Woman's Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience

MISS HATTIE WISWALL.

iss Hattie Wiswall entered the service as Hospital Nurse, May 1, 1863. For the first five or six months she was employed in the Benton Barracks Hospital at St. Louis. At that time the suffering of our boys in Missouri was very great, and all through that summer the hospitals of St. Louis were crowded to overflowing. From one thousand to fifteen hundred were lying in Benton Barracks alone. Men, wounded in every conceivable manner, were frequently arriving from the battle-fields, and our friend went through the same experience to which so many brave women, fresh from the quiet and happy scenes of their peaceful homes, have been willing to subject themselves for the sake of humanity. Sensitive and delicate though she was, she acquired here, by constant attention to her duties, a coolness in the presence of appalling sights that we have rarely seen equaled even in the stronger sex, and which, when united with a tender sympathy, as in her case, makes the model nurse. The feeling of horror which shrinks from the sight of agony and vents itself in vapid exclamations, she rightly deemed had no place in the character of one who proposes to do anything. So putting this aside she learned to be happy in the hospital, and consequently made others happy. Never in our observation has this first condition of success in nursing been so completely met. It became so intense a satisfaction to her to lessen, in ever so slight a degree, the misery of a sick or wounded soldier that the horror of the case seemed never to occur to her. It was often remarked that "Miss Hattie was never quite so happy as when administering medicine or dressing a wound."

From Benton Barracks she was ordered in the autumn of 1863 to Nashville, Tennessee, where she remained a short time and was then ordered to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to assist in conducting a Soldiers' Home. Here she remained until the close of the war. How faithfully she discharged her duties, first as assistant and then as principal Matron, the one hundred and fifteen thousand guests who were entertained there during her stay know, and the living can testify. Her position for much of the time was an extremely responsible and laborious one, the capacities of the Home being sometimes extended to the accommodation of six hundred men, and averaging, for nearly the whole period of her stay, two hundred daily. The multiplicity of duties in the charge of the household affairs of such an institution, with the uncertain assistance to be found in such a place, may be better imagined than told. Under her satisfactory management the Vicksburg Home acquired an enviable reputation, and was the favorite stopping-place on the river. The great difficulty in conducting a Soldiers' Home in time of war, as every one knows who has been connected with one, is to keep it neat and clean, to have the floors, the tables, the beds sufficiently respectable to remind the soldier of the home he has left. Nothing but ceaseless vigilance could do this at Vicksburg, as men were constantly arriving from filthy camps, and still filthier prisons, covered not with greenbacks but with what was known there as the rebel "currency." But on any one of the hundreds of beds that filled the dormitories of this Home our most fastidious reader could have slept in peace and safety; and, but for the fact that the bill of fare was mostly limited to the army ration, could have set down at any of the tables and enjoyed a meal.

The good work of Miss Wiswall in Vicksburg was not confined to the Soldiers' Home. She did not forget the freedmen, but was true to the teachings of her uncles, the great and good Lovejoys. Of the sufferings of these poor people she had opportunity to see much, and often did her sympathies lead her beyond the sphere of her ordinary duties, to carry food and clothing and medicine to such as were ready to perish.

In these charities, which were extended also to the white refugees, Miss Wiswall did not lose sight of the direct line of her duty, the work she had set out to do. The needs of the loyal soldier took precedence in her mind of all others. No service so delighted her as this, and to none was she so well fitted.

We remember after the calamitous Red River expedition, boat-load after boat-load of the wounded were sent up to Vicksburg. As soon as they touched the shore, our friend and her companions met the poor fellows stretched upon the decks and scattered through the cabins and around the engines, with words of womanly cheer, and brought the delicacies and refreshments prepared by thoughtful hands at home. Many a brave man will remember to his dying day how he shed tears of joy at sight of the first true Northern woman's face that met him after that toilsome, disastrous march.

At length a boat-load of the severely wounded were about to be sent up the river to Northern hospitals, or on furlough to go to their homes. The surgeon in charge desired the aid of a competent lady assistant; and Miss Wiswall obtained temporary leave of absence to accompany him and help take care of the sufferers. Her influence, we were told, was inspiriting to all on board. She was once more in hospital and entirely at home. At Cairo, where a portion of the wounded were discharged, she took charge of an officer, whose limb had been amputated, and saw him safely to his home in Elgin, Illinois. Making her friends in Chicago a brief visit, she returned to her duties at Vicksburg, where she remained until, with the close of the war, the Soldiers' Home was discontinued about the 1st of June, 1865.

MRS. LUCY E. STARR.

