Campfire and Battlefield / An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great Civil War

by Rossiter Johnson; Selden Connor; John Brown Gordon; Henry W. B. Howard; O. O. Howard; John Tyler Morgan; John Clark Ridpath

WOMAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE CAUSE.

At the close of the chapter on the Sanitary and Christian Commissions we have given some account of the work of a few of the women whose service was connected with or similar to that of those organizations. It would require many pages to tell the entire story of the contribution of the loyal women to the cause of the Union—a most noble story, however monotonous and repetitious. It is impossible to publish the records of all who served thus, any more than to treat of every citizen who stepped into the ranks and, as a simple private, gave his life for his country. But a specific account of what was done by some of them will give the reader a more vivid idea of the great price that was paid for the unity of our country and the perpetuation of our government than can be conveyed by any general statement. It is the story of women who did not urge their brothers and lovers to go to the field without themselves following as far and as closely as the law would let them, and sharing in the toils, the privations, and sometimes even the peculiar perils, of war. Many of them lost their lives, directly or indirectly, in consequence of their labors.

"On fields where Strife held riot, And Slaughter fed his hounds, Where came no sense of quiet, Nor any gentle sounds, They made their rounds. "They wrought without repining, And, weary watches o'er, They passed the bounds confining Our green, familiar shore Forevermore."

It is claimed for Mrs. Almira Fales, of Washington, that she was the first woman in the United States to perform any work for the comfort of the soldiers during the Rebellion. In December, 1860, when South Carolina had seceded and she saw that war was very probable, if not certain, she began the preparation of lint and hospital stores, in anticipation of the hostilities that did not break out until the next April. Her husband was employed by the Government, and her sons entered the army. During the war she emptied seven thousand boxes of hospital stores, and distributed to the sick and wounded soldiers comforts and delicacies to the value of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She spent several months at sea attending to the wounded on hospital ships, and during the seven days' battles she was under fire on the Peninsula. One of her sons was killed in the battle of Chancellorsville. It was said that she was full of a quaint humor, and her visits to the hospitals never failed to awaken smiles and bring about a general air of cheerfulness.

Mrs. Harris, wife of John Harris, M.D., of Philadelphia, was one of the earliest volunteers in the work, and one who had, perhaps, the widest experience in its various branches. She is described as a pale and delicate woman, and yet she endured very hard service in the cause of her country. At the beginning of the war she became corresponding secretary of the Ladies' Aid Society of Philadelphia, but very soon she went to the field as its correspondent and one of its active workers. In the spring of 1862 she accompanied the Army of the Potomac to the Peninsula, and spent several weeks in the hospitals at Fort Monroe. After the battle of Fair Oaks she went on board a transport that was given to the wounded, and she thus describes what she saw there: "There were eight hundred on board. Passage-ways, state-rooms, floors from the dark and foetid hold to the hurricane deck, were all more than filled; some on mattresses, some on blankets, others on straw; some in the death-struggle, others nearing it, some already beyond human sympathy and help; some in their blood as they had been brought from the battlefield of the Sabbath previous, and all hungry and thirsty, not having had anything to eat or drink, except hard crackers, for twenty-four hours. When we carried in bread, hands from every quarter were outstretched, and the cry, 'Give me a piece, oh, please! I have had nothing since Monday.' Another, 'Nothing but hard crackers since the fight,' etc. When we had dealt out nearly all the bread, a surgeon came in and cried, 'Do please keep some for the poor fellows in the hold, they are so badly off for everything.' So with the remnant we threaded our way through the suffering crowd, amid such exclamations as, 'Oh! please don't touch my foot!' or, 'For mercy's sake, don't touch my arm!' another, 'Please don't move the blanket, I am so terribly cut up,' down to the hold, in which were not less than one hundred and fifty, nearly all sick, some very sick. It was like plunging into a vapor bath, so hot, close, and full of moisture, and then in this dismal place we distributed our bread, oranges, and pickles, which were seized upon with avidity. And here let me say, at least twenty of them told us next day that the pickles had done them more good than all the medicine they had taken." In the autumn of 1863, just after the battle of Chickamauga, she went to the West and began work at Nashville among the refugees. Afterward, at Chattanooga, she labored in the hospitals until her strength was overtaxed, and for several weeks her life was despaired of. Coming again to the East, in the spring of 1864, she was with the Army of the Potomac in its bloody campaign through the Wilderness, and afterward with the Army of the Shenandoah. In the spring of 1865 she visited North Carolina to care for the released prisoners of Andersonville and Salisbury.

