she was a devoted friend and a ministering angel in their sorrows and distress.

In her return to the quiet and enjoyment of her own home, within the sound of the great cataract, she has carried with her the consciousness of having rendered a most useful service to the patriotic and heroic defenders of her country, in their time of suffering and need, the approval of a good conscience and the smile of heaven upon her noble and heroic soul.

MRS. ANNA C. McMEENS.

Mrs. Anna C. McMeens, of Sandusky, Ohio, was born in Maryland, but removed to the northern part of Ohio, in company with her parents when quite young. She is therefore a western woman in her habits, associations and feelings, while her patriotism and philanthropy are not bounded by sectional lines. Her husband, Dr. McMeens, was appointed surgeon to an Ohio regiment, which was one of the first raised when Mr. Lincoln called for troops, after the firing upon Sumter. In the line of his duty he proceeded to Camp Dennison, where he had for some time principal charge of the medical department. Mrs. McMeens resolved to accompany her husband, and share in the hardships of the campaign, for the purpose of doing good where she could find it to do. She was therefore one of the first,--if not the first woman in Ohio, to give her exclusive, undivided time in a military hospital, in administering to the necessities of the soldiers. When the regiment left Camp Dennison, she accompanied it, until our forces occupied Nashville. Dr. McMeens then had a hospital placed under his charge, and his faithful wife assisted as nurse for several months, contributing greatly to the efficiency of the nursing department, and to the administration of consolation and comfort in many ways to our sick soldier boys, who were necessarily deprived of the comforts of home. Subsequently at the battle of Perryville, Mrs. McMeens' husband lost his life from excessive exertions while in attention to the sick and wounded. Being deprived of her natural protector, she returned to her home in Sandusky, which was made desolate by an additional sacrifice to the demon of secession. While at home, not content to sit idle in her mourning for her husband, she was busily occupied in aiding the Sanitary Commission in obtaining supplies, of which she so well knew the value by her familiarity with the wants of the soldiers in field, camp and hospitals. She however very soon felt it her duty to participate more actively in immediate attentions upon the sick and wounded soldiers. A fine field offered itself in the hospitals at Washington, to which place she went; and remained nearly one year in attention, and rendering assistance daily among the various hospitals of the Nation's capital. It would be feeble praise to say that her duties were performed in the most energetic and judicious manner. Few women have made greater sacrifices in the war than the subject of our sketch; none have been made from a purer sense of duty, or a fuller knowledge of the magnitude of the cause in which we have been engaged.

At present the necessity for attention to soldiers has happily ceased, and we find her busily engaged in missionary work among the sailors, which she has an excellent opportunity of performing while at her beautiful summer home on the island of Gibraltar, Lake Erie.

MRS. JERUSHA R. SMALL.

This young lady was one of the martyrs of the war. She resided in Cascade, Dubuque County, Iowa, and just previous to the commencement of the war had buried her only child, a sweet little girl of four years. When volunteers were called for from Iowa, her husband, Mr. J. E. Small, felt it his duty to take up arms for his country, and as his wife had no home ties she determined to go with him and make herself useful in caring for the sick and wounded of his regiment, or of other regiments in the same division. She proved a most excellent nurse, and for months labored with untiring energy in the regimental hospitals, and to hundreds of the wounded from Belmont, Donelson, and Shiloh, as well as to the numerous sick soldiers of General Grant's army she was an angel of mercy. Her constant care and devotion had considerably impaired her health before the battle of Shiloh.

At this battle her husband was badly wounded and taken prisoner, but was retaken by the Union troops. In the course of the battle, the tent which she occupied and where she was ministering to the wounded came within range of the enemy's shells, and she with her wounded husband and a large number of other wounded soldiers, were obliged to fly for their lives, leaving all their goods behind them. Previous to her flight, however, she had torn up all her spare clothing and dresses to make bandages and compresses and pillows for the wounded soldiers. She found her way with her wounded patients to one of the hospitals extemporized by the Cincinnati ladies. Her husband and many of his comrades of the Twelfth Iowa Regiment were among this company of wounded men. She craved admission for them and remained to nurse her husband and the others for several weeks, but when her husband became convalescent, she was compelled to take to her bed; her fatigue and exposure, acting upon a somewhat frail and delicate constitution had brought on galloping consumption. She soon learned from her physician that there was no hope of her recovery, and then the desire to return home and die in her mother's arms seemed to take entire possession of her soul. Permission was obtained for her to go, and for her husband to accompany her, and when she was removed from the boat to the cars, Mrs. Dr. Mendenhall of the Cincinnati Branch of the Sanitary Commission accompanied her to the cars, and having provided for her comfortable journey, gave her a parting kiss. Mrs. Small was deeply affected by this kindness of a stranger, and thanking her for her attention to herself and husband, expressed the hope that they should meet in a better world. A lady, who evidently had little sympathy with the war or with those who sought to alleviate the sufferings of the soldiers, stepped up and said to Mrs. Small; "You did very wrong to go and expose yourself as you have done when you were so young and frail." "No!" replied the dying woman, "I feel that I have done right, I think I have been the means of saving some lives, and that of my dear husband among the rest; and these I consider of far more value than mine, for now they can go and help our country in its hour of need."

