Mrs. Hoge was educated at the celebrated seminary of John Brewer, A. M., (a graduate of Harvard University) who founded the first classical school for young ladies in Philadelphia, and which was distinguished from all others, by the name of the Young Ladies' College. She graduated with the first rank in her class, and afterward devoting much attention, with the advantage of the best instruction, to music, and other accomplishments, she soon excelled in the former. At an early age she became a member of the Old School Presbyterian Church, with which she still retains her connection, her husband being a ruling elder in the same church.
In her twentieth year she was married to Mr. A. H. Hoge, a merchant of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where she resided fourteen years. At the end of that period she removed to Chicago, Illinois, where she has since dwelt.
Mrs. Hoge has been the mother of thirteen children, five of whom have passed away before her. One of these, the Rev. Thomas Hoge, was a young man of rare endowments and promise.
As before stated, from the very beginning of the war, Mrs. Hoge identified herself with the interests of her country. Two of her sons immediately entered the army, and she at once commenced her unwearied personal services for the sick and wounded soldiers.
At first she entered only into that work of supply in which so large a portion of the loyal women of the North labored more or less continuously all through the war. But the first public act of her life as a Sanitary Agent, was to visit, at the request of the Chicago branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, the hospitals at Cairo, Mound City and St. Louis.
Of her visit to one of these hospitals she subsequently related the following incidents:
"The first great hospital I visited was Mound City, twelve miles from Cairo. It contained twelve hundred beds, furnished with dainty sheets, and pillows and shirts, from the Sanitary Commission, and ornamented with boughs of fresh apple blossoms, placed there by tender female nurses to refresh the languid frames of their mangled inmates. As I took my slow and solemn walk through this congregation of suffering humanity, I was arrested by the bright blue eyes, and pale but dimpled cheek, of a boy of nineteen summers. I perceived he was bandaged like a mummy, and could not move a limb; but still he smiled. The nurse who accompanied me said, 'We call this boy our miracle. Five weeks ago, he was shot down at Donelson; both legs and arms shattered. To-day, with great care, he has been turned for the first time, and never a murmur has escaped his lips, but grateful words and pleasant looks have cheered us.' Said I to the smiling boy, some absent mother's pride, 'How long did you lie on the field after being shot?' 'From Saturday morning till Sunday evening,' he replied, 'and then I was chopped out, for I had frozen feet.' 'How did it happen that you were left so long?' 'Why, you see,' said he, 'they couldn't stop to bother with us, because they had to take the fort.' 'But,' said I, 'did you not feel 'twas cruel to leave you to suffer so long?' 'Of course not! how could they help it? They had to take the fort, and when they did, we forgot our sufferings, and all over the battle-field went up cheers from the wounded, even from the dying. Men that had but one arm raised that, and voices so weak that they sounded like children's, helped to swell the sound.' 'Did you suffer much?' His brow contracted, as he said, 'I don't like to think of that; but never mind, the doctor tells me I won't lose an arm or a leg, and I'm going back to have another chance at them. There's one thing I can't forget though," said he, as his sunny brow grew dark, 'Jem and I (nodding at the boy in the adjoining cot) lived on our father's neighboring farms in Illinois; we stood beside each other and fell together. As he knows, we saw fearful sights that day. We saw poor wounded boys stripped of their clothing. They cut our's off, when every movement was torture. When some resisted, they were pinned to the earth with bayonets, and left writhing like worms, to die by inches. I can't forgive the devils for that.' 'I fear you've got more than you bargained for.' 'Not a bit of it; we went in for better or worse, and if we got worse, we must not complain.' Thus talked the beardless boy, nine months only from his mother's wing. As I spoke, a moan, a rare sound in a hospital, fell on my ear. I turned, and saw a French boy quivering with agony and crying for help. Alas! he had been wounded, driven several miles in an ambulance, with his feet projecting, had them frightfully frozen, and the surgeon had just decided the discolored, useless members must be amputated, and the poor boy was begging for the operation. Beside him, lay a stalwart man, with fine face, the fresh blood staining his bandages, his dark, damp hair clustering round his marble forehead. He extended his hand feebly and essayed to speak, as I bent over him, but speech had failed him. He was just brought in from a gunboat, where he had been struck with a piece of shell, and was slipping silently but surely into eternity. Two days afterward I visited Jefferson Barracks Hospital. In passing through the wards, I noticed a woman seated beside the cot of a youth, apparently dying. He was insensible to all around; she seemed no less so. Her face was bronzed and deeply lined with care and suffering. Her eyes were bent on the ground, her arms folded, her features rigid as marble. I stood beside her, but she did not notice me. I laid my hand upon her shoulder, but she heeded me not. I said 'Is this young man a relative of yours?' No answer came. 'Can't I help you?' With a sudden start that electrified me, her dry eyes almost starting from the sockets and her voice husky with agony, she said, pointing her attenuated finger at the senseless boy, 'He is the last of seven sons—six have died in the army, and the doctor says he must die to-night.' The flash of life passed from her face as suddenly as it came, her arms folded over her breast, she sank in her chair, and became as before, the rigid impersonation of agony. As I passed through another hospital ward, I noticed a man whose dejected figure said plainly, 'he had turned his face to the wall to die.' His limb had been amputated, and he had just been told his doom. Human nature rebelled. He cried out, 'I am willing to die, if I could but see my wife and children once more.' In the silence that followed this burst of agony, the low voice of a noble woman, who gave her time and abundant means to the sick and wounded soldiers, was heard in prayer for him. The divine influence overcame his struggling heart, and as she concluded, he said, 'Thy will, O God, be done!' ''Tis a privilege, even thus, to die for one's country.' Before the midnight hour he was at rest. The vacant bed told the story next morning."
The object of these visits was to examine those hospitals which were under the immediate supervision of the Branch, and report their condition, also to investigate the excellent mode of working of the finely conducted, and at that time numerous hospitals in St. Louis. This report was made and acted upon, and was the means of introducing decided and much needed reforms into similar institutions.
The value of Mrs. Hoge's counsel, and the fruits of her great experience of life were generally acknowledged. In the several councils of women held in Washington, she took a prominent part, and was always listened to with the greatest respect and attention—not by any means lessened after her wide relations with the Sanitary Commission, and her special experience of its work, had become known in the following years.
Mrs. Hoge was accompanied to Washington, when attending the Women's Council in 1862, by her friend and fellow-laborer, Mrs. M. A. Livermore, of Chicago. After the return of these ladies they immediately commenced the organization of the Northwest for sanitary labor, being appointed agents of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission, and devoting their entire time to this work.