Her services at Annapolis were cut short, and prematurely discontinued; for returning to her home for a short stay, to make preparations for a longer sojourn at Annapolis, she was again attacked by illness, which rendered it impossible for her to go thither again.

On her recovery, knowing that an immense amount of ignorance existed among officers and men concerning the operations of the Sanitary Commission, she compiled a somewhat elaborate, yet carefully condensed statement of its plans and workings, together with a great amount of useful information in relation to the facilities embraced in its system of special relief, giving a list of all Homes and Lodges, and telling how to secure back pay for soldiers, on furlough or discharged, bounties, pensions, etc., etc. Bound up with this, is a choice collection of hymns, adapted to the soldier's use, the whole forming a neat little volume of convenient size for the pocket.

The manuscript was submitted to the committee, accepted, and one hundred thousand copies ordered to be printed for gratuitous distribution in all the hospitals and camps. The "Soldiers' Friend," as it was called, was soon distributed in the different departments and posts of the army, and was even found in the Southern hospitals and prisons, while it was the pocket companion of men in the trenches, as well as of those in quarters and hospital. Many thousands were instructed by this little directory, where to find the lodges, homes and pension offices of the Commission, and were guarded against imposture and loss. So urgent was the demand for it, and so useful was it, that the committee ordered a second edition.

Perhaps no work published by the Sanitary Commission has been of more real and practical use than this little volume, or has had so large a circulation. It was the last public work performed for the Commission by Mrs. Parrish. At the close of the war her labors did not end; but transferring her efforts to the amelioration of the condition of the freedmen, she still found herself actively engaged in a work growing directly out of the war.

MRS. ANNIE WITTENMEYER

Early in 1861 rumors of the sufferings of the volunteer soldiery, called so suddenly to the field, and from healthy northern climates to encounter the unwholesome and miasmatic exhalations of more southern regions, as well as the pain of badly-dressed wounds, began to thrill and grieve the hearts which had willingly though sadly sent them forth in their country's defense. Mrs. Wittenmeyer saw at once that a field of usefulness opened before her. Her first movement was to write letters to every town in her State urging patriotic women in every locality to organize themselves into Aid Societies, and commence systematically the work of supplying the imperative needs of the suffering soldiers. These appeals, and the intense sympathy and patriotism that inspired the hearts of the women of the North, proved quite sufficient. In Iowa the earlier Reports were addressed to her, and societies throughout the State forwarded their goods to the Keokuk Aid Society with which she was connected. As the agent of this society Mrs. Wittenmeyer went to the field and distributed these supplies.

Thus her work had its inception—and being still the chosen agent of distribution, she gave herself no rest. In fact, from the summer of 1861 until the close of the war, she was continually and actively employed in some department of labor for the soldiers, and did not allow herself so much as one week for rest.

From June, 1861, to April 1st, 1862, she had received and distributed goods to the value of $6,000. From that to July 1st, $12,564, and from that until September 25th, 1862, $2,000, making a total of $20,564 received before her appointment of that date by the Legislature as State Agent. From that time until her resignation of the office, January 13th, 1864, she received $115,876.93. Thus, in about two years and a half, she received and distributed more than $136,000 worth of goods and sanitary stores contributed for the benefit of suffering soldiers.

But while laboring so constantly in the army, Mrs. Wittenmeyer did not overlook the needs of the destitute at home. In October, 1863, a number of benevolent individuals, of whom she was one, called a Convention of Aid Societies, which had for its foremost object to take some steps toward providing for the wants of the orphans of soldiers. That Convention led to the establishment of the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home, an Institution of which the State is now justly proud, and which is bestowing upon hundreds of children bountiful care and protection.

While laboring in the hospitals at Chattanooga in the winter of 1863-4, Mrs. Wittenmeyer matured her long-cherished plan for supplying food for the lowest class of hospital patients, and this led to the establishment of Diet Kitchens. Believing her idea could be better carried out by the Christian Commission, than under any other auspices, she soon after resigned her position as State agent, and became connected with that organization.