Mrs. Small lived to reach home, but died a few days after her arrival. She requested that her dead body might be wrapped in the national flag, for next to her husband and her God, she loved the country which it represented, best. She was buried with military honors, a considerable number of the soldiers of the Twelfth Iowa who were home on furlough, taking part in the sad procession.

MRS. S. A. MARTHA CANFIELD.

This lady was the wife of Colonel Herman Canfield, of the Seventy-first Ohio Regiment. She accompanied her husband to the field, and devoted herself to the care and succor of the sick and wounded soldiers, until the battle of Shiloh, where her husband was mortally wounded, and survived but a few hours. She returned home with his body and remained for a short time, but feeling that it was in her power to do something for the cause to which her husband had given his life, she returned to the Army of the Mississippi and became attached to the Sixteenth Army Corps, and spent most of her time in the hospitals of Memphis and its vicinity. But though she accomplished great good for the soldiers, she took a deep interest also in the orphans of the freedmen in that region, and by her extensive acquaintance and influence with the military authorities, she succeeded in establishing and putting upon a satisfactory basis, the Colored Orphan Asylum in Memphis. She devoted her whole time until the close of the war to these two objects; the welfare of the soldiers in the hospitals and the perfecting of the Orphan Asylum, and not only gave her time but very largely also of her property to the furthering of these objects. The army officers of that large and efficient army corps bear ample testimony to her great usefulness and devotion.

MRS. E. THOMAS, AND MISS MORRIS.

These two ladies, sisters, volunteered as unpaid nurses for the War, from Cincinnati. They commenced their duties at the first opening of the Hospitals, and remained faithful to their calling, until the hospitals were closed, after the termination of the war. In cold or heat, under all circumstances of privation, and often when all the other nurses were stricken down with illness, they never faltered in their work, and, although not wealthy, gave freely of their own means to secure any needed comfort for the soldiers. Mrs. Mendenhall, of Cincinnati, who knew their abundant labors, speaks of them as unsurpassed in the extent and continuousness of their sacrifices.

MRS. SHEPARD WELLS.

This lady, the wife of Rev. Shepard Wells, was, with her husband, driven from East Tennessee by the rebellion, because of their loyalty to the Union. They found their way to St. Louis at an early period of the War, where he entered into the work of the Christian Commission for the Union soldiers, and she became a member of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, of St. Louis, and gave herself wholly to sanitary labors for the sick and wounded in the Hospitals of that city, acting also as one of the Secretaries of the Society, and as its agent in many of its works of benevolence, superintending at one time the Special Diet Kitchen, established by the Society at Benton Barracks, and doing an amount of work which few women could endure, animated and sustained by a genuine love of doing good, by noble and Christian purposes, and by true patriotism and philanthropy.

The incidents of the persecutions endured by Mr. and Mrs. Wells, in East Tennessee, and of her life and labors among the sick and wounded of the Union army, would add very much to the interest of this brief notice, but the particulars are not sufficiently familiar to the writer to be narrated by him, and he can only record the impressions he received of her remarkable faithfulness and efficiency, and her high Christian motives, in the labors she performed in connection with the Ladies' Union Aid Society, of St. Louis,--that noble Society of heroic women who, during the whole war, performed an amount of sanitary, hospital and philanthropic work for the soldiers, the refugees and the freedmen, second only to the Western Sanitary Commission itself, of which it was a most faithful ally and co-worker.

United with an earnest Christian faith, Mrs. Wells possessed a kind and generous sympathy with suffering, and a patriotic ardor for the welfare of the Union soldiers, so that she was never more in her element than when laboring for the poor refugees, for the families of those brave men who left their all to fight for their country, for the sick and wounded in the hospitals, and for the freedmen and their families. The labors she performed extended to all these objects of sympathy and charity, and, from the beginning to the end of her service, she never seemed weary in well-doing; and there can be no doubt that when her work on earth is finished, and she passes onward to the heavenly life, she will hear the approving voice of her Saviour, saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

MRS. E. C. WITHERELL.