MRS. MARY A. BICKERDYKE.

Mrs. Eliza C. Porter, of Chicago, after her eldest son had enlisted, devoted herself to the work, first taking charge of the Sanitary Commission rooms in that city, and in the spring of 1862 going to the army hospitals. At Cairo, she and other women were accustomed to work from four o'clock in the morning until ten at night. They went to the front at Pittsburgh Landing, and not only labored in the hospitals, but did much for refugees and escaped slaves, and established schools for the blacks. In a letter written from a field hospital near Chattanooga, in January, 1864, she says: "The field hospital was in a forest, about five miles from Chattanooga; wood was abundant, and the camp was warmed by immense burning 'log heaps,' which were the only fire-places or cooking-stoves of the camp or hospitals. Men were detailed to fell the trees and pile the logs to heat the air, which was very wintry. And beside them Mrs. Bickerdyke made soup and toast, tea and coffee, and broiled mutton without a gridiron, often blistering her fingers in the process. A house in due time was demolished to make bunks for the worst cases, and the brick from the chimney was converted into an oven, when Mrs. Bickerdyke made bread, yeast having been found in the Chicago boxes, and flour at a neighboring mill, which had furnished flour to secessionists through the war until now. Great multitudes were fed from these rude kitchens. Companies of hungry soldiers were refreshed before those open fire-places and from those ovens. On one occasion a citizen came and told the men to follow him; he would show them a reserve of beef and sheep which had been provided for General Bragg's army, and about thirty head of cattle and twenty sheep was the prize. Large potash kettles were found, which were used over the huge log fires, and various kitchen utensils for cooking were brought into camp from time to time, almost every day adding to our conveniences. The most harrowing scenes are daily witnessed here. A wife came on yesterday only to learn that her dear husband had died the morning previous. Her lamentations were heart-breaking. 'Why could he not have lived until I came? Why?' In the evening came a sister, whose aged parents had sent her to search for their only son. She also came too late. The brother had gone to the soldier's grave two days previous. One continued wail of sorrow goes up from all parts of this stricken land."

Mrs. Mary Bickerdyke, mentioned in Mrs. Porter's letter, was a widow in Cleveland, Ohio, at the opening of the war, and immediately gave herself to the work. Leaving her two little boys at home, she went to the front and made herself useful in the hospitals at Savannah, Chattanooga, and other points. She was a woman of great energy and courage, and it is said that, in carrying on her work for the sick and wounded soldiers, she used to violate military rules without the least hesitation, in order to obtain what she wanted. On one occasion, when she found that an assistant surgeon had been off on a drunken spree and had not made out the special diet list for his ward, leaving the men without any breakfast, she not only denounced him to his face but caused him to be discharged from the service. Going to General Sherman to obtain reinstatement, the surgeon was asked: "Who caused your discharge?" "Why," said he, "I suppose it was Mrs. Bickerdyke." "If that is the case," said General Sherman, "I can do nothing for you. She ranks me." Finding great difficulty in obtaining milk, butter, and eggs for her hospital in Memphis, she resolved to establish a dairy of her own. She therefore went to Illinois, and in one of its farming regions obtained stock, by begging, until she had two hundred cows and one thousand hens, which she took to Memphis, where the commanding general gave her an island in the Mississippi, on which she established her dairy. Her clothing was riddled with holes from sparks at the open fires where she cooked for the field hospitals, and some ladies in Chicago sent her a box of clothing for herself, which included two elegant nightdresses trimmed with ruffles and lace. Using only some of the plainest garments, she traded others with secessionist women of the vicinity for delicacies for the hospital. The two nightdresses she reserved to sell in some place where she thought they would bring a higher price; but on the way to Kentucky she found two wounded soldiers in a miserable shanty for whom nothing had been done, and, after attending to their wounds and finding that they had no shirts, she gave them the nightdresses, ruffles, lace, and all.