In the autumn of 1863 Mrs. Starr was needed by the Western Sanitary Commission to take the position of Matron of the Soldiers' Home at Memphis, to have charge of the domestic arrangements of the institution, and to extend a true hospitality to the many invalid soldiers going on furlough to their homes or returning to the hospitals, or to their regiments, passing through Memphis on their way. The number thus entertained sometimes reached as high as three hundred and fifty in one day. The average daily number for two years and a half was one hundred and six. When the Home was first opened, and before it was much known, the first guests were brought in by Mrs. Governor Harvey, of Wisconsin, who found them wandering in the streets, sadly in need of a kind friend to give them assistance and care. Sometimes the Superintendent, Mr. O. E. Waters, would have from twenty to thirty discharged, furloughed and invalid soldiers to aid, in collecting their pay, procuring transportation, many of whom he found lying on the hard pavements in the streets and on the bluff near the steamboat landing, in a helpless condition, with no friend to assist them. The object of the Soldiers' Home was to take care of such, give them food and lodging without charge, make them welcome while they stayed, and send them rejoicing on their way.

In the internal management of this institution, and in the kind hospitality extended to the soldiers Mrs. Starr was doing a congenial work. For two years she filled this position with great fidelity and success, and to the highest satisfaction of those who placed her here, and of all who were the guests of the Home. At the end of this service, on the closing of the Home, the Superintendent in his final report to the Western Sanitary Commission, makes this acknowledgment of her services:

"It would not only be improper but unjust, not to speak of the faithfulness and hearty co-operation of the excellent and much esteemed Matron, Mrs. Lucy E. Starr. Her mission has been full of trials and discouragements, yet she has patiently and uncomplainingly struggled through them all; and during my frequent absences she has cheerfully assumed the entire responsibility of the Home. Her Christian forbearance and deep devotion to the cause of humanity have won the admiration of all who have come within the sphere of her labors."

On the closing of the Soldiers' Home, Mrs. Starr became connected with an institution for the care of suffering refugees and freedmen at Memphis, under the patronage of the Freedmen's Aid Commission of Cincinnati, Ohio. She took a great interest in the thousands of this class of destitute people who had congregated in the vicinity of Memphis; visited them for weeks almost daily; and in the language of Mr. Waters' report, "administered to the sick with her own hands, going from pallet to pallet, giving nourishing food and medicines to many helpless and friendless beings."

Thus she continued to be a worker for the suffering soldiers of the Union army from the beginning to the end of the war, and when peace had come, devoted herself to the poor and suffering refugees and freedmen, whom the war had driven from their homes and reduced to misery and want. With a wonderful fortitude, endurance and heroism she persevered in her faithfulness to the end, and through the future of her life on earth and in heaven, those whom she has comforted and relieved of their sorrows and distresses will constitute for her a crown of rejoicing, and their tears of gratitude will be the brightest jewels in her diadem.

CHARLOTTE BRADFORD

So far as we can learn, Miss Bradford's first public service in connection with the Sanitary Commission, was in the Hospital Transport Corps in the waters of the Peninsula, in 1862. Here she was one of the ladies in charge of the Elm City, and afterward of the Knickerbocker, having as associates Mrs. Bailey, Miss Helen L. Gilson, Miss Amy M. Bradley, Mrs. Balustier, Miss Gardner and others.

Miss Bradley was presently called to Washington by the officers of the Sanitary Commission, to take charge of the Soldiers' Home then being established there, and Miss Bradford busied herself in other Relief work. In February following, Miss Bradley relinquished her position as Matron of the Home, to enter upon her great work of reforming and improving the Rendezvous of Distribution, which under the name of "Camp Misery," had long been the opprobrium of the War Department, and Miss Bradford was called to succeed her in charge of the Soldiers' Home at Washington. Of the efficiency and beneficence of her administration here for two and a half years there is ample testimony. Thoroughly refined and ladylike in her manners, there was a quiet dignity about her which controlled the wayward and won the respect of all. Her executive ability and administrative skill were such, that throughout the realm where she presided, everything moved with the precision and quietness of the most perfect machinery. There was no hurry, no bustle, no display, but everything was done in time and well done. To thousands of the soldiers just recovering from sickness or wounds, feeble and sometimes almost disheartened, she spoke words of cheer, and by her tender and kind sympathy, encouraged and strengthened them for the battle of life; and in all her intercourse with them she proved herself their true and sympathizing friend.

After the close of the war, Miss Bradford returned to private life at her home in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

UNION VOLUNTEER REFRESHMENT SALOON OF PHILADELPHIA.

No philanthropic work during the war was more thoroughly free from self-seeking, or prompted by a higher or nobler impulse than that of these Refreshment Saloons. Beginning in the very first movements of troops in the patriotic feeling which led a poor man[M] to establish his coffee boilers on the sidewalk to give a cup of hot coffee to the soldiers as they waited for the train to take them on to Washington, and in the generous impulses of women in humble life to furnish such food as they could provide for the soldier boys, it grew to be a gigantic enterprise in its results, and the humble commencement ere long developed into two rival but not hostile organizations, each zealous to do the most for the defenders of their country. Very early in the movement some men of larger means and equally earnest sympathies were attracted to it, and one of them, a thorough patriot, Samuel B. Fales, Esq., gave himself wholly to it for four and a half years. The interest of the community was excited also in the labors of these humble men and women, and the enterprise seldom lacked for funds; the zealous and earnest Chairman, Mr. Arad Barrows, and Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Fales, of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, took good care of that part of the work, and Mr. W. M. Cooper and his associates did the same for the Cooper Shop Saloon.

