"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."