Miss Margaret Elizabeth Breckenridge was a native of Philadelphia, but was closely related to the well-known Breckenridge family of Kentucky. She entered upon hospital service at the West in the spring of 1862, and served constantly as long as her health and strength permitted. In June, 1864, while she was prostrated by illness, the news came that her brother-in-law, Col. Peter A. Porter, had been killed in the battle of Cold Harbor, and this proved a greater shock than she could bear. She had been especially helpful in cheering up the soldiers in the hospitals and writing letters for them. One very young soldier who lay wounded said to her: "Where do you come from? How could such a lady as you are come down here to take care of us poor, sick, dirty boys?" "I consider it an honor to wait on you," she said, "and wash off the mud you waded through for me." Another man said: "Please write down your name and let me look at it, and take it home, to show my wife who wrote my letters and combed my hair and fed me. I don't believe you're like other people."

Mrs. Stephen Barker, who was a sister of the attorney-general of Massachusetts, and whose husband was chaplain of a regiment from that State, gave nearly the whole four years of the war to hospital duty, mostly in and around Washington, where at one time she had charge of ten hospitals, which she carefully inspected herself with perfect regularity. In her report she says: "I remember no scenes in camp more picturesque than some of our visits have presented. The great open army wagon stands under some shade-tree, with the officer who has volunteered to help, or the regular field agent, standing in the midst of boxes, bales, and bundles. Wheels, sides, and every projecting point are crowded with eager soldiers, to see what the 'Sanitary' has brought for them. By the side of the great wagon stands the light wagon of the lady, with its curtains all rolled up, while she arranges before and around her the supplies she is to distribute. Another eager crowd surrounds her, patient, kind, and respectful as the first, except that a shade more of softness in their look and tone attest the ever-living power of woman over the rough elements of manhood. In these hours of personal communication with the soldier she finds the true meaning of her work. This is her golden opportunity, when by look and tone and movement she may call up, as if by magic, the pure influences of home, which may have been long banished by the hard necessities of war. Quietly and rapidly the supplies are handed out for companies A, B, C, etc., first from one wagon, then the other, and as soon as a regiment is completed the men hurry back to their tents to receive their share, and write letters on the newly received paper, or apply the long-needed comb or mend the gaping seams in their now 'historic garments.' When at last the supplies are exhausted, and sunset reminds us that we are yet many miles from home, we gather up the remnants, bid good-by to the friendly faces, which already seem like old acquaintances, promising to come again to visit new regiments to-morrow, and hurry home to prepare for the next day's work. Every day, from the first to the twentieth day of June, our little band of missionaries has repeated a day's work such as I have now described."

Miss Amy M. Bradley, a native and resident of Maine, who had been for some years a teacher, volunteered as a nurse at the very beginning of the war and went out with the Fifth Maine regiment, many of the soldiers in which had been her pupils. She became noted for the efficiency and good condition of the hospitals over which she presided, and in December, 1862, was sent to what the soldiers called Camp Misery, on the opposite side of the Potomac from Washington, as a special relief agent of the Sanitary Commission. This camp, as its name indicated, was in a deplorable condition; but she immediately instituted reforms which rapidly improved it. She not only obtained supplies for the invalids and others who were there, but brought about a system of transfer by which more than two thousand of them were sent where they could be taken care of more comfortably, and she was especially efficient in setting right the accounts of men who were suffering from informality in their papers. In eight months she procured the reinstatement of one hundred and fifty soldiers who had been unjustly dropped from the rolls as deserters, and secured their arrears of pay for them.