Ample provision was made to give the regiments the benefit of a bath and an ample repast at whatever hour of day or night they might come into the city. In the four and a half years of their labors, the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon fed between eight hundred thousand and nine hundred thousand soldiers and expended about one hundred thousand dollars in money, aside from supplies. The Cooper Shop Saloon, closing a little earlier, fed about four hundred thousand men and expended nearly seventy thousand dollars. Both Saloons had hospitals attached to them for sick and wounded soldiers. The Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon had, during the war, nearly fifteen thousand patients, the Cooper Shop, perhaps half that number.

But noble and patriotic as were the labors of the men connected with these Saloons, they were less deserving of the highest meed of praise than those of the women who, with a patience and fidelity which has never been surpassed, winter and summer, in cold and heat, at all hours of night as well as in the day, at the boom of the signal gun, hastened to the Refreshment Saloons and prepared those ample repasts which made Philadelphia the Mecca to which every soldier turned longingly during his years of Army life. These women were for the most part in the middle and humbler walks of life; they were accustomed to care for their own households, and do their own work; and it required no small degree of self-denial and patriotic zeal on their part, after a day of the housekeeper's never ending toil, to rise from their beds at midnight (for the trains bringing soldiers came oftener at night than in the day time), and go through the darkness or storm, a considerable distance, and toil until after sunrise at the prosaic work of cooking and dish-washing.

Of some of these noble women we have the material for brief sketches, and we know of none more deserving a place in our record.

Mrs. Eliza G. Plummer was a native of Philadelphia, of revolutionary stock, born in 1812, and had been a widow for nearly twenty-five years. Though possessed of but little property, she had for many years been the friend and helper of the poor, attending them in sickness, and from her scanty purse and by her exertions, securing to them a decent and respectable Christian burial when they were called to die. At the very commencement of the War, she entered into the Refreshment Saloon enterprise with a zeal and perseverance that never flagged. She was particularly devoted to the hospital, and when the accommodations of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon Hospital were too limited for the number who needed relief, as was the case in 1862, she received a considerable number of the worst cases of sick or wounded soldiers into her own house, and nursed them without any compensation till they recovered. At the second fair held by the Saloon in June, 1863, she was instant in season and out of season, feeding the soldiers as well as attending the fair; and often remaining at her post till long after midnight. In July and August, 1863, she was constantly engaged in nursing the wounded from Gettysburg, who crowded the Saloon Hospitals for some time, and in supplying the needs of the poor fellows who passed through in the Hospital Cars on their way to Northern hospitals. For these she provided tea and toast always, having everything ready immediately on their arrival. These excessive labors impaired her health, and being called to nurse her aged blind mother during a severe fit of sickness, her strength failed and she sank rapidly, and died on the 21st of October, 1863. The soldier has lost no more earnest or faithful friend than she.

Mrs. Mary B. Wade, a widow and now nearly eighty years of age, but a woman of remarkable energy and perseverance, was throughout the whole four and a half years, as constantly at her post, as faithful and as efficient as any of the Executive Committee of the Saloon. Suffering from slight lameness, she literally hobbled down to the Saloon with a cane, by night or day; but she was never absent. Her kind, winning and motherly ways made her always a great favorite with the soldiers, who always called her Mother Wade. She is a woman of rare conscientiousness, truthfulness and amiability of character. She is a native of Southwark, Philadelphia, and the widow of a sea-captain.

Mrs. Ellen J. Lowry, a widow upwards of fifty years of age, a native of Baltimore, was in the beginning of the War a woman of large and powerful frame, and was surpassed by none in faithfulness and efficiency, but her labors among the wounded from Gettysburg seriously injured her health, and have rendered her, probably a permanent invalid; she suffered severely from typhoid fever, and her life was in peril in the summer of 1864.

Mrs. Margaret Boyer, a native of Philadelphia, the wife of a sea-captain, but in very humble circumstances, and advanced in years, was also one of the faithful untiring workers of the Union Saloon, but like Mrs. Lowry, lost her health by her care of the Gettysburg wounded, and those from the great battles of Grant's Campaign.