From a little work entitled "Christ in the Army," composed of sketches by different individuals, and published by the Christian Commission, and from the Fourth Report of the Maryland Branch of the Christian Commission, we make the following extracts, relative to Mrs. Wittenmeyer's labors in this sphere of effort:

"The sick and wounded suffer greatly from the imperfect cooking of the soldier nurses. To remedy this evil, a number of ladies have offered themselves as delegates of the Christian Commission, and arrangements have been made with the medical authorities to establish Diet Kitchens, where suitable food may be prepared by ladies' hands for our sick soldiers,—the Government furnishing the staple articles, and the Christian Commission providing the ladies and the delicacies and cordials. One of these at Knoxville is thus described by a correspondent of The Lutheran:—

"There have been several large hospitals in this city, but recently they have been all consolidated into one. In connection with this hospital is a 'Special Diet Kitchen.' Many of our readers will doubtless wonder what these 'Special Diet Kitchens' are. They have been originated by Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, of Keokuk, formerly State Sanitary Agent of Iowa. In her arduous labors in the Army of the Cumberland, she met with a large number of patients who suffered for want of suitably prepared, delicate and nutritious food. None of the benevolent institutions in connection with the army have been able to reach this class of persons. She says, in her report to the General Assembly of the State: 'This matter has given me serious and anxious thought for the past year, but I have recently submitted to the Christian Commission a plan by which I believe this class of patients may be reached and relieved. The plan proposed, is the establishment of "Special Diet Kitchens," in connection with that Commission, to be superintended by earnest, prudent Christian women, who will secure the distribution of proper food to this class of patients—taking such delicate articles of food as our good people supply to the very bed-sides of the poor languishing soldiers, and administering, with words of encouragement and sympathy, to their pressing wants; such persons to co-operate with the surgeons in all their efforts for the sick.' This plan of operations has been sanctioned and adopted by the United States Christian Commission. There is one in successful operation at Nashville, under the direction, I believe, of a daughter of the Honorable J. K. Moorehead, of Pittsburg. The one here is under the direction of Mrs. R. E. Conrad, of Keokuk, Iowa, and her two sisters. They are doing a great and good work now in Knoxville. From three to five hundred patients are thus daily supplied with delicate food, who would otherwise have scarcely anything to eat. The success of their labors has demonstrated beyond a doubt the practicability of the plan of Mrs. Wittenmeyer. The good resulting from their arduous labor proves that much can be done by these special efforts to rescue those who are laid upon languishing beds of sickness and pain, and have passed almost beyond the reach of ordinary means. The great need we have in connection with these 'Diet Kitchens,' is the want of canned fruits, jellies, preserves, etc. If our good people, who have already done so much, will provide these necessary means, they will be distributed to the most needy, and in such a way as to accomplish the most good."

The War Department is so well satisfied with the value of these Diet Kitchens, in saving the lives of thousands of invalids, that it has issued the following special Order:—

DIET KITCHENS.

Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer suggested and introduced the use of the Diet Kitchen into the hospitals. The Kitchen was used extensively among the Branch Offices of the West. The design of the Kitchen was, to have prepared for the men who were under treatment, such articles of food and delicacies as are grateful to the sick, and at the same time may be allowed with safety. The ladies who were engaged in this department performed their labors under the direction of the surgeons, who appointed their stations and approved their preparations. The process was very much like that of the house in which the surgeon directs, and the family provides, the nourishing food that is needed for the patient.

Mrs. Wittenmeyer had the Diet Kitchens under her supervision. She was the agent of the Commission for the purpose. She operated under regulations which were approved by the Commission and by the War Department. These regulations were printed and circulated among the managers of the Kitchens. So effective were the orders under which the department was conducted, that not the least difficulty or misunderstanding occurred, notwithstanding the responsible relations of the co-operators, part being officials of the army and part under the direction of a voluntary service. Each of the managers was furnished with a copy of the rules, which, with the endorsement of the branch office with which the service was connected, constituted the commission of the manager.

The Special Diet Kitchens, were first adopted in the Department of the Cumberland, and in that of the Mississippi, and with results so unexpectedly beneficial, that Mrs. Wittenmeyer was earnestly solicited to extend the work to the Army of the Potomac. This she did in the winter of 1864, and it continued until the close of the war with great success.

