We may perhaps imagine how busy was the brave woman, left with such an immense responsibility on her hands.
Early in 1865, Dr. Marsh received notice that it had been determined to send him to Newbern, North Carolina, but he never went, being attacked soon after by a long and dangerous illness which for a time rendered it improbable that he would ever see his Northern home again.
It was at this time that a cargo of sanitary supplies arrived from New York. A part of these were a contribution from Montreal. Montreal had before sent goods to the Commission, but these were forwarded to Mrs. Marsh herself. A letter of hers written not long previous to a friend in New York, had been forwarded to Montreal, and had aroused a strong desire there to help her in her peculiar work. A large portion of this gift was from an M. P., who, though he might, like others, lift his voice against the American war, had yet enough of the milk of human kindness in his heart to lead him to desire to do something for her suffering soldiers and prisoners.
This gift Mrs. Marsh never saw, it being sent with the rest of the unbroken cargo back to Newbern in view of the expected arrival of her family there.
The surrender of Lee virtually closed the war, and the necessity of Dr. Marsh's stay in the South was no longer an important one. Besides this, his health would not permit it, and he returned to New York where he had long been wanted to take charge of the "Lincoln Home" in Grove Street, a hospital opened by the Sanitary Commission for lingering cases of wounds and sickness among homeless and destitute soldiers.
Of this hospital and home Dr. Marsh was surgeon, and Mrs. Marsh matron. Dr. Hoadly who had been with Dr. Marsh at the South, still retained the position of assistant. The health of Dr. Marsh improved, but he has never entirely recovered.
They entered the Lincoln Home on the 1st of May, 1865, and the house was immediately filled with patients. They remained there until June of the following year, 1866. During their stay between three and four hundred patients were admitted, and of those who were regular patients none died. One soldier, a Swede, was found in the street in the last stages of exhaustion and suffering, and died before the morning following his admission. He bore about him evidences of education and gentle birth, but he could not speak English, and carried with him into another world the secret of his name and identity. He had no disease, but the foundations of his life had been sapped by the irritation caused by filth and vermin.
As at the South, in the services of Mrs. Marsh here, there was a great disproportion between their showiness and their usefulness. She pursued her quiet round of labors, the results of which will be seen and felt for years, as much as in the present. Her kind voice, and pleasant smile will be an ever living and delightful memory in the hearts of all to whom she ministered during those long hours of the nation's peril, in which the best blood of her sons was poured out a red libation to Liberty.
After the close of the Lincoln Home, Mrs. Marsh continued to devote herself to suffering soldiers and their families, making herself notably useful in this important department of the nation's work.