Miss Arabella Griffith was a native of New Jersey, and at the beginning of the war was engaged to Francis C. Barlow, a promising young lawyer. On April 19, 1861, Mr. Barlow enlisted as a private; on the 20th they were married, and on the 21st he went with his regiment to Washington. A week later Mrs. Barlow followed him, and still later she joined in the hospital work of the Sanitary Commission. The day after the battle of Antietam she found her husband badly wounded, and when, in the spring, he went to the field again, she accompanied him. At Gettysburg he was again wounded and was left within the enemy's lines, but she by great effort managed to get him within the Union lines, where she took care not only of him, but many others of the wounded men in that great battle. In the spring of 1864 she was again in the field, hard at work in the hospitals that were nearest the front. A friend who knew her at this time writes: "We call her 'The Raider.' At Fredericksburg she had in some way gained possession of a wretched-looking pony and a small cart, with which she was continually on the move, driving about town or country in search of such provisions or other articles as were needed for the sick and wounded. The surgeon in charge had on one occasion assigned to us the task of preparing a building, which had been taken for a hospital, for a large number of wounded who were expected immediately. It was empty, containing not the slightest furniture, save a large number of bed-sacks, without material to fill them. On requisition a quantity of straw was obtained, but not nearly enough, and we were standing in a mute despair when Mrs. Barlow came in. 'I'll find some more straw,' was her cheerful reply, and in another moment she was urging her tired beast toward another part of the town where she remembered having seen a bale of straw earlier in the day. Half an hour afterward it had been confiscated, loaded upon the little wagon, and brought to the hospital." Her health became so impaired in the field that, in July, 1864, she died. Her husband, meanwhile, had risen to the rank of brigadier-general, and was known as one of the most gallant men in the army. Surgeon W. H. Reed, writing of her, said: "In the open field she toiled with Mr. Marshall and Miss Gilson, under the scorching sun, with no shelter from the pouring rains, with no thought but for those who were suffering and dying all around her. On the battlefield of Petersburg, hardly out of range of the enemy and at night witnessing the blazing lines of fire from right to left, among the wounded, with her sympathies and powers both of mind and body strained to the last degree, neither conscious that she was working beyond her strength nor realizing the extreme exhaustion of her system, she fainted at her work, and found, only when it was too late, that the raging fever was wasting her life away. Yet to the last her sparkling wit, her brilliant intellect, her unfailing good humor, lighted up our moments of rest and recreation."

Mrs. Nellie M. Taylor (May Dewey) was a native of Watertown, New York, but settled with her husband in New Orleans. There, on the breaking out of the war, she was subjected to all kinds of persecution because she was a Unionist. On one occasion a mob assembled around her house, where she was watching at the bedside of her dying husband, and the leader said: "Madam, we give you five minutes to decide whether you are for the South or for the North. If at the end of that time you declare yourself for the South, your house shall remain; if for the North, it must come down." "Sir," she answered, "I will say to you and your crowd that I am, always have been, and ever shall be, for the Union. Tear my house down if you choose!" The mob seemed to be a little ashamed of themselves at this answer, and finally dispersed without destroying the house. Seven times before the capture of the city by the National forces her home was searched by self-constituted committees of citizens, who every time found the National flag displayed at the head of her bed; and on one occasion she was actually fired at from a window. Mrs. Taylor gave a large part of her time during the war to hard work in the hospitals, and in addition she spent many of her earnings for the benefit of the sick and wounded soldiers.

In the spring of 1862, Governor Harvey, of Wisconsin, visited General Grant's army with medicines and other supplies for the wounded from his State, and just after the battle of Shiloh he was accidentally drowned there. His widow, Cordelia P. Harvey, devoted herself to the work in which he had lost his life, and served faithfully in the hospitals of that department. One of her most valuable achievements consisted in persuading the government to establish general hospitals in the Northern States, where suffering soldiers might be sent and have a better chance of recovery than if kept in the hospitals further south.