Mrs. Priscilla Grover and Mrs. Green, both women about sixty years of age, were constant in their attendance and remarkably faithful in their services at the Saloon. Our record of these remarkable women of advanced age would be incomplete did we omit Mrs. Mary Grover, Mrs. Hannah Smith, Mrs. Sarah Femington and Miss Sarah Holland, all noble, persevering and efficient nurses, and strongly attached to their work. Nor were the younger women lacking in skill, patience or activity. Mrs. Ellen B. Barrows, wife of the Chairman of the Saloon, though blessed with more ample means of usefulness than some of the others, was second to none in her untiring energy and persistency in the discharge of her duties both in the hospitals and the Saloon. Mrs. Eliza J. Smith, whose excessive labors have nearly cost her her life, Mrs. Mary A. Cassedy, Mrs. Kate B. Anderson, Mrs. Mary E. Field, Mrs. Emily Mason, Mrs. Anna A. Elkinton and Mrs. Hannah F. Bailey were all notable women for their steady and efficient work in the hospitals and Saloon. Of Mrs. Mary W. Lee and her daughter, Miss Amanda Lee, we have spoken elsewhere.

Miss Catharine Bailey, Mrs. Eliza Helmbold, Mrs. Mary Courteney, Mrs. Elizabeth Horton and Misses Grover, Krider and Field were all useful and active, though their duties were less severe than those we have previously named.

The Cooper Shop Saloon was smaller and its work consequently less severe, yet, as we have seen, the labors of Miss Ross in its hospital proved too severe for even her vigorous constitution, and she added another to the long list of blessed martyrs in the cause of liberty. Others there were in that Saloon and hospital, who, by faithful labor, patient and self-denying toil, and great sacrifices, won for themselves an honorable place in that record which the great day of assize shall reveal. We may not know their names, but God knows them, and will reward them for their deeds of mercy and love.

MRS. R. M. BIGELOW.

n the ordinary acceptation of the term, Mrs. Bigelow has not been connected with Soldiers' Homes either in Washington or elsewhere; yet there are few if any ladies in the country who have taken so many sick or wounded soldiers to their own houses, and have made them at home there, as she. To hundreds, if not thousands, of the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, the name of "Aunty Bigelow," the title by which she was universally known among the sick and wounded soldiers, is as carefully, and quite as gratefully cherished as the name of their commanders. Mrs. Bigelow is a native of Washington, in which city she has always resided. She was never able, in consequence of her family duties, to devote herself exclusively to hospital work, but was among the first to respond to the call for friendly aid to the sick soldier. She was, in 1861, a daily visitor to the Indiana Hospital in the Patent Office Building, coming at such hours as she could spare from her home duties; and she was always welcome, for no one was more skillful as a nurse than she, or could cheer and comfort the sick better. When she could not come, she sent such delicacies as would tempt the appetite of the invalid to the hospital. Many a soldier remembers to this day the hot cakes, or the mush and milk, or the custard which came from Aunty Bigelow's, on purpose for him, and always exactly at the right time. Mrs. R. K. Billing, a near relative of Mrs. Bigelow, and the mother of that Miss Rose M. Billing whose patriotic labors ended only with her life—a life freely sacrificed for the relief of our poor returned prisoners from Andersonville, as related in our sketch of the Annapolis Hospital Corps,—was the co-laborer of her kinswoman in these labors of love. Both were indefatigable in their labors for the sick soldiers; both knew how to make "that bread which tasted exactly like mother's" to the convalescent soldier, whose feeble appetite was not easily tempted; and both opened their houses, as well as their hearts to these poor suffering invalids, and many is the soldier who could and did say: "I don't know what would have become of me if I had not met with such good friends."

Mrs. Bigelow became, ere long, the almoner of the bounty of many Aid Societies at the North, and vast quantities of supplies passed through her hands, to the patients of the hospitals; and they were always judiciously distributed. She not only kept up a constant correspondence with these societies, but wrote regularly to the soldier-boys who had been under her care, after they returned to their regiments, and thus retained her influence over them, and made them feel that somebody cared for them, even when they were away from all other home influences.

Besides these labors, which were seemingly sufficient to occupy her entire time, she visited continually the hospitals about the city, and always found room in her house for any sick one, who came to her begging that he might "come home," rather than go to a boarding-house or to a hospital. Three young officers, who came to her with this plea, were received and watched over till death relieved them of their sufferings, and cared for as tenderly as they could have been in their own homes; and those who came thither were nursed and tended till their recovery were numbered by scores.

To all the hospital workers from abroad, and the number was not few, her house was always a home. There was some unappropriated room or some spare bed in which they could be accommodated, and they were welcome for the sake of the cause for which they were laboring. Had she possessed an ample fortune, this kindness, though honorable, might not have been so noteworthy, but her house was small and her means far from ample. In the midst of these abundant labors for the soldiers, she was called to pass through deep affliction, in the illness and death of her husband; but she suffered no personal sorrow to so absorb her interest as to make her unmindful of her dear hospital and home-work for the soldiers. This was continued unfalteringly as long as there was occasion for it.