In the month of December, 1861, on a visit made by the writer to the Fourth Street Hospital, in St. Louis, he was particularly impressed with the great devotion of one of the female nurses to her sick patients. At the conclusion of a religious service held there, as he passed through the wards to call on those who had been too ill to attend worship, he found her seated by the bed-side of a sick soldier, suffering from pneumonia, on whose pale, thin face the marks of approaching dissolution were plainly visible. She held in her hand a copy of the New Testament, from which she had been reading to him, in a cheerful and hopeful manner, and a little book of prayers, hymns and songs from which she had been singing, "There is rest for the weary," and "The Shining Shore." The soldier's bed was neatly made; his special diet had been given; his head rested easily on his pillow; and his countenance beamed with a sweet and pleasant smile. It was evident the patient enjoyed the kind attentions, the conversation, the reading and singing of his faithful nurse. The lady who sat by his bed-side was of middle age, having a countenance expressive of goodness, benevolence, purity of motive, intelligence and affection. It was plain that she regarded her patient with a tender care, and that her influence calmed and soothed his spirit. Her name was Mrs. E. C. Witherell, and the sick soldier was a mere boy, who had shouldered his musket to fight for the cause of the Union, and had contracted his fatal disease in the marches and the exposure of the army in Missouri, and was now about to die away from friends and home. The interest felt by Mrs. Witherell in this soldier boy, was motherly, full of affection and sympathy, and creditable to her noble and generous heart. As I drew near and introduced myself as a chaplain, she welcomed me, introduced me to the patient, and we sat down and conversed together; the young man was in a state of peaceful resignation; was willing to die for his country; and only regretted that he could not see his mother and sisters again; but he said that Mrs. Witherell had been as a mother to him, and if he could have hold of her hand he should not be afraid to die. He even hoped that with her kind care and nursing he might get well. Mrs. Witherell and myself then sang the "Shining Shore;" a brief prayer of hope and trust was offered; the other patients in the room seemed equally well cared for, and interested in all that was said and done; and I passed on to another ward, and never saw either the nurse or patient again. But I learned that the soldier died; and that Mrs. Witherell continued in the service, until she also died, a martyr to her heroic devotion to the cause of the sick and wounded soldiers, for whom she laid down her life, that they might live to fight the battles of their country.

The only facts that I have been able to learn about this noble lady, were that at one time she resided in Louisville, and was greatly esteemed by her pastor, Rev. John H. Heywood, of the Unitarian Church; that she chose this work of the hospitals from the highest motives of religious patriotism and love of humanity; that after serving several months in the Fourth Street Hospital, at St. Louis, she was assigned to the hospital steamer, "Empress," in the spring of 1862, as matron, or head nurse; that she continued on this boat during the next few months, while so many sick and wounded were brought from Pittsburg Landing, after the battle of Shiloh, and from other battle-fields along the rivers, to the hospitals at Mound City and St. Louis; that she was always constant, faithful and never weary of doing good; and that at last, from her being so much in the infected atmosphere of the sick and wounded, she became the victim of a fever, and died on the 10th of July, 1862.

On the occurrence of the sad event, the Western Sanitary Commission, who had known and appreciated her services, and from whom she held her commission, passed a series of resolutions, as a tribute to her worth, and her blessed memory, in which she was described as one who was "gentle and unobtrusive, with a heart warm with sympathy, and unshrinking in the discharge of duty, energetic, untiring, ready to answer every call, and unwilling to spare herself where she could alleviate suffering, or minister to the comfort of others," as "not a whit behind the bravest hero on the battle-field;" and as worthy to be held "in everlasting remembrance."

MISS PHEBE ALLEN.

This noble woman, who laid down her life in the cause of her country, was a teacher in Washington, Iowa, and left her school to enter the service as a hospital nurse. In the summer of 1863 she was commissioned by Mr. Yeatman, at St. Louis, and assigned to duty in the large hospital at Benton Barracks, where she belonged to the corps of women nurses, under the superintendence of Miss Emily E. Parsons, and under the general direction of Surgeon Ira Russell.

In the fulfilment of the duties of a hospital nurse she was very conscientious, faithful and devoted; won the respect and confidence of all who knew her, and is most pleasantly remembered by her associates and superior officers.

In the autumn of 1863 she went home on a furlough, was recalled by a letter from Miss Parsons; returned to duty, and continued in the service till the summer of 1864, when she was taken ill of malarious fever and died at Benton Barracks in the very scene of her patriotic and Christian labors, leaving a precious memory of her faithfulness and truly noble spirit to her friends and the world.

MRS. EDWIN GREBLE.

Among the ardently loyal women of Philadelphia, by whom such great and untiring labors for the soldiers were performed, few did better service in a quiet and unostentatious manner than Mrs. Greble. Indeed so very quietly did she work that she almost fulfilled the Scripture injunction of secrecy as to good deeds.

The maiden name of Mrs. Greble was Susan Virginia Major. She was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, being descended on the mother's side from a family of Quakers who were devoted to their country in the days of the Revolution with a zeal so active and outspoken as to cause them to lose their membership in the Society of Friends. Fighting Quakers there have been in both great American wars, men whose principles of peace, though not easily shaken, were less firm than their patriotism, and their traits have in many instances been emulated in the female members of their families. This seems to have been the case with Mrs. Greble.