Mrs. Sarah R. Johnston was a native of North Carolina, and at the beginning of the war was teaching at Salisbury, in that State. When the first prisoners were brought to the town for confinement in the stockade there, the secessionist women turned out in carriages to escort them through the town, and greeted them with contemptuous epithets as they filed past. The sight of this determined Mrs. Johnston to devote herself to the work of ameliorating their condition. This subjected her to all sorts of insults from her townspeople and broke up her school; but she persevered, nevertheless, and earned the gratitude of many of the unfortunate men who there suffered from the studied cruelty of the Confederate government. She made up her carpets and spare blankets into moccasins, which she gave to the prisoners as they arrived; and when they stood in front of her house waiting their turn to be mustered into the prison, she supplied them, as far as she could, with bread and water, for in many instances they had been on the railroad forty-eight hours with nothing to eat or drink. The prisoners were not permitted to leave their ranks to assist her in obtaining the water, all of which had to be drawn from a well with an old-fashioned windlass. On one occasion a Confederate sergeant in charge told her that if she attempted to do anything for the Yankees or come outside her gate, he would pin her to the earth with his bayonet. Paying no attention to this, she took a basket of bread in one hand and a bucket of water in the other, and walked past him on her usual errand. The sergeant followed her and touched her upon the shoulder with the point of his bayonet, whereupon she turned and asked him why he did not pin her to the earth, as he had promised to. Some of the Confederate soldiers called out: "Sergeant, you can't make anything out of that woman; you had better leave her alone." And then he desisted.

Mrs. Mary Morris Husband, of Philadelphia, was a granddaughter of Robert Morris of Revolutionary fame. When her son, who had enlisted in the Army of the Potomac, was seriously ill on the Peninsula, she went there to take care of him, and what she saw determined her to give her services to the country as a nurse. She was on one of the hospital transports at Harrison's Landing when the Confederates bombarded it, but kept right on with her work as if she were not under fire. She was at Antietam immediately after the battle, and remained there two months in charge of the wounded, sleeping in a tent in all kinds of weather and attending the hospital with perfect regularity. She contrived an ensign for her tent by cutting out the figure of a bottle in red flannel and sewing it upon a piece of calico, this bottle flag indicating the place where medicines were to be obtained.

In the severe winter of 1862-63 she often left her tent several times in the night and visited the cots of those who were apparently near death, to make sure that the nurses did not neglect them; and when diphtheria appeared in the hospital and many of the nurses left from fear of it, she remained at her post just as if there were no such thing as a contagious disease. It is said that in several instances where she believed a soldier had been unjustly condemned by court-martial, she obtained a pardon or commutation of his sentence by laying the case directly before President Lincoln.

Miss Katherine P. Wormeley, known of late as a translator of Balzac's works, is a native of England. Her father, born in Virginia, was an officer in the British Navy. Her mother was a native of Boston. At the beginning of the war Miss Wormeley was living at Newport, R. I., and almost at once she enlisted in the work of aid for the soldiers. When the hospital transport service was organized, in the summer of 1862, she was one of the first volunteers for that branch of the service. Later she had charge of a large hospital in Rhode Island, which held two thousand five hundred patients.

Among others who volunteered for the hospital transport service were Mrs. Joseph Howland, whose husband was colonel of the Sixteenth New York regiment, and her sister, Mrs. Robert S. Howland, whose husband was a clergyman working in the hospitals. The latter Mrs. Howland, who died in 1864, was the author of a short poem, entitled "In the Hospital," which has become famous.

"I lay me down to sleep, with little thought or care Whether my waking find me here—or there! A bowing, burdened head, that only asks to rest, Unquestioning, upon a loving breast. My good right hand forgets its cunning now; To march the weary march I know not how. I am not eager, bold, nor strong—all that is past; I am ready not to do at last, at last. My half-day's work is done, and this is all my part— I give a patient God my patient heart; And grasp His banner still, though all the blue be dim: These stripes, as well as stars, lead after Him."

These two ladies had two unmarried sisters, Jane C. and Georgiana M. Woolsey, who also were in the service. Miss Georgiana Woolsey wrote some entertaining letters from the seat of war, in one of which she tells of some women in Gettysburg who, like Jennie Wade, kept at their work of making bread for the soldiers while the battle was going on. One of them had refused to leave the house or go into the cellar until a third shell passed through the room, when, having got the last loaf into the oven, she ran down the stairs. "Why did you not go before?" she was asked. "Oh, you see," she answered, "if I had, the rebels would 'a' come in and daubed the dough all over the place." These ladies were cousins of Miss Sarah C. Woolsey, who is now, under her pen-name of Susan Coolidge, well known as a writer for the young. She also served for some time in the hospitals.