Few, if any, of the "Women of the War," have been or have deserved to be, more generally beloved by the soldiers and by all true hospital-workers than Mrs. Bigelow.

MISS SHARPLESS AND ASSOCIATES.

For a period of nearly seventeen months, during the last two years of the war, the United States Steamship Connecticut was employed as a hospital transport, bringing the sick and wounded from City Point to Washington and Baltimore, and later, closing up one after another, the hospitals in Virginia and on the shores of Maryland and Delaware, and transferring their patients to convalescent camps or other hospitals, or some point where they could be put en route for home. On this steamship Miss Hattie R. Sharpless commenced her labors as matron, on the 10th of May, 1864, and continued with only a brief intermission till September 1st, 1865. She was no novice in hospital work when she assumed this position. A native and resident of Bloomsburg, Columbia County, Pa., she had first entered upon her duties as nurse in the Army in July, 1862, when in connection with Miss Rose M. Billing and Miss Belle Robinson, the latter being also a Pennsylvanian, she commenced hospital work at Fredericksburg. Subsequently, with her associate, she was at the Falls Church Hospital and at Antietam, and we believe also at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. She is a lady admirably adapted to the hospital-work; tender, faithful, conscientious, unselfish, never resting while she could minister to the suffering, and happiest when she could do most for those in her care. During her service on the Connecticut, thirty-three thousand sick and wounded men were conveyed on that steamer to hospitals in Washington, Alexandria, Baltimore and other points. Constant and gentle in the discharge of her duties, with a kind and if possible a cheering word for each poor sufferer, and skillful and assiduous in providing for them every needed comfort so far as lay in her power, she proved herself a true Christian heroine in the extent and spirit of her labors, and sent joy to the heart of many who were on the verge of despair.

Her religious influence upon the men was remarkable. Never obtrusive or professional in her treatment of religious subjects, she exhibited rare tact and ability in bringing those who were in the possession of their reason and consciousness to converse on their spiritual condition, and in pointing them affectionately to the atoning Sacrifice for sin.

In these works of mercy and piety she was ably seconded by her cousin, Miss Hattie S. Reifsnyder, of Catawissa, Columbia County, Pa., a lady of very similar spirit and tact, who was with her for about eight months; and subsequently by Mrs. Cynthia Case, of Newark, Ohio, who succeeded Miss Reifsnyder, and entered into her work in the same thorough Christian spirit.

Miss W. F. Harris is a native, and was previous to the war, a resident of Providence, Rhode Island. She was a faithful worker through the whole war, literally wearing herself out in the service. She commenced her work at the Indiana Hospital, in the Patent Office, Washington, in the spring of 1862. After the closing of that hospital, she transferred her service to Ascension Church Hospital, and subsequently early in 1863, to the Carver Hospital, both in Washington, where she labored with great assiduity and faithfulness. Early in May, 1864, she was appointed to service on the Transport Connecticut, where she was indefatigable in her service, and manifested the same tender spirit, and the same skill and tact, as Miss Sharpless. Of less vigorous constitution than her associates, she was frequently a severe sufferer from her over exertions. In the summer of 1864, she was transferred to the Hospital at Harper's Ferry, and at that hospital and at Winchester continued her service faithfully, though amid much pain and weariness, to the close of the war. Though her health was much shattered by her labors she could not rest, and has devoted herself to the instruction and training of the Freedmen from that time to the present. A gentleman who was associated with her in her service in the Carver Hospital and afterward on the Transport Connecticut, says of her: "I know of no more pure-minded, unselfish and earnest laborer among all the Women of the war that came under my notice."

PART VI.

MRS. ANNIE ETHERIDGE

The greater part of Annie Etheridge's childhood was passed in Wisconsin. Her father was a man of considerable property, and her girlhood was passed in ease and luxury; but as she drew near the age of womanhood, he met with misfortunes by which he lost nearly all he had possessed, and returned to her former home in Michigan. Annie remained in Wisconsin, where she had married, but was on a visit to her father in Detroit at the outbreak of the war, and joined the Second Michigan Regiment when they departed for the seat of war, to fulfil the office of a daughter of the regiment, in attending to its sick and wounded. When that regiment was sent to Tennessee she went to the Third Regiment in which she had many friends, and was with them in every battle in which they were engaged. When their three years' service was completed, she with the re-enlisted veterans joined the Fifth Michigan. Through this whole period of more than four years' service she conducted herself with such modesty and propriety, and was at the same time so full of patriotism and courage, that she was a universal favorite with the soldiers as well as officers.

