"Miss Safford commenced her labors immediately, when Cairo was occupied. I think she was the very first woman who went into the camps and hospitals, in the country; I know she was in the West. There was no system, no organization, nothing to do with. She systematized everything in Cairo, furnished necessaries with her own means, or rather with her brother's, who is wealthy; went daily to the work, and though surgeons and authorities everywhere were opposed to her efforts, she disarmed all opposition by her sweetness and grace and beauty. She did just what she pleased. At Pittsburg Landing, where she was found in advance of other women, she was hailed by dying soldiers, who did not know her name, but had seen her at Cairo, as the 'Cairo Angel.' She came up with boat-load after boat-load of sick and wounded soldiers who were taken to hospitals at Cairo, Paducah, St. Louis, etc., cooking all the while for them, dressing wounds, singing to them, and praying with them. She did not undress on the way up from Pittsburg Landing, but worked incessantly.
"She was very frail, as petite as a girl of twelve summers, and utterly unaccustomed to hardships. Sleeping in hospital tents, working on pestilential boats, giving up everything to this life, carrying the sorrows of the country, and the burdens of the soldier on her heart like personal griefs, with none of the aids in the work that came afterwards, she broke down at the end of the first eighteen months, and will never again be well. Her brother sent her immediately to Paris, where she underwent the severest treatment for the cure of the injury to the spine, occasioned by her life in the army and hospitals. The physicians subsequently prescribed travel, and she has been since that time in Europe. She is highly educated, speaks French and German as well as English, and some Italian. She is the most indomitable little creature living, heroic, uncomplaining, self-forgetful, and will yet 'die in harness.' When the war broke out in Italy, she was in Florence, and at Madame Mario's invitation, immediately went to work to assist the Italian ladies in preparing for the sick and wounded of their soldiers. In Norway, she was devising ways and means to assist poor girls to emigrate to America, where they had relatives—and so everywhere. She must be counted among those who have given up health, and ultimately life for the country."
We add also the following extracts from a letter from Cairo, published in one of the Chicago papers, early in the war.
AN ANGEL AT CAIRO.
"I cannot close this letter from Cairo without a passing word of one whose name is mentioned by thousands of our soldiers with gratitude and blessing. Miss Mary Safford is a resident of this town, whose life since the beginning of the war, has been devoted to the amelioration of the soldier's lot, and his comfort in the hospitals. She is a young lady, petite in figure, unpretending, but highly cultivated, by no means officious, and so wholly unconscious of her excellencies, and the great work she is achieving, that I fear this public allusion to her may pain her modest nature. Her sweet, young face, full of benevolence, pleasant voice, and winning manner instate her in every one's heart directly; and the more one sees her, the more he admires her great soul and her noble nature. Not a day elapses but she is found in the hospitals, unless indeed she is absent on an errand of mercy up the Tennessee, or to the hospitals in Kentucky.
"Every sick and wounded soldier in Cairo knows and loves her; and as she enters the ward, every pale face brightens at her approach. As she passes along, she inquires of each one how he has passed the night, if he is well supplied with reading matter, and if there is anything she can do for him. All tell her their story frankly—the man old enough to be her father, and the boy of fifteen, who should be out of the army, and home with his mother. One thinks he would like a baked apple if the doctor will allow it—another a rice pudding, such as she can make—a third a tumbler of buttermilk—a fourth wishes nothing, is discouraged, thinks he shall die, and breaks down utterly, in tears, and him she soothes and encourages, till he resolves for her sake, to keep up a good heart, and hold on to life a little longer—a fifth wants her to write to his wife—a sixth is afraid to die, and with him, and for him, her devout spirit wrestles, till light shines through the dark valley—a seventh desires her to sit by him and read, and so on. Every request is attended to, be it ever so trivial, and when she goes again, if the doctor has sanctioned the gratification of the sick man's wish, the buttermilk, baked apple, rice pudding, etc., are carried along. Doctors, nurses, medical directors, and army officers, are all her true friends; and so judicious and trustworthy is she, that the Chicago Sanitary Commission have given her carte blanche to draw on their stores at Cairo for anything she may need in her errands of mercy. She is performing a noble work, and that too in the quietest and most unconscious manner. Said a sick soldier from the back woods, in the splendid hospital at Mound City, who was transferred thither from one of the miserable regimental hospitals at Cairo, 'I'm taken care of here a heap better than I was at Cairo; but I'd rather be there than here, for the sake of seeing that little gal that used to come in every day to see us. I tell you what, she's an angel, if there is any.' To this latter assertion we say amen! most heartily."
Miss Safford is the sister of A. B. Safford, Esq., a well-known and highly respected banker at Cairo, Illinois, and of Hon. A. P. K. Safford of Nevada.