Anna Maria Ross, of Philadelphia, was known as a most energetic worker in the hospitals, chiefly in what was called the Cooper Shop Hospital of Philadelphia, of which she was principal until, from overwork and anxiety, she died in December, 1863.

Miss Mary J. Safford, a native of Vermont, was living in Cairo, Ill., when the war began, and at once enlisted in the work of aid for the soldiers. Immediately after the battle of Shiloh she went to the front with a large supply of hospital stores, and labored there day and night for three weeks, when she came North with a transport loaded with wounded men. She is said to have been the first woman in the West to engage in this work. The hardships that she endured caused a disease of the spine, and at the end of a year and a half she broke down, and had to be sent to Europe for treatment.

Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, of Iowa, was appointed sanitary agent for that State, and is said to have been the originator of the diet kitchens attached to the hospitals. The object of these was to have the food for the wounded and sick prepared in a skilful manner and administered according to surgeons' orders, and they were a very efficient branch of the hospital service.

Another Iowa woman who devoted herself to the service was Miss Melcenia Elliott. She served in the hospitals in Tennessee, and afterward in St. Louis had charge of the Home for Refugees. Here she established a school, and instituted many reforms in the direction of cleanliness and industry. It is related that in Memphis, when she was refused admission to one of the hospitals where a neighbor's son was ill, she every night scaled a high fence in the rear of the building and managed to get into the ward where she could attend to the poor boy until he died.

Miss Clara Davis, of Massachusetts, was one of the earliest volunteers, and she was so assiduous in her labors and so cheerful in her manners in the hospital that the soldiers came to look upon her with most profound admiration and affection. One of them was heard to say, "There must be wings hidden beneath her cloak." Her labors were mainly with the Army of the Potomac, and she continued them until an attack of typhoid fever made further work of the kind impossible.

Mrs. R. H. Spencer, of Oswego, N. Y., whose husband enlisted in the One Hundred and Forty-seventh New York regiment, followed that organization to the front, and made herself useful as a nurse and hospital attendant. On the march toward Gettysburg she rode a horse which carried, besides herself, bedding, cooking utensils, clothing, and more than three hundred pounds of supplies for the sick and wounded. While that great battle was in progress, Mrs. Spencer, a part of the time actually under fire, established a field hospital in which sixty wounded men were treated. One day she discovered a townsman of her own who had been shot through the throat, and whose case was pronounced hopeless by the surgeon, as he could swallow nothing. Mrs. Spencer took him in hand, and asked him if he could do without food for a week. The man, who was young and strong, gave signs that he could. "Then," said she, "do as I tell you, and you shall not die." She procured a basin of pure cold water, and directed him to keep the wound continually wet, which he did, until in a few days the inflammation subsided and the edges of the wound could be closed up. After which she began to feed him carefully with broth, and every day brought further improvement until he entirely recovered. When the ammunition barge exploded at City Point a piece of shell struck her in the side, but inflicted only a heavy bruise.

Mrs. Harriet Foote Hawley, wife of Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut, did much work in the hospitals on the Carolina coast, whither she had gone in the first instance to engage in teaching the freedmen. At Wilmington, where typhoid fever broke out, she remained at her post when many others were frightened away. In the last month of the war she was injured on the head by the overturning of an ambulance, and this rendered her an invalid for a long time.

Miss Jessie Home, a native of Scotland, entered the service as a hospital nurse at Washington and continued there for two years, making many friends and doing a vast amount of good, until, from overwork, she was struck down by disease.

Mrs. Sarah P. Edson entered the service during the first year of the war, and was assigned to the general hospital at Winchester, Va. In the spring of 1862 she was with McClellan's army on the Peninsula, and after the battle of Williamsburg, learning that her son was among the wounded, she walked twelve miles to find him, apparently dying, where, with other wounded men, he was greatly in need of care. She worked night and day to alleviate their sufferings, and brought something like cleanliness and order out of the dreadful condition in which she found them. In the ensuing summer she passed through a long and severe illness in consequence of her labors. On her recovery she formed a plan for the training of nurses, and, after her experiment had been tried, an official of the medical department declared "that it was more than a success, it was a triumph."