She was in the skirmish of Blackburn's Ford, and subsequently in the first battle of Bull Run, where she manifested the same courage and presence of mind which characterized her in all her subsequent career in the army. She never carried a musket, though she had a pair of pistols in her holsters, but seldom or never used them. She was for a time during the winter following engaged in hospital service, and when the Army of the Potomac went to the Peninsula, during the Chickahominy campaign she was on a hospital transport with Miss Amy M. Bradley, and rendered excellent service there. She was a very tender and careful nurse, and seemed to know instinctively what to do for the sick and wounded. She returned to Alexandria with her regiment, and was with them at the second battle of Bull Run, on the 29th of August, 1862. Early in this battle she was on a portion of the battle-field which had been warmly contested, where there was a rocky ledge, under shelter of which, some of the wounded had crawled. Annie lingered behind the troops, as they changed position, assisted several poor helpless fellows to this cover and dressed their wounds. One of these was William —— of the Seventh New York Infantry, a noble-looking boy, to whose parched lips she had held the cooling draught, and had bound up his wounds, receiving in return a look of unutterable gratitude from his bright blue eyes, and his faintly murmured "God's blessing on you," when a shot from the rebel battery tore him to pieces under her very hands. She discovered at the same moment that the rebels were near, and almost upon her, and she was forced to follow in the direction taken by her regiment. On another portion of that bloody field, Annie was kneeling by the side of a soldier binding up his wounds, when hearing a gruff voice above her, she looked up and to her astonishment saw General Kearny checking his horse beside her. He said, "That is right; I am glad to see you here helping these poor fellows, and when this is over, I will have you made a regimental sergeant;" meaning of course that she should receive a sergeant's pay and rations. But two days later the gallant Kearny was killed at Chantilly, and Annie never received the appointment, as has been erroneously asserted.

At Chancellorsville on the 2d of May, 1863, when the Third Corps were in such extreme peril, in consequence of the panic by which the Eleventh Corps were broken up, one company of the Third Michigan, and one of the sharp-shooters were detailed as skirmishers. Annie, although advised to remain in the rear accompanied them, taking the lead; meeting her colonel however, he told her to go back, as the enemy was near, and he was every moment expecting an attack. Very loth to fall back, she turned and rode along the front of a line of shallow trenches filled with our men; she called to them, "Boys, do your duty and whip the rebels." The men partially rose and cheered her, shouting "Hurrah for Annie," "Bully for you." This revealed their position to the rebels, who immediately fired a volley in the direction of the cheering; Annie rode to the rear of the line, then turned to see the result; as she did so, an officer pushed his horse between her and a large tree by which she was waiting, thus sheltering himself behind her. She looked round at him with surprise, when a second volley was fired, and a Minié ball whizzing by her, entered the officer's body, and he fell a corpse, against her and then to the ground. At the same moment another ball grazed her hand, (the only wound she received during the war), pierced her dress, the skirt of which she was holding, and slightly wounded her horse. Frightened by the pain, he set off on a run through a dense wood, winding in and out among the trees so rapidly that Annie feared being torn from her saddle by the branches, or having her brains dashed out by violent contact with the trunks. She raised herself upon the saddle, and crouching on her knees clung to the pommel. The frightened animal as he emerged from the woods plunged into the midst of the Eleventh Corps, when his course was soon checked. Many of the men, recognizing Annie, received her with cheers. As she was now at a distance from her regiment, she felt a strong impulse to see and speak with General Berry, the commander of her division, with whom she was well acquainted. Meeting an aid, she asked where the General was. "He is not here," replied the aid. "He is here," replied Annie; "He is my Division General, and has command on the right to-day. I must see him." The aid turned his horse and rode up to the General, who was near at hand, and told him that a woman was coming up who insisted on seeing him. "It is Annie," said General Berry, "let her come; let her come, I would risk my life for Annie, any time." As she approached from one side, a prisoner was brought up on the other, said to be an aid of General Hill's. After some words with him, and receiving his sword, the General sent him to the rear; and after giving Annie a cordial greeting and some kind words, he put the prisoner under her charge, directing him to walk by her horse. It was her last interview with the brave General. Early the next morning he was slain, in the desperate fight for the possession of the plank road past the Chancellor House. In the neighborhood of the hospital, Annie, working as usual among the wounded, discovered an artillery man badly injured and very much in need of her assistance. She bound up his wounds and succeeded in having him brought to the hospital. The batteries were not usually accompanied by surgeons, and their men were often very much neglected, when wounded, as the Infantry Surgeons with their hands full with their own wounded would not, and perhaps could not, always render them speedy assistance. A year later Annie received the following letter, which was found on the body of a Lieutenant Strachan, of her division, who was killed in one of the early battles of Grant's campaign.