Much of this success was undoubtedly owing to the class of ladies engaged in the work. Many of them were from the highest circles of society, educated, refined and accomplished, and each was required to maintain the life and character of an earnest Christian. They thus commanded the respect of officers and men, and proved a powerful instrument of good. As we have seen, the Christian Commission has borne ample testimony to the value of the efforts of Mrs. Wittenmeyer, and her associates in this department of hospital service.

Mrs. Wittenmeyer continued actively engaged in the service of the Christian Commission, in the organizing of Diet Kitchens, and similar labors, until the close of the war, and the disbanding of that organization, when she returned to her home in Keokuk, to resume the quiet life she had abandoned, and to gain needed repose, after her four years' effort in behalf of our suffering defenders.

MISS MELCENIA ELLIOTT.

For many months her thoughts were far more with the soldiers in the field than on the course of study in the college, and as soon as there began to be a demand for female nurses in the hospitals, she was prompt to offer her services and was accepted.

The summer and autumn of 1862, found her in the hospitals in Tennessee, ready on all occasions for the most difficult posts of service, ministering at the bed-side of the sick and desponding, cheering them with her warm words of encouragement and sympathy, and her pleasant smile and ready mirthfulness, the very best antidote to the depression of spirits and home-sickness of the worn and tired soldier. In all hospital work, in the offices of nursing and watching, and giving of medicines, in the preparation of special diet, in the care and attention necessary to have the hospital beds clean and comfortable, and the wards in proper order, she was untiring and never gave way to weariness or failed in strength. It was pleasant to see with what ease and satisfaction she could lift up a sick soldier's head, smooth and arrange his pillow, lift him into an easier position, dress his wounds, and make him feel that somebody cared for him.

During the winter of 1862-3, she was a nurse in one of the hospitals at Memphis, and rendered most useful and excellent service. An example of her heroism and fortitude occurred here, that is worthy of being mentioned. In one of the hospitals there was a sick soldier who came from her father's neighborhood in Iowa, whom she had known, and for whose family she felt a friendly interest. She often visited him in the sick ward where he was, and did what she could to alleviate his sufferings, and comfort him in his illness. But gradually he became worse, and at a time when he needed her sympathy and kind attention more than ever, the Surgeon in charge of the hospital, issued an order that excluded all visitors from the wards, during those portions of the day when she could leave the hospital where she was on duty, to make these visits to her sick neighbor and friend. The front entrance of the hospital being guarded, she could not gain admission; but she had too much resolution, energy and courage, and too much kindness of heart, to be thwarted in her good intentions by red tape. Finding that by scaling a high fence in the rear of the hospital, she could enter without being obstructed by guards, and being aided in her purpose by the nurses on duty in the ward, she made her visits in the evening to the sick man's bed-side till he died. As it was his dying wish that his remains might be carried home to his family, none of whom were present, she herself undertook the difficult and responsible task. Getting leave of absence from her own duties, without the requisite funds for the purpose, she was able, by her frank and open address, her self-reliance, intelligence and courage to accomplish the task, and made the journey alone, with the body in charge; all the way from Memphis to Washington, Iowa, overcoming all difficulties of procuring transportation, and reaching her destination successfully. By this act of heroism, she won the gratitude of many hearts, and gave comfort and satisfaction to the friends and relatives of the departed soldier.

Returning as far as St. Louis, she was transferred to the large military hospital at Benton Barracks and did not return to Memphis. Here for many months, during the spring, summer and autumn of 1863, she served most faithfully, and was considered one of the most efficient and capable nurses in the hospital. At this place she was associated with a band of noble young women, under the supervision of that excellent lady, Miss Emily Parsons, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who came out from her pleasant New England home to be at the head of the nursing department of this hospital, (then in charge of Surgeon Ira Russell, United States Volunteers), and to do her part towards taking care of the sick and wounded men who had perilled their lives for their country. A warm friendship grew up between these noble women, and Miss Parsons never ceased to regard with deep interest, the tall, heroic, determined girl, who never allowed any obstacle to stand between her and any useful service she could render to the defenders of her country.

