Two other ladies of Baltimore, and doubtless many more, deserve especial mention in this connection, Miss Tyson, and Mrs. Beck. Active and efficient members of the Ladies' Relief Association of that city, they were also active and eminently useful in the field and general hospitals. To the hospital work they seem both to have been called by Mrs. John Harris, who to her other good qualities added that of recognizing instinctively, the women who could be made useful in the work in which she was engaged.
Miss Tyson was with Mrs. Harris at French's Division Hospital, after Antietam, and subsequently at Smoketown General Hospital, and after six or eight weeks of labor there, was attacked with typhoid fever. Her illness was protracted, but she finally recovered and resumed her work, going with Mrs. Harris to the West, and during most of the year 1864, was in charge of the Low Diet Department of the large hospital on Lookout Mountain. Few ladies equalled her in skill in the preparation of suitable food and delicacies for those who needed special diet. Miss Tyson was a faithful, indefatigable worker, and not only gave her services to the hospitals, but expended largely of her own means for the soldiers. She was always, however, disposed to shrink from any mention of her work, and we are compelled to content ourselves with this brief mention of her great usefulness.
Mrs. Beck was also a faithful and laborious aide to Mrs. Harris, at Falmouth, and afterwards at the West. She was, we believe, a native of Philadelphia, though residing in Baltimore. Her earnestness and patience in many very trying circumstances, elicited the admiration of all who knew her. She was an excellent singer, and when she sang in the hospitals some of the popular hymns, the words and melody would often awaken an interest in the heart of the soldier for a better life.
MRS. C. T. FENN.
erkshire County, Massachusetts, has long been noted as the birth-place of many men and women distinguished in the higher ranks of the best phases of American life, literature, law, science, art, philosophy, as well as religion, philanthropy, and the industrial and commercial progress of our country have all been brilliantly illustrated and powerfully aided by those who drew their first breath, and had their earliest home among the green hills and lovely valleys of Berkshire. Bryant gained the inspiration of his poems—sweet, tender, refined, elevating—from its charming scenery; and from amidst the same scenes Miss Sedgwick gathered up the quiet romance of country life, often as deep as silent, and wove it into those delightful tales which were the joy of our youthful hearts.
The men of Berkshire are brave and strong, its women fair and noble. Its mountains are the green altars upon which they kindled the fires of their patriotism. And these fires brightened a continent, and made glad the heart of a nation.
Berkshire had gained the prestige of its patriotism in two wars, and at the sound of the signal gun of the rebellion its sons—"brave sons of noble sires"—young men, and middle-aged, and boys, sprang to arms. Its regiments were among the first to answer the call of the country and to offer themselves for its defense. Let Ball's Bluff and the Wilderness, the Chickahominy, and the deadly swamps and bayous of the Southwest, tell to the listening world the story of their bravery, their endurance and their sacrifices.