Miss Maria M. C. Hall, of Washington, was associated with Mrs. Fales in hospital work, and went through the four years of it with unfailing energy and enthusiasm. She finally became general superintendent of the Naval Academy Hospital at Annapolis. After the war she wrote: "I mark my hospital days as my best ones, and thank God for the way in which He led me into the good work, and for the strength which kept me through it all."

Mrs. A. H. Gibbons was a daughter of Isaac T. Hopper, the famous Quaker philanthropist, and wife of James Sloane Gibbons, who wrote the famous song, "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." With her eldest daughter (afterward Mrs. Emerson) she went to Washington in the autumn of 1861, and entered upon hospital service. One day they discovered a small hospital near Falls Church, where about forty men were ill of typhoid fever, and one young soldier, who seemed to be at the point of death, appealed to them, saying: "Come and take care of me, and I shall get well; if you do not come, I shall die." Finding that the hospital was in a wretched condition, they got leave to take it in charge, and presently had it in excellent order, with a large number of the patients recovering. These ladies were on duty at Point Lookout for over a year, and there they were obliged to oppose and evade the officers in various ways, in order to assist the escaped slaves, whom these officers were only too ready and anxious to return to slavery. While they were engaged in this work, their home in New York was sacked by the mob in the draft riots.

Mrs. Jerusha R. Small, of Cascade, Iowa, followed her husband, who enlisted at the beginning of the war, and became a nurse in the regimental hospitals. At the battle of Shiloh, the tent in which she was caring for a number of wounded men, among whom was her husband, was struck by shells from the enemy's guns, and she was obliged to get her patients away as fast as she could to an extemporized hospital beyond the range of fire. After the most arduous service, extending over several weeks with no intermission, she was struck down by disease and died. To one who said to her in her last hours, "You did wrong to expose yourself so," she answered, "No, 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." She was buried with military honors.

Another lady who accompanied her husband to the field was the wife of Hermann Canfield, colonel of the Seventy-first Ohio regiment, who was killed in the battle of Shiloh. After taking his body to their home, she returned to the army and continued her hospital service until the close of the war.

MISS MARY J. SAFFORD.

When the Rev. Shepard Wells and his wife were driven from East Tennessee because of their loyalty to the government, they went to St. Louis, where he engaged in the work of the Christian Commission, and she entered the hospital and became superintendent of a special diet kitchen, which did an immense amount of work for the cause.

Mrs. E. C. Witherell, of Louisville, Ky., was another of those who devoted themselves to the merciful and patriotic work in the hospitals at the expense of their lives. She was head nurse on a hospital steamer in the Mississippi until she was stricken down with fever and died in July, 1862. Still another of those was Miss Phebe Allen, a daughter of Iowa, who served in a hospital at St. Louis until she died in the summer of 1864. Mrs. Edwin Greble, mother of Lieut. John T. Greble, who was killed in the battle of Big Bethel, and of another son who died in the army, of fever, devoted herself to hospital service and to preparing garments and blankets for the soldiers.

Mrs. Isabella Fogg, of Maine, was another of those who pushed their way into the service before it was organized, and found some difficulty in so doing. But she got there at last, and took part in the hospital transport service in the waters of Chesapeake Bay. After the battle of Chancellorsville, she was serving in a temporary hospital at United States Ford when it was shelled by the Confederates. Her son was in the Army of the Shenandoah, and was badly wounded in the battle of Cedar Creek. While performing her duties on a Western hospital boat, in charge of the diet kitchen, she fell through a hatchway and received injuries that disabled her for life.

Mrs. E. E. George, of Indiana, when she applied for a place in the service, was refused on the ground that she was too old. But in spite of her advanced years she insisted upon enlisting in the good cause, and in Sherman's campaign of 1864 she had charge of the Fifteenth Army Corps hospital, and in the battles before Atlanta she was several times under fire. The next spring she was on duty at Wilmington, N. C., when eleven thousand prisoners released from Salisbury were brought there in the deplorable condition that was common to those who had been in Carolina in Confederate stockades. Her incessant labors in behalf of those unfortunate men prostrated her, and she died.