Another incident of her fearless and undaunted bravery will illustrate her character, and especially the self-sacrificing spirit by which she was animated. During the summer of 1863, it became necessary to establish a ward for cases of erysipelas, a disease generating an unhealthy atmosphere and propagating itself by that means. The surgeon in charge, instead of assigning a female nurse of his own selection to this ward, called for a volunteer, among the women nurses of the hospital. There was naturally some hesitancy about taking so trying and dangerous a position, and, seeing this reluctance on the part of others, Miss Elliott promptly offered herself for the place. For several months she performed her duties in the erysipelas ward with the same constancy and regard for the welfare of the patients that had characterized her in other positions. It was here the writer of this sketch first became acquainted with her, and noticed the cheerful and cordial manner in which she waited upon the sufferers under her care, going from one to another to perform some office of kindness, always with words of genuine sympathy, pleasantry and good will.

Late in the fall of 1863, Miss Elliott yielded to the wishes of the Western Sanitary Commission, and became matron of the Refugee Home of St. Louis—a charitable institution made necessary by the events of the war, and designed to give shelter and assistance to poor families of refugees, mostly widows and children, who were constantly arriving from the exposed and desolated portions of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, sent North often by military authority as deck passengers on Government boats to get them away from the military posts in our possession further South. For one year Miss Elliott managed the internal affairs of this institution with great efficiency and good judgment, under circumstances that were very trying to her patience and fortitude. Many of the refugees were of the class called "the poor white trash" of the South, filthy, ragged, proud, indolent, ill-mannered, given to the smoking and chewing of tobacco, often diseased, inefficient, and either unwilling or unable to conform to the necessary regulations of the Home, or to do their own proper share of the work of the household, and the keeping of their apartments in a state of cleanliness and order.

It was a great trial of her Christian patience to see families of children of all ages, dirty, ragged, and ill-mannered, lounging in the halls and at the front door, and their mothers doing little better themselves, getting into disputes with each other, or hovering round a stove, chewing or smoking tobacco, and leaving the necessary work allotted to them neglected and undone. But out of this material and this confusion Miss Elliott, by her efficiency and force of character, brought a good degree of cleanliness and order. Among other things she established a school in the Home, gathered the children into it in the evening, taught them to spell, read and sing, and inspired them with a desire for knowledge.

At the end of a year of this kind of work Miss Elliott was called to the position of matron of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home, at Farmington, Iowa, which she accepted and filled for several months, with her usual efficiency and success, when, after long and arduous service for the soldiers, for the refugees and for the orphans of our country's defenders, she returned to the home of her family, and to the society and occupations for which she was preparing herself before the war.

MARY DWIGHT PETTES.

Mary Dwight Pettes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in the year 1841, and belonged to a family who were eminent for their intelligence, and religious and moral worth. The circumstances of her early life and education are unknown to the writer of this sketch, but must have been such as to develop that purity of mind and manners, that sweetness and amiability of temper, that ready sympathy and disinterestedness of purpose and conduct, which, together with rare conversational and musical powers, she possessed in so high a degree.

Having an uncle and his family resident in St. Louis, the first year of the war found her in that city, engaged in the work of ministering to the soldiers in the hospitals with her whole heart and soul. During the first winter of the great rebellion (1862) St. Louis was filled with troops, and there were thirteen hospitals thronged with the sick and wounded from the early battle-fields of the war. On the 30th of January of that year she thus wrote to the Boston Transcript, over her own initials, some account of her labors and observations at that time. Speaking of the hospitals she said, "It is here that the evils and horrors of the war become very apparent. Here stout hearts are broken. You see great numbers of the brave young men of the Western States, who have left their homes to fight for their country. They were willing to be wounded, shot, to die, if need be, but after months of inaction they find themselves conquered by dysentery or fever. Some fifty or sixty each week are borne to their long home. This may have been unavoidable, but it is hard to bear. * * * * Last night I returned home in the evening. It was dark, rainy, cold and muddy. I passed an ambulance in the street. The two horses had each a leader walking beside them, which indicated that a very sick soldier was within. It was a sad sight; and yet this poor man could not be moved, when he arrived at the hospital-door, until his papers were examined to see if they conformed to 'Army Regulations,' I protest against the coldness with which the Regulations treat the sick and wounded soldiers."

