While in Cairo I had the pleasure of seeing the celebrated Miss Mary Safford, of whom so much has been said and written.
One writer gives the following account of her, which is correct with regard to personal appearance, and I have no doubt is correct throughout:
“I cannot close this letter without a passing word in regard to 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 this war, has been devoted to the amelioration of the soldier’s lot and his comfort in the hospital.
“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 that she is achieving, that I fear this public allusion to her may pain her modest nature.
“Her sweet young face, full of benevolence, her pleasant voice and winning manner, install her in every one’s heart directly; and the more one sees of her the more they admire her great soul and 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 had passed the night, if he is well supplied with books and tracts, and if there is anything she can do for him. All tell her their story frankly—the old man old enough to be her father, and the boy in his teens, all confide in her.
“For one she must write a letter to his friend at home; she must sit down and read at the cot of another; must procure, if the surgeon will allow it, this or that article of food for a third; must soothe and encourage a fourth who desponds and is ready to give up his hold on life; must pray for a fifth who is afraid to die, and wrestle for him till light shines through the dark valley; and so on, varied as may be the personal or spiritual wants of the sufferers.
“Surgeons, 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 in the hospitals.