During the battle of Spottsylvania, Annie met a number of soldiers retreating. She expostulated with them, and at last shamed them into doing their duty, by offering to lead them back into the fight, which she did under a heavy fire from the enemy. She had done the same thing more than once on other battle-fields, not by flourishing a sword or rifle, for she carried neither: nor by waving a flag, for she was never color-bearer; but by inspiring the men to deeds of valor by her own example, her courage, and her presence of mind. On the 1st or 2nd of June, when the Second Corps attacked the enemy at Deep Bottom, Annie became separated from her regiment, and with her usual attendant, the surgeon's orderly, who carried the "pill box" (the medicine chest), she started in search of it, and before long, without being aware of the fact, she had passed beyond the line of Union pickets. Here she met an officer, apparently reconnoitering, who told her she must turn back, as the enemy was near; and hardly were the words spoken, when their skirmishers suddenly appeared. The officer struck his spurs into his horse and fled, Annie and the orderly following with all speed, and arrived safe within our lines. As the Rebels hoped to surprise our troops, they did not fire lest they should give the alarm; and to this fact Annie probably owed her escape unscathed.

On the 27th of October, 1864, in one of the battles for the possession of Hatcher's Run and the Boydtown Plank Road, a portion of the Third Division of the Second Corps, was nearly surrounded by the enemy, in what the soldiers called the "Bull Ring." The regiment to which Annie was attached was sorely pressed, the balls flying thick and fast, so that the surgeon advised her to accompany him to safer quarters; but she lingered, watching for an opportunity to render assistance. A little drummer boy stopped to speak to her, when a ball struck him, and he fell against her, and then to the ground, dead. This so startled her, that she ran towards the line of battle. But to her surprise, she found that the enemy occupied every part of the ground held a few moments before by Union troops. She did not pause, however, but dashed through their line unhurt, though several of the chivalry fired at her.

So strong was the confidence of the soldiers in her courage and fidelity to her voluntarily assumed duties, that whenever a battle was to be fought it was regarded as absolutely certain that "Gentle Annie" (so the soldiers named her) would be at hand to render assistance to any in need. General Birney never performed an act more heartily approved by his entire command, than when in the presence of his troops, he presented her with the Kearny cross.

At the close of the war, though her health had been somewhat shaken by her varied and trying experiences, she felt the necessity of engaging in some employment, by which she could maintain herself, and aid her aged father, and accepted an appointment in one of the Government departments, where she labors assiduously for twelve hours daily. Her army experiences have not robbed her of that charming modesty and diffidence of demeanor, which are so attractive in a woman, or made her boastful of her adventures. To these she seldom alludes, and never in such a way as to indicate that she thinks herself in the least a heroine.

DELPHINE P. BAKER

These qualities and traits of both parents we find remarkably developed in the daughter, and to them is doubtless largely due the successful achievement of the great object of her later labors. A feeling, from some cause always cherished by her mother, until it became an actual belief, that her child was destined to an extraordinary career, was so impressed upon her daughter's mind, and inwrought with her higher being as to become a controlling impulse. It is easy, in tracing the history of Miss Baker, to mark the influence of this fixed idea in every act of her life.

For some years previous to the breaking out of the war, Miss Baker had devoted herself to the inculcation of proper ideas of the sphere and culture of woman. She belonged to no party, or clique, had no connection with the Women's Rights Movement, but desired to see her sex better educated, and in the enjoyment of the fullest mental development. To that end she had travelled in many of the Western States, giving lectures upon her favorite subject, and largely influencing the public mind. In this employment her acquaintance had become very extensive.

At the time of the first breaking out of hostilities, Miss Baker was residing in Chicago, Illinois, enjoying a respite from public labors, and devoting herself to her family. But she soon saw that there was much need of the efforts of woman—a great deal to be done by her in preparing for the sudden emergency into which the nation had been plunged. Government had not at hand all the appliances for sending its newly raised forces into the field properly equipped, and women, who could not wield the bayonet, were skillful in the use of another implement as sharp and bright, and which just at that period could be as usefully brought into action.

The devoted labors of the women of Chicago for the soldiers, have long since become a part of the history of the war. In these Miss Baker had her own, and a large share. She collected materials for garments, exerted her influence among her extensive circle of acquaintances in gathering up supplies, and providing for the yet small, but rapidly increasing, demand for hospital comforts. She took several journeys to St. Louis and Chicago, ministered in the hospitals, and induced others to enter upon the same work. Perceiving, with a quick eye, what was most needed in the hastily-arranged and half-furnished places to which the sick and wounded were consigned, she journeyed backward and forward, gathering up from the rich and well-disposed the needed articles, and then conveying them herself to those points where they were most wanted.

Not in strong health, a few months of such indefatigable labors exhausted her strength. She returned to Chicago, but her ardent spirit chafed in inaction. After a time she resolved to commence a literary enterprise in aid of the object she had so much at heart, and in the spring of 1862 she announced the forthcoming publication of the "National Banner," a monthly paper of sixteen pages, the profits of which were to be devoted to the needs of the volunteer soldiery of the United States.

After publishing in Chicago a few numbers of this very readable paper, she removed it to Washington, D. C., where its publication was for some time continued. It was then transferred to New York.

The National Banner did not meet with all the success, its patriotic object and its real literary excellence, demanded. During the last year of the war it was not published with complete regularity, owing to this cause, and to the lack of pecuniary means. But it was undoubtedly the means of doing a great deal of good. Among other things it kept constantly before the people the great object into which Miss Baker had now entered with all the ardor and the persistence of her nature.

This object was the founding of a National Home for totally disabled volunteers of the Union service, and included all who had in their devotion to the cause of the nation become incompetent to provide for their own wants or those of their families.

For years, with a devotion seldom equalled, and a self-sacrifice almost unparalleled, Miss Baker gave herself to this work. She wrote, she travelled, she enlisted the aid of her numerous friends, she importuned the Executive, Heads of Departments, and members of Congress. She gave herself no rest, she flinched at no privations. She apparently existed by the sheer necessity of living for her object, and in almost total self-abnegation she encountered opposition, paralyzing delays, false promises, made only to be broken, and hypocritical advice, intended only to mislead.

Hopeful, unsubdued, unchanged, she at last saw herself nearing success. The session of 1865 was drawing to a close, and repeated promises of reporting the bill for the establishment of the Asylum had been broken. But at length her almost agonized pleadings had their effect. Three days before the adjournment of Congress Hon. Henry Wilson, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, in the Senate introduced the bill. It provided for the establishment of a National Military and Naval Asylum for the totally disabled of both branches of the service.

In the confusion and hurry of the closing scenes of the session the bill did not probably meet the attention it would have done under other circumstances. But it was well received, passed by a large vote of both houses, was sanctioned by the signature of President Lincoln, and became a law before the adjournment of Congress.

The bill appointed one hundred corporators who were to organize and assume the powers granted them under its provisions, for the immediate foundation of the proper establishment or establishments, for the reception of the contemplated recipients of its benefits. The fund accrued from military fines and unclaimed pay of members of the service, was to be handed over to the use of the Asylum as soon as a corresponding sum was raised by public gift.

Unfortunately for the success of the organization, the meeting of the corporators for that purpose was appointed for the day afterward so mournfully conspicuous as that of the funeral obsequies of our assassinated President. Amidst the sad and angry excitement of the closing scenes of that terrible tragedy, it was found impossible to convene a sufficient number of the corporators (although present in the city) to form a quorum for the transaction of business. The opportunity thus lost did not recur, and though an effort was made to substitute proxies for actual members of the body, it was unsuccessful, and an organization was not effected.

Thus a year dragged its slow length along. Miss Baker was busy enlarging her sphere of influence—encountering and overcoming opposition and obstacles, endeavoring to secure co-operation, and in securing also personal possession of the property at Point Lookout, Maryland, which she believed to be a desirable site for the Asylum. Her object in this was that she might hold this property until the organization was effected, and it might be legally transferred to the corporators.

Point Lookout was a watering-place previous to the war. The hospital property there consists of three hundred acres of land, occupying the point which divides the mouth of the Potomac River from Chesapeake Bay, at the confluence of the former with the Bay. One or more large hotels, numerous cottages and other buildings remained from the days of peace. The Government also established there, during the war, Hammond General Hospital with its extensive buildings, and a stockade and encampment for prisoners. The air is salubrious, the land fertile, a supply of excellent water brought from neighboring heights, and an extensive oyster-bed and a fine beach for bathing, add to its attractions. Believing the place well calculated to meet the wants of the Asylum, Miss Baker desired to secure the private property together with a grant from the Government of that portion which belongs to it. She succeeded in securing the latter, and in delaying the contemplated sale of the former.

A change being imperatively demanded in the Act of Incorporation, efforts were immediately commenced at the next session of Congress to effect this purpose. Again the painful, anxious delays, again the wearisome opposition were encountered. But Miss Baker and the movement had friends—and in the highest quarters. Her efforts were countenanced and aided by these, but it was not till the session of 1866 approached its close that the amended bill was reached, and the votes of both Houses at last placed the whole matter on a proper footing, and in competent hands.

With Major-General Butler at the head of the Managing Board of Trustees, the successful commencement of the Institution is a foregone conclusion. The Board is composed of some of the best men of the Nation—men, some of them unequalled in their various spheres. The United States will soon boast for its disabled defenders Institutions (for the present management contemplate the establishment of Homes at several points), fully equal to those which the great Powers of Europe have erected for similar purposes. In the autumn and winter of 1866-7 Miss Baker succeeded in consummating the purchase, and tender to the Trustees of the Asylum of the Point Lookout property.

The labors of Miss Baker for this purpose are now ended. She retires, not to rest or idleness, but still to lend her efforts to this or any other great and worthy cause. She has no official connection with the organization which controls the destiny of the Asylum. But it will not cease to be remembered in this country that to her efforts the United States owes in great part all that, as a nation, it has done for the men who have thus given all but life itself to its cause.

MRS. S. BURGER STEARNS.

BARBARA FRIETCHIE.