No doubt her sympathetic heart protested against all delays and all seeming indifference to the welfare of the poor fellows on whose bravery and devotion the salvation of the country depended.

In her devotion to the sick and wounded in the hospitals, and her labors of love among them, she sacrificed many of her own comforts and pleasures. Notwithstanding the delicacy of her own health she would go about among them doing them good.

She took great interest in seeing the soldiers engaged in religious worship, and in assisting to conduct the exercises of praise and thanksgiving. When these services were ended she used to go from ward to ward, and passing to the bed-side of those who were too weak to join the worship in the chapel would read to them the blessed words of comfort contained in the Book of Life, and sing to them the sweet hymn, "Jesus, I love thy charming name."

In one of her papers she has left this record. "For a year I have visited the hospitals constantly, and during that time they have been crowded with sick and wounded soldiers. I never had any idea what suffering was until I had been in the wards after the battles of Fort Donelson, Pittsburg Landing, and Pea Ridge. The poor fellows are so patient too, and so grateful for any little service or attention."

In another letter, speaking of the great civil war in which we were then engaged, she wrote, "Still I have hope, trusting in the justice of God. Being a constant visitor to the hospitals in and about this city, I have taken great pleasure in relieving the physical as well as the spiritual wants of the sick and wounded, as far as it has been in my power, proving to them that they have sympathizing friends near them, although their home-friends may be far away. I have encouraged them to be cheerful, and bear their sufferings with heroic fortitude, trusting in God, and a happier and better future. It has seemed to me that I do them some good when I find them watching for my coming, and that every face brightens as I enter the ward, while many say to me, 'We are always glad to see you come. It cheers and comforts us mightily to have you come so bright and smiling, asking us how we do, and saying always some pleasant word, and giving us something good to read. Then we love to hear you sing to us. Sometimes it makes the tears come in our eyes, but it kind o' lifts us up, and makes us feel better. We sometimes wonder you come here so much among us poor fellows, but we have come to the conclusion that your heart is in the cause for which we are fighting, and that you want to help and cheer us so that we may get well and go back to our regiments, and finish up the work of putting down this infernal rebellion.'"

"One day as I lifted up the head of a poor boy, who was languidly drooping, and smoothed and fixed his pillow, he said, 'Thank you; that's nice. You are so gentle and good to me that I almost fancy I am at home, and that sister Mary is waiting upon me.'"

"Such expressions of their interest and gratitude," she adds, "encourage me in this work, and I keep on, though often my strength almost fails me, and my heart is filled with sadness, as I see one after another of the poor fellows wasting away, and in a few days their cots are empty and they sleep the sleep that knows no waking this side of the grave."

Thus she labored on in her work of self-sacrificing love and devotion, with no compensation but the satisfaction that she was doing good, until late in the month of December, 1862, she was attacked with the typhoid fever, which she, no doubt, had contracted in the infected air of the hospitals, and died on the 14th of January, 1863. During her five weeks of illness her thoughts were constantly with the soldiers, and in her delirium she would imagine she was among them in their sick wards, and would often speak to them words of consolation and sympathy.

In a letter of Rev. Dr. Eliot, the Unitarian Pastor, of St. Louis, published in the Christian Register on the following May, he gives the impression she had left upon those with whom she had been sometimes associated in her labors. Miss Pettes was a Unitarian in her religious faith, and this fact was known to one of the excellent Chaplains who regularly officiated in the hospitals at St. Louis, and who belonged to the Old School Presbyterian Church. He had, however, been very glad of her co-operation and assistance in his work, and in conducting religious worship in the hospitals, and thus spoke of her to Dr. Eliot, some months after her death. "Chaplain P. said to me to-day, 'Can you not send me some one to take the place of Mary Pettes, who died literally a martyr to the cause six months ago?' 'I don't think,' said he, 'that you can find another as good as she, for her whole heart was in it, and she was like sunshine to the hospital. But,' he added, 'all your people [the Unitarians] work as if they really cared for the soldiers and loved the cause, and I want more of them.'"