Her eldest son, John, she devoted to the service of his country. He entered the Military Academy at West Point in 1850, at the age of sixteen, graduating honorably, and continuing in the service until June, 1861, when he fell at the disastrous battle of Great Bethel, one of the earliest martyrs of liberty in the rebellion. Another son, and the only one remaining after the death of the lamented Lieutenant Greble, when but eighteen years of age, enlisted, served faithfully, and nearly lost his life by typhoid fever. A son-in-law, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and a brave soldier, was for many months a prisoner of war, and experienced the horrors of three different Southern prisons. Thus, by inheritance, patriotic, and by personal suffering and loss keenly aroused to sympathy with her country's brave defenders, Mrs. Greble from the first devoted herself earnestly and untiringly to every work of kindness and aid which suggested itself. Blessed with abundant means, she used them in the most liberal manner in procuring comforts for the sick and wounded in hospitals.

There was ample scope for such labors among the numerous hospitals of Philadelphia. Now it was blankets she sent to the hospital where they were most needed. Again a piece of sheeting already hemmed and washed. Almost daily in the season of fruit she drove to the hospitals with bushel baskets filled with the choicest the market afforded, to tempt the fever-parched lips, and refresh the languishing sufferers. Weekly she made garments for the soldiers. Leisure moments she employed in knitting scores of stockings. On holidays her contributions of poultry, fruit, and pies, went far toward making up the feasts offered by the like-minded, to the convalescents in the various institutions, or to soldiers on their way to or from the seat of war.

It was in this mode that Mrs. Greble served her country, amply and freely, but so quietly as to attract little notice. She withheld nothing that was in her power to bestow, giving even of her most precious treasures, her children, and continuing her labors unabated to the close of the war.

MRS. ISABELLA FOGG.

Maine has given to the cause of the Union many noble heroes, brave spirits who have perilled life and health to put down the rebellion, and not a few equally brave and noble-hearted women, who in the ministrations of mercy have laid on the altar of patriotism their personal services, their ease and comfort, their health and some of them even life itself to bring healing and comfort to the defenders of their country. Among these, few, none perhaps save those who have laid down their lives in the service, are more worthy of honor than Mrs. Fogg.

The call for seventy-five thousand men to drive back the invaders and save the National Capital, met with no more hearty or patriotic responses than those that came from the extreme northeastern border of our Union, "away towards the sun-rising." Calais, in the extreme eastern part of Maine, raised its quota and more, upon the instant, and sent them forward promptly. The hearts of its women, too were stirred, and each was anxious to do something for the soldier. Mrs. Fogg felt that she was called to leave her home and minister in some way, she hardly knew how, to the comfort of those who were to fight the nation's battles. At that time, however, home duties were so pressing that, most reluctantly, she was compelled to give up for the time the purpose. Three months later came the seeming disaster, the real blessing in disguise, of Bull Run, and again was her heart moved, this time to more definite action, and a more determined purpose. Her son, a mere boy, had left school and enlisted to help fill the ranks from his native State, and she was ready now to go also. Applying to the patriotic governor of Maine and to the surgeon-general of the State for permission to serve the State, without compensation, as its agent for distributing supplies to the sick and wounded soldiers of Maine, she was encouraged by them and immediately commenced the work of collecting hospital stores for her mission. In September, 1861, she in company with Mrs. Ruth S. Mayhew, went out with one of the State regiments, and caring for its sick, accompanied it to Annapolis. The regiment was ordered, late in the autumn, to join General T. W. Sherman's expedition to Port Royal, and Mrs. Fogg was desirous of accompanying it, but finding this impracticable, she turned her attention to the hospital at Annapolis, in which the spotted typhus fever had broken out and was raging with fearful malignity. The disease was exceedingly contagious, and there was great difficulty in finding nurses who were willing to risk the contagion. With her high sense of duty, Mrs. Fogg felt that here was the place for her, and in company with Mrs. Mayhew, another noble daughter of Maine, she volunteered for service in this hospital. For more than three months did these heroic women remain at their post, on duty every day and often through the night for week after week, regardless of the infectious character of the disease, and only anxious to benefit the poor fever-stricken sufferers. The epidemic having subsided, Mrs. Fogg placed herself under the direction of the Sanitary Commission, and took part in the spring of 1862, in that Hospital Transport Service which we have elsewhere so fully described. The month of June was passed by her at the front, at Savage's Station, with occasional visits to the brigade hospitals, and to the regimental hospitals of the most advanced posts. She remained at her post at Savage's Station, until the last moment, ministering to the wounded until the last load had been dispatched, and then retreating with the army, over land to Harrison's Landing. Here, under the orders of Dr. Letterman, the medical director, she took special charge of the diet of the amputation cases; and subsequently distributed the much needed supplies furnished by the Sanitary Commission to the soldiers in their lines.