Large numbers of the troops raised in the Eastern and Middle States passed through Philadelphia on their way to the seat of war, and some philanthropic ladies of that city established a refreshment saloon where meals were furnished free to soldiers who were either going to the front or going home on furlough or because disabled. Among the most assiduous workers here was Mary B. Wade, widow of a sea captain, who, despite her seventy years, was almost never absent, night or day, through the whole four years.

Another widow who gave herself to the cause was Henrietta L. Colt (née Peckham), a native of Albany County, N. Y., whose husband was a well-known lawyer. She labored in the Western hospitals and on the river hospital steamers, looking especially after the Wisconsin men, as she was for some time a resident of Milwaukee. She wrote in one of her letters: "I have visited seventy-two hospitals, and would find it difficult to choose the most remarkable among the many heroisms I every day witnessed. I was more impressed by the gentleness and refinement that seemed to grow up in the men when suffering from horrible wounds than from anything else. It seemed to me that the sacredness of the cause for which they offered up their lives gave them a heroism almost superhuman."

MRS. MARIANNE F. STRANAHAN.

Among the great fairs that were held for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission, that in Brooklyn, N. Y., was one of the most successful. It paid into the treasury of the Commission three hundred thousand dollars and furnished supplies valued at two hundred thousand more. This was the work of the Brooklyn Women's Relief Association, of which Mrs. James S. T. Stranahan was president. Her efforts in this work broke down her health, and she died in the first year after the war.

Miss Hattie A. Dada, of New York, was one of the women who volunteered as nurses immediately after the first battle of Bull Run. From that date she was continually in service till the war closed—her time being about equally divided between the Eastern and Western armies. After General Banks's retreat in the Shenandoah Valley, she and Miss Susan E. Hall, remaining with the wounded, became prisoners to the Confederates and were held about three months. From that time these two ladies were inseparable, their last two years of service being in the scantily furnished hospitals at Murfreesboro, Tenn., one of the most difficult fields for such work.

At the beginning of the war, Miss Emily E. Parsons, daughter of Prof. Theophilus Parsons, of Cambridge, Mass., entered a hospital in Boston as pupil and assistant to educate herself for work among the soldiers. A year and a half later she volunteered and was sent to Fort Schuyler, near New York. Early in 1863 she went to St. Louis, where she served in the hospitals and on the hospital steamers. The Benton Hospital, under her superintendence, became famous for its efficiency and its large percentage of recoveries.

Next after the men who commanded armies, the name of Gen. James B. Ricketts is one of the most familiar in the history of the war. When he was gravely wounded at Bull Run and taken prisoner, his wife managed to make her way to him, sharing his captivity, and by careful nursing saved his life. He was exchanged in December, 1861, and his wife afterward devoted herself to the care of the wounded in the Army of the Potomac.

Mrs. Jane R. Munsell, of Maryland, entered upon the service when she saw the wounded of the battle of Antietam, and devoted both her life and her property to it until she died of the incessant labor.

Besides these women who served in the hospitals, there were others who performed quite as important work in organizing the means of supply—in holding fairs, in obtaining materials and workers and superintending the manufacture of garments and other necessary articles, and forwarding them to the right places at the right time. One of the foremost of these was Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, a native of Boston, who afterward became eminent as a pulpit orator. She organized numerous aid societies in the Northwestern States, made tours of the hospitals in the Mississippi valley, to find out what was needed and how the supplies were being disposed of, and was most active in getting up and carrying through to success the great Northwestern Sanitary Fair in Chicago. There was hardly a city in the North in which one or more similar women did not rise to the occasion and do similar work, though on a smaller scale.

NOTE.—For many of the facts related in this chapter we are indebted to Dr. L. P. Brackett's excellent volume on "Woman's Work in the Civil War."

INTERIOR OF HOSPITAL CONSTRUCTED BY THE SANITARY COMMISSION.