Such was the impression of her goodness and worth, and moral beauty left by this New England girl upon the minds of those who saw her going about in the hospitals of St. Louis, during the first year and a-half of the war, trying to do her part in the great work given us to do as a nation, and falling a martyr, quite as much as those who fell on the field of battle, to the cause of her country and liberty:—such the brief record of a true and spotless life given, in its virgin purity and loveliness, as a sacrifice well pleasing to God.

LOUISA MAERTZ.

Miss Maertz was born in Quincy, Illinois, in 1838. Her parents were of German birth, and among the early settlers of the place. From infancy she was of a delicate constitution, and suffered much from ill health; and at the age of eighteen years she was sent to Europe in the hope that she might derive benefit from the mineral springs of Germany and from travel and change of climate. Two years in Germany, Switzerland and Italy were spent in traveling and in the society of her relatives, some of whom were the personal friends of the Monods of Paris, Guizot, the Gurneys of England, Merle D'Aubigne, of Geneva, and other literary people of Europe, with several of whom she became acquainted. From this visit abroad she received much benefit, and her general health was greatly improved.

From an early period she had cherished two strong aspirations, the desire of knowledge, and the wish to devote herself to works of charity. Her heart was always ready to sympathize with the sufferings and sorrows of humanity; and the cause of the orphan, the slave, the poor and the helpless excited a deep interest in her mind, and a desire to devote herself in some way to their relief. After her return from Europe it became an absorbing aspiration and the subject of earnest prayer that God would show her some way in which she could be useful to humanity.

As she was thus becoming prepared for the work upon which she afterwards entered, the great rebellion, which involved the country in the late civil war, broke forth; the early battles in Missouri, and at Fort Donelson and Belmont led to the establishment of hospitals in St. Louis, at Mound City, and at Quincy, Illinois; and the opportunity came to Miss Maertz, which she had so long desired, to undertake some work of charity and benevolence. During the months of October and November, 1861, she commenced the daily visitation of the hospitals in Quincy, carried with her delicacies for the sick and distributed them, procured the redress of any grievances they suffered, read the Scriptures and conversed with them, wrote letters for them to their friends, dressed their wounds, and furnished them books, papers, and sources of amusement. Although her physical strength at this period was very moderate, she seemed, on entering the hospital, and witnessing the sufferings of brave men, who had dared everything for their country, to be infused with a new and strange vigor that sustained her through every exertion.

In particular cases of tedious convalescence, retarded by inferior hospital accommodations, she—with her parents' consent—obtained permission to take them home, and nurse them till they were restored to health. Thus she labored on through the fall and winter of 1861-2 till the battles of Shiloh and Pea Ridge filled the hospitals with wounded men, at St. Louis and Mound City, and at Louisville and Evansville and Paducah, and she began to feel that she must go where her services were more needed, and give herself wholly to this work of caring for and nursing the wounded patriots of the war.

After waiting some time for an opportunity to go she wrote to Mr. James E. Yeatman, at St. Louis, the agent of Miss Dorothea L. Dix for the appointment of women nurses in the hospitals of the Western Department, and was accepted. On reporting herself at St. Louis she was commissioned as a nurse, and in the fall of 1862 proceeded to Helena, where the army of the Southwest had encamped the previous July, under Major-General Curtis, and where every church and several private buildings had to be converted into hospitals to accommodate the sick of his army.

It was here, during the winter of 1863, that the writer of this sketch first met with Miss Maertz, engaged in the work of a hospital nurse, enduring with rare heroism sacrifices and discomforts, labors and watchings in the service of the sick soldiers that won the reverence and admiration of all who saw this gentle woman thus nobly employed. It was of her the following paragraph was written in the History of the Western Sanitary Commission.

"Another one we also know whose name is likewise in this simple record, who, at Helena, Arkansas, in the fall and winter of 1862-3, was almost the only female nurse in the hospitals there, going from one building to another, in which the sick were quartered, when the streets were almost impassable with mud, administering sanitary stores and making delicate preparations of food, spending her own money in procuring milk and other articles that were scarce and difficult to obtain, and doing an amount of work which few persons could sustain, living without the pleasant society to which she had been accustomed at home, never murmuring, always cheerful and kind, preserving in the midst of a military camp such gentleness, strength and purity of character that all rudeness of speech ceased in her presence, and as she went from room to room she was received with silent benedictions, or an audible 'God bless you, dear lady,' from some poor sufferer's heart."