When the camps at Harrison's Landing were broken up, and the army transferred to the Potomac, she accompanied a ship load of the wounded in the S. R. Spaulding, to Philadelphia, saw them safely removed to the general hospital, and then returned to Maine, for a brief period of rest, having been absent from home about a year. Her rest consisted mainly in appeals for further and larger supplies of hospital and sanitary stores for the wounded men of Maine, who in the battles of Pope's campaign, and Antietam had been wounded by hundreds. She was successful, and early in October returned to Washington and the hospitals of northern Maryland, where she proved an angel of mercy to the suffering. When McClellan's army crossed the Potomac, she followed, and early in December, 1862, was again at the front, where she was on the 13th, a sad spectator of the fatal disaster of Fredericksburg. The Maine Camp Hospital Association had been formed the preceding summer, and Mrs. J. S. Eaton, one of its managers, had accompanied Mrs. Fogg to the front. During the sad weeks that followed the battle of Fredericksburg, these devoted ladies labored with untiring assiduity in the hospitals, and dispensed their supplies of food and clothing, not only to the Maine boys, but to others who were in need.

When the battles of Chancellorsville were fought in the first days of May, 1863, Mrs. Fogg and Mrs. Eaton spent almost a week of incessant labor, much of the time day and night, in the temporary hospitals near United States Ford, their labors being shared for one or two days by Mrs. Husband, in dressing wounds, and attending to the poor fellows who had suffered amputation, and furnishing cordials and food to the wounded who were retreating from the field, pursued by the enemy. One of these Hospitals in which they had been thus laboring till they were completely exhausted, was shelled by the enemy while they were in it, and while it was filled with the wounded. The attack was of short duration, for the battery which had shelled them was soon silenced, but one of the wounded soldiers was killed by a shell.

In works like these, in the care of the wounded who were sent in by flag of truce, and the distribution to the needy of the stores received from Maine, the days passed quickly, till the invasion of Pennsylvania by General Lee, which culminated in the battle of Gettysburg. Mrs. Fogg pushed forward and reached the battle-field the day after the final battle, but she could not obtain transportation for her stores at that time, and was obliged to collect what she could from the farmers in the vicinity, and use what was put into her hands for distribution by others, until hers could be brought up. She labored with her usual assiduity and patience among this great mass of wounded and dying men, for nearly two weeks, and then, abundant helpers having arrived, she returned to the front, and was with the Army as a voluntary Special Relief agent, through all its changes of position on and about the Rapidan, at the affair of Mine Run, the retreat and pursuit to Bristow Station, and the other movements prior to General Grant's assumption of the chief command. In the winter of 1864, she made a short visit home, and the Legislature voted an appropriation of a considerable sum of money to be placed at her disposal, to be expended at her discretion for the comfort and succor of Maine soldiers.

At the opening of the great Campaign of May, 1864, she hastened to Belle Plain and Fredericksburg, and there, in company with scores of other faithful and earnest workers, toiled night and day to relieve so far as possible the indescribable suffering which filled that desolated city. After two or three weeks, she went forward to Port Royal, to White House, and finally to City Point, where, in connection with Mrs. Eaton of the Maine Camp Hospital Association, she succeeded in bringing one of the Hospitals up to the highest point of efficiency. This accomplished, she returned to Maine, and was engaged in stimulating the women of her State to more effective labors, when she received the intelligence that her son who had been in the Army of the Shenandoah, had been mortally wounded at the battle of Cedar-Run.

With all a mother's anxieties aroused, she abandoned her work in Maine, and hastened to Martinsburg, Virginia, to ascertain what was really her son's fate. Here she met a friend, one of the delegates of the Christian Commission, and learned from him, that her son had indeed been badly wounded, and had been obliged to undergo the amputation of one leg, but had borne the operation well, and after a few days had been transferred to a Baltimore Hospital. To that city she hastened, and greatly to her joy, found him doing well. Anxiety and over exertion soon prostrated her own health, and she was laid upon a sick bed for a month or more.

In November, her health being measurably restored, she returned to Washington, and asked to be assigned to duty by the Christian Commission. She was directed to report to Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, who was the Commission's Agent for the establishment of Special Diet Kitchens in the Hospitals. Mrs. Wittenmeyer assigned her a position in charge of the Special Diet Kitchen, on one of the large hospital-boats plying between Louisville and Nashville. While on duty on board this boat in January, 1865, she fell through one of the hatchways, and received injuries which will probably disable her for life, and her condition was for many months so critical as not to permit her removal to her native State. It would seem that here was cause for repining, had she been of a querulous disposition. Herself an invalid for life, among strangers, her only son permanently crippled from wounds received in battle, with none but stranger hands to minister to her necessities, who had done so much to soothe the anguish and mitigate the sorrows of others, there was but little to outward appearance, to compensate her for her four years of arduous toil for others, and her present condition of helplessness. Yet we are told, that amid all these depressing circumstances, this heroic woman was full of joy, that she had been permitted to labor so long, and accomplish so much for her country and its defenders, and that peace had at last dawned upon the nation. Even pain could bring no cloud over her brow, no gloom to her heart. To such a heroine, the nation owes higher honors than it has ever bestowed upon the victors of the battle-field.

MRS. E. E. GEORGE.

Old age is generally reckoned as sluggish, infirm, and not easily roused to deeds of active patriotism and earnest endeavor. The aged think and deliberate, but are slow to act. Yet in this glorious work of American Women during the late war, aged women were found ready to volunteer for posts of arduous labor, from which even those in the full vigor of adult womanhood shrank. We shall have occasion to notice this often in the work of the Volunteer Refreshment Saloons, the Soldiers' Homes, etc., where the heavy burdens of toil were borne oftenest by those who had passed the limits of three score years and ten.

Another and a noble example of heroism even to death in a lady advanced in years, is found in the case of Mrs. E. E. George. The Military Agency of Indiana, located at the capital of the State, became, under the influence and promptings of the patriotic and able Governor Morton, a power for good both in the State and in the National armies. Being in constant communication with every part of the field, it was readily and promptly informed of suffering, or want of supplies by the troops of the State at any point, and at once provided for the emergency. The supply of women-nurses for camp, field, or general hospital service, was also made a part of the work of this agency, and the efficient State Agent, Mr. Hannaman, sent into the service two hundred and fifty ladies, who were distributed in the hospitals and at the front, all over the region in insurrection.

One of these, Mrs. E. E. George, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, first applied to Mr. Hannaman for a commission in January, 1863. She brought with her strong recommendations, but her age was considered by the agent a serious objection. She admitted this, but her health was excellent, and she possessed more vigor than many ladies much younger. She was, besides, an accomplished and skilful nurse.

She was sent by Mr. Hannaman to Memphis where the wounded from the unsuccessful attack on Chickasaw Bluffs,--and the successful but bloody assault on Arkansas Post,--were gathered, and her thorough qualifications for her position, her dignity of manner and her high intelligence, soon gave her great influence. During the whole Vicksburg campaign, and into the autumn of 1863, she remained in the Memphis hospitals, working incessantly. After a short visit home, in September, she went to Corinth where Sherman's Fifteenth Corps were stationed, and remained there until their departure for Chattanooga. She then visited Pulaski and assisted in opening a hospital there, Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Bickerdyke co-operating with her, and several times she visited Indiana and procured supplies for her hospital. When Sherman commenced his forward movement toward Atlanta, in May, 1864, Mrs. George and her friends, Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Bickerdyke, accompanied the army, and during the succession of severe battles of that campaign, she was always ready to minister to the wounded soldiers in the field. When Atlanta was invested in the latter part of July, 1864, she took charge of the Fifteenth Army Corps Hospital as Matron, and in the battles which terminated in the surrender of Atlanta, on the 1st of September, she was under fire. After the fall of Atlanta she returned home to rest and prepare for another campaign. She could not accompany Sherman's army to Savannah, but went to Nashville, where during and after Hood's siege of that city she found abundant employment.

Learning that Sherman's army was at Savannah, she set out for that city, via New York, intending to join the Fifteenth Corps, to which she had become strongly attached; but through some mistake, she was not provided with a pass, and visiting Washington to obtain one, Miss Dix persuaded her to change her plans and go to Wilmington, North Carolina, which had just passed into Union hands, and where great numbers of Union prisoners were accumulating. She had but just reached the city when eleven thousand prisoners, just released from Salisbury, and in the worst condition of starvation, disease and wretchedness were brought in. Mrs. George, though supplied with but scant provision of hospital stores or conveniences, gave herself most heartily to the work of providing for those poor sufferers, and soon found an active coadjutor in Mrs. Harriet F. Hawley, the wife of the gallant general in command of the post. Heroically and incessantly these two ladies worked; Mrs. George gave herself no rest day or night. The sight of such intense suffering led her to such over exertion that her strength, impaired by her previous labors, gave way, and she sank under an attack of typhus, then prevailing among the prisoners. A skilful physician gave her the most careful attention, but it was of no avail. She died, another of those glorious martyrs, who more truly than the dying heroes of the battle-field have given their lives for their country. To such patient faithful souls there awaits in the "Better Land" that cordial recognition foreshadowed by the poet:

"While valor's haughty champions wait, Till all their scars be shown, Love walks unchallenged through the gate To sit beside the Throne."

MRS. CHARLOTTE E. McKAY.

This lady, a resident of Massachusetts, had early in the war been bereaved of her husband and only child, not by the vicissitudes of the battle-field but by sickness at home, and her heart worn with grief, sought relief, where it was most likely to find it, in ministering to the sufferings of others.

She accepted an appointment under Miss Dix as a hospital nurse, and commenced her hospital life in Frederick City, Maryland, in March, 1862, where she was entrusted with the care of a large number of wounded from the first battle of Winchester. Her life here passed without much of special interest, till September, 1862, when the little Maryland city was filled for two or three days with Stonewall Jackson's Corps on their way to South Mountain and Antietam. The rebels took possession of the hospital, and filled it for the time with their sick and wounded men. Resistance was useless, and Mrs. McKay treated the rebel officers and men courteously, and did what she could for the sick; her civility and kindness were recognized, and she was treated with respect by all. After the battle of Antietam, Frederick City and its hospitals were filled with the wounded, and Mrs. McKay's heart and hands were full--but as soon as the wounded became convalescent, she went to Washington and was assigned to duty for a time in the hospitals of the Capital. In January, she went to Falmouth and found employment as a nurse in the Third Corps Hospital. Here by her skill and tact she soon effected a revolution, greatly to the comfort of the poor fellows in the hospital. From being the worst it became the best of the corps hospitals at the front. General Birney and his excellent wife, seconded and encouraged all her efforts for its improvement.

The battles which though scattered over a wide extent of territory, and fought at different times and by different portions of the contending forces, have yet been known under the generic name of Chancellorsville, were full of horrors for Mrs. McKay. She witnessed the bloody but successful assault on Marye's Heights, and while ministering to the wounded who covered all the ground in front of the fortified position, received the saddening intelligence that her brother, who was with Hooker at Chancellorsville, had been instantly killed in the protracted fighting there. Other of her friends too had fallen, but crushing the agony of her own loss back into her heart, she went on ministering to the wounded. Six weeks later she was in Washington, awaiting the battle between Lee's forces and Hooker's, afterwards commanded by General Meade. When the intelligence of the three days' conflict at Gettysburg came, she went to Baltimore, and thence by such conveyance as she could find, to Gettysburg, reaching the hospital of her division, five miles from Gettysburg, on the 7th of July. Here she remained for nearly two months, laboring zealously for the welfare of a thousand or fifteen hundred wounded men. In the autumn she again sought the hospital of the Third Division, Third Corps, at the front, which for the time was at Warrenton, Virginia. After the battle of Mine Run, she had ample employment in the care of the wounded; and later in the season she had charge of one of the hospitals at Brandy Station. Like the other ladies who were connected with hospitals at this place, she was compelled to retire by the order of April 15th; but like them she returned to her work early in May, at Belle Plain, Fredericksburg, White House, and City Point, where she labored with great assiduity and success. The changes in the army organization in June, 1864, removed most of her friends in the old third corps, and Mrs. McKay, on the invitation of the surgeon in charge of the cavalry corps hospital, took charge of the special diet of that hospital, where she remained for nearly a year, finally leaving the service in March, 1865, and remaining in Virginia in the care and instruction of the freedmen till late in the spring of 1866. The officers and men who had been under her care in the Cavalry Corps Hospital, presented her on Christmas day, 1864, with an elegant gold badge and chain, with a suitable inscription, as a testimonial of their gratitude for her services. She had previously received from the officers of the Seventeenth Maine Volunteers, whom she had cared for after the battle of Chancellorsville, a magnificent Kearny Cross, with its motto and an inscription indicating by whom it was presented.

MRS. FANNY L. RICKETTS.

Mrs. Ricketts is the daughter of English parents, though born at Elizabeth, New Jersey. She is the wife of Major-General Ricketts, United States Volunteers, who at the time of their marriage was a Captain in the First Artillery, in the United States Army, and with whom she went immediately after their union, to his post on the Rio Grande. After a residence of more than three years on the frontier, the First Artillery was ordered in the spring of 1861, to Fortress Monroe, and her husband commenced a school of practice in artillery, for the benefit of the volunteer artillerymen, who, under his instruction, became expert in handling the guns.

In the first battle of Bull Run, Captain Ricketts commanded a battery of light artillery, and was severely, and it was supposed, mortally wounded and taken prisoner. The heroic wife at once applied for passes to go to him, and share his captivity, and if need be bring away his dead body. General Scott granted her such passes as he could give; but with the Rebels she found more difficulty, her parole being demanded, but on appeal to General J. E. Johnston, she was supplied with a pass and guide. She found her husband very low, and suffering from inattention, but his case was not quite hopeless. It required all her courage to endure the hardships, privations and cruelties to which the Union women were, even then, subject, but she schooled herself to endurance, and while caring for her husband during the long weeks when his life hung upon a slender thread, she became also a minister of mercy to the numerous Union prisoners, who had not a wife's tender care. When removed to Richmond, Captain Ricketts was still in great peril, and under the discomforts of his situation, grew rapidly worse. For many weeks he was unconscious, and his death seemed inevitable. At length four months after receiving his wound, he began very slowly to improve, when intelligence came that he was to be taken as one of the hostages for the thirteen privateersmen imprisoned in New York. Mrs. Ricketts went at once to Mrs. Cooper, the wife of the Confederate Adjutant-General, and used such arguments, as led the Confederate authorities to rescind the order, so far as he was concerned. He was exchanged in the latter part of December, 1861, and having partially recovered from his wounds, was commissioned Brigadier-General, in March, 1862, and assigned to the command of a brigade in McDowell's Corps, at Fredericksburg. He passed unscathed through Pope's Campaign, but at Antietam was again wounded, though not so severely as before, and after two or three months' confinement, was in the winter of 1862-3, in Washington, as President of a Military Commission.

General Ricketts took part in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and escaped personal injury, but his wife in gratitude for his preservation, ministered to the wounded, and for months continued her labors of love among them.

In Grant's Campaign in 1864, General Ricketts distinguished himself for bravery in several battles, commanding a division; and at the battle of Monocacy, though he could not defeat the overwhelming force of the Rebels, successfully delayed their advance upon Baltimore. He then joined the Army of the Shenandoah, and in the battle of Middletown, October 19th, was again seriously, and it was thought mortally wounded. Again for four months did this devoted wife watch most patiently and tenderly over his couch of pain, and again was her tender nursing blessed to his recovery. In the closing scenes in the Army of the Potomac which culminated in Lee's surrender, General Ricketts was once more in the field, and though suffering from his wounds, he did not leave his command till by the capitulation of the Rebel chief, the war was virtually concluded. The heroic wife remained at the Union headquarters, watchful lest he for whom she had perilled life and health so often, should again be smitten down, but she was mercifully spared this added sorrow, and her husband was permitted to retire from the active ranks of the army, covered with scars honorably won.

MRS. JOHN S. PHELPS.

At the commencement of the War, Mrs. Phelps was residing in her pleasant home at Springfield, Missouri, her husband and herself, were both originally from New England, but years of residence in the Southwest, had caused them to feel a strong attachment for the region and its institutions. They were both, however, intensely loyal. Mr. Phelps was a member of Congress, elected as a Union man, and when it became evident that the South would resort to war, he offered his services to the General Government, raised a regiment and went into the field under the heroic Lyon. After the battle of Wilson's Creek, Mrs. Phelps succeeded in rescuing the body of General Lyon, and had it buried where it was within her control, and as soon as possible forwarded it to his friends in Connecticut. Her home was plundered subsequently by the Rebels, and nearly ruined. At the battle of Pea Ridge, Mrs. Phelps accompanied her husband to the field, and while the battle was yet raging, she assisted in the care of the wounded, tore up her own garments for bandages, dressed their wounds, cooked food, and made soup and broth for them, with her own hands, remaining with them as long as there was anything she could do, and giving not only words but deeds of substantial kindness and sympathy.

Col. Phelps was subsequently made Military Governor of Arkansas, and in the many bloody battles in that State, she was ready to help in every way in her power; and in her visits to the East, she plead the cause of the suffering loyalists of Missouri and Arkansas, among her friends with great earnestness and success.

MRS. JANE R. MUNSELL.

Maryland, though strongly claimed by the Rebels as their territory almost throughout the War, had yet, many loyal men and women in its country villages as well as in its larger cities. The legend of Barbara Freitchie's defiance of Stonewall Jackson and his hosts, has been immortalized in Whittier's charming verse, and the equally brave defiance of the Rebels by Mrs. Effie Titlow, of Middletown, Maryland, who wound the flag about her, and stood in the balcony of her own house, looking calmly at the invading troops, who were filled with wrath at her fearlessness deserves a like immortality. Mrs. Titlow proved after the subsequent battle of Gettysburg, that she possessed the disposition to labor for the wounded faithfully and indefatigably, as well as the gallantry to defy their enemies.

Mrs. Jane R. Munsell, of Sandy Spring, Maryland, was another of these Maryland heroines, but her patriotism manifested itself in her incessant toils for the sick and wounded after Antietam and Gettysburg. For their sake, she gave up all; her home and its enjoyments, her little property, yea, and her own life also, for it was her excessive labor for the wounded soldiers which exhausted her strength and terminated her life. A correspondent of one of the daily papers of New York city, who knew her well, says of her: "A truer, kinder, or more lovely or loving woman never lived than she. Her name is a household word with the troops, and her goodnesses have passed into proverbs in the camps and sick-rooms and hospitals. She died a victim to her own kind-heartedness, for she went far beyond her strength in her blessed ministrations."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us