The last time I saw Miss Maertz, while engaged in her hospital work, was at the grave of a soldier, who was buried at Helena in the spring of 1863. He was one of the persecuted Union men of Arkansas, who had enlisted in the Union army on the march of General Curtis through Arkansas, and had fallen sick at Helena. For several weeks Miss Maertz had nursed and cared for him with all a woman's tenderness and delicacy, and perceiving that he must die had succeeded in sending a message to his wife, who lived sixty miles in the interior of Arkansas, within the enemy's lines. On the afternoon of his death and but a few hours before it she arrived, having walked the whole distance on foot with great difficulty, because she was partially blind; but had the satisfaction of receiving the parting words of her husband and attending his burial. Miss Maertz sent word to me, asking me to perform the burial service, and the next day I met her leading the half-blind widow, in her poverty and sorrow, to the grave. Some months later this poor soldier's widow came to the Refugee Home, at St. Louis, and was cared for, and being recognized and the scene of the lonely burial referred to, she related with tears of gratitude the kindness she received from the good lady, who nursed her husband in his last illness at Helena.

At a later period in the service, Miss Maertz was transferred to the hospitals at Vicksburg, where she continued her work of benevolence till she was obliged to return home to restore her own exhausted energies. At this time her parents urged her to go with them to Europe, wishing to take her away from scenes of suffering, and prostrating disease, but she declined to go, and, on regaining a measure of health, entered the service again and continued in it at New Orleans to the end of the war.

In real devotion to the welfare of the soldiers of the Union; in high religious and patriotic motives; in the self-sacrificing spirit with which she performed her labors; in the heroism with which she endured hardship for the sake of doing good; in the readiness with which she gave up her own interests and the offer of personal advantages and pleasure to serve the cause of patriotism and humanity, she had few equals.

MRS. HARRIET R. COLFAX.

Her mother and other friends disapproved of her going, and said all they could in opposition. She listened, and delayed, but finally felt that she must yield to the impulse. The opposition was withdrawn, and on the last of October, 1861, she started for St. Louis to enter the hospitals there.

Her heart was very desolate as she entered this strange city alone, at ten o'clock at night. Mr. Yeatman, with whom communication had been opened relative to her coming, had neglected to give her definite directions how to proceed. But she heard some surgeons talking of the hospitals, and learned that they belonged to them. From them she obtained the address of Mr. Yeatman. A gentleman, as she left the cars, stepped forward and kindly and respectfully placed her in the omnibus which was to take her across the river. She turned to thank him, but he was gone. Yet these occurrences, small as they were, had given her renewed courage—she no longer felt quite friendless, but went cheerfully upon her way.

She proceeded to the Fifth Street Hospital, where Mr. Yeatman had his quarters, and was admitted by the use of his name. The night nurse, Mrs. Gibson, took kind charge of her for that night, and in the morning she was introduced to the matron, Mrs. Plummer, and to Mr. Yeatman. She had her first sight of wounded men on the night of her arrival, and the thought of their sufferings, and of how much could be done to alleviate them, made her forget herself, an obliviousness from which she did not for weeks recover.

She was assigned to the first ward in which there had been till then no female nurse, and soon found full employment for hands, mind and heart. The reception room for patients was on the same floor with her ward, and the sufferers had to be taken through it to reach the others, so that she was forced to witness every imaginable phase of suffering and misery, and her sympathies never became blunted. Many of these men lived but a short time after being brought in, and one man standing with his knapsack on to have his name and regiment noted down, fell to the floor as it was supposed in a swoon, but was found to be dead.

For some time when men were dying all around with typhus fever and wounds, no clergyman of any denomination visited them. Mrs. Colfax and other ladies would often at their request offer up prayers, but they felt that regular religious ministrations were needed. After a time through the intercession of a lady, a resident of St. Louis, the Rev. Dr. Schuyler came often to supply this want, giving great comfort to the sufferers.

About this time, the ward surgeon was removed, and another substituted in his place, Dr. Paddock. This gentleman thus speaks of the services and character of Mrs. Colfax: