"We remained at Annapolis from January to July, when, the war being closed, the men were mustered out of service. The few remaining were sent to Baltimore, and the hospitals were vacated and restored to their former uses.

"Much of the summer was occupied in unfinished hospital work, and in looking after some special cases of great interest. The final close of the war brought with it, for the first time in all these long years, perfect rest to overtasked mind and wearied body."

MRS. CORDELIA A. P. HARVEY

The State of Wisconsin is justly proud of a name, which, while standing for what is noble and true in man, has received an added lustre in being made to express also, the sympathy, the goodness, and the power of woman. The death of the honored husband, and the public labors of the heroic wife, in the same cause—the great cause that has absorbed the attention and the resources of the country for four years—have given each to the other a peculiar and thrilling interest to every loyal American heart.

It will be remembered that shortly after the battle of Shiloh, Governor Harvey proceeded to the front with supplies and medical aid to assist in caring for the wounded among the soldiers from his State, after rendering great service in alleviating their sufferings by the aid and comfort he brought with him, and reviving their spirits by his presence. As he was about to embark at Savannah for home, in passing from one boat to another, he fell into the river and was drowned. This was on the 19th of April, 1862, a day made memorable by some of the most important events in our country's history. Two days before he wrote to Mrs. Harvey the last sacred letter as follows:

With these words ringing in her ears as from beyond the tomb, the conviction forced itself upon her mind that the path of duty for her lay in the direction he had so faithfully pointed out. But for a while womanly feeling overcame all else, and she gave way beneath the shock of her affliction, coming so suddenly and taking away at once the pride, the hope, and the joy of life. For many weeks it seemed that the tie that bound her to the departed was stronger than that which held her to the earth, and her friends almost despaired of seeing her again herself.

Hers was indeed a severe affliction. A husband, beloved and honored by all, without a stain upon his fair fame, with a bright future and hope of long life before him, had fallen—suddenly as by a bullet—at the front, where his great heart had led him to look after the wants of his own brave troops—fallen to be remembered with the long list of heroes who have died that their country might live, and in making themselves immortal, have made a people great. Nor was this sacrifice without its fruit. It was this that put it into her heart to work for the soldiers, and from the grave of Harvey have sprung those flowers of Love and Mercy whose fragrance has filled the land.

Looking back now, it is easy to see how much this bereavement had to do in fitting Mrs. Harvey for her work. It is the experience of sorrow that prepares us to minister to others in distress. At home none could say they had given more for their country than she, few could feel a sorrow she had not known or with which she could not sympathize, out of something in her own experience. In the army, in camps and hospitals, who so fit to speak in the place of wife or mother to the sick and dying soldier, as she, in whom the tenderest feelings of the heart had been touched by the hand of Death?

With the intention of devoting herself to this work, she asked of the Governor permission to visit hospitals in the Western Department, as agent for the State, which was cordially granted, and early in the autumn of 1862, set out for St. Louis to commence her new work.

To a lady who had seen nothing of military life, of course, all was strange. The experiment she was making was one in which very many kind-hearted women have utterly failed—rushing to hospitals from the impulse of a tender sympathy, only to make themselves obnoxious to the surgeons by their impertinent zeal, and, by their inexperience and indiscretion, useless, and sometimes detrimental, to the patients. With the wisdom that has marked her course throughout, she at once comprehended the delicacy of the situation, and was not long in perceiving what she could best do, and wherein she could accomplish the most good. The facility with which she brought, not only her own best powers, but the influence universally accorded to her position, to bear for the benefit of the suffering soldiers, is subject of remark and wonder among all who have witnessed her labors.

At that time St. Louis was the theater of active military operations, and the hospitals were crowded with sick and wounded from the camps and battle-fields of Missouri and Tennessee. The army was not then composed of the hardy veterans whose prowess has since carried victory into every rebellious State, but of boys and young men unused to hardship, who, in the flush of enthusiasm, had entered the army. Time had not then brought to its present perfection the work of the Medical Department, and but for the spontaneous generosity of the people in sending forward assistance and supplies for the sick and wounded, the army could scarcely have existed. Such was the condition of things when Mrs. Harvey commenced her work of mercy in visiting the hospitals of that city, filled with the victims of battle and disease. How from morning till night for many a weary week she waited by the cots of these poor fellows, attending to their little wants, and speaking words of cheer and comfort, those who knew her then all well remember. The work at once became delightful and profitable to her, calling her mind away from its own sorrows to the physical suffering of those around her. In her eagerness to soothe their woes, she half forgot her own, and came to them always with a joyous smile and words of cheerful consolation. During her stay in St. Louis her home was at the hospitable mansion of George Partridge, Esq., an esteemed member of the Western Sanitary Commission, whose household seem to have vied with each other in attention and kindness to their guest.

Hearing of great suffering at Cape Girardeau, she went there about the 1st of August, just as the First Wisconsin Cavalry were returning from their terrible expedition through the swamps of Arkansas. She had last seen them in all their pride and manly beauty, reviewed by her husband, the Governor, before they left their State. Now how changed! The strongest, they that could stand, just tottering about, the very shadows of their former selves. The building taken as a temporary hospital, was filled to overflowing, and the surgeons were without hospital supplies, the men subsisting on the common army ration alone. The heat was oppressive, and the diseases of the most fearfully contagious character. The surgeons themselves were appalled, and the attendants shrank from the care of the sick and the removal of the dead. In one room she found a corpse which had evidently lain for many hours, the nurses fearing to go near and see if the man was dead. With her own hands she bound up the face, and emboldened by her coolness, the burial party were induced to coffin the body and remove it from the house. Here was a field for self-forgetfulness and heroic devotion to a holy cause; and here the light of woman's sympathy shone brightly when all else was fear and gloom. Patients dying with the noxious camp fever breathed into her ear their last messages to loved ones at home, as she passed from cot to cot, undaunted by the bolts of death which fell around her thick as on the battle-field. She set herself to work procuring furloughs for such as were able to travel, and discharges for the permanently disabled, to get them away from a place of death. To this end she brought all the art of woman to work. Once convinced that the object she sought was just and right, she left no honorable means untried to secure it. Surgeons were flattered and coaxed, whenever coaxing and flattering availed; or, failing in this, she knew when to administer a gentle threat, or an intimation that a report might go up to a higher official. One resource failing she always had another, and never attempted anything without carrying it out.

Mrs. Harvey relates many touching incidents of her experience at this place which want of space forbids us to repeat. One of her first acts was to telegraph Mr. Yeatman, President of the Western Sanitary Commission, at St. Louis, for hospital stores, and in two days, by his promptness and liberality, she received an abundant supply.

After several weeks' stay at Cape Girardeau, during which time the condition of the hospital greatly improved, Mrs. Harvey continued her tour of visitation which was to embrace all the general hospitals on the Mississippi river, as well as the regimental hospitals of the troops of her own State. Her face, cheerful with all the heart's burden of grief, gladdened every ward where lay a Union soldier, from Keokuk as far down as the sturdy legions of Grant had regained possession of the Father of Waters.

At Memphis she was able to do great service in procuring furloughs for men who would else have died. Often has the writer heard brave men declare, with tearful eyes, their gratitude to her for favors of this kind. Many came to have a strange and almost superstitious reverence for a person exercising so powerful an influence, and using it altogether for the good of the common soldier. The estimate formed of her authority by some of the more ignorant class, often exhibited itself in an extremely ludicrous manner. She would sometimes receive letters from homesick men begging her to give them a furlough to visit their families! and often, from deserters and others confined in military prisons, asking to be set at liberty, and promising faithful service thereafter!

The spring of 1863 found General Grant making his approaches upon the last formidable position held by the rebels on the Mississippi. Young's Point, across the river from Vicksburg, the limit of uninterrupted navigation at that time, will be remembered by many as a place of great suffering to our brave boys. The high water covering the low lands on which they were encamped during the famous canal experiment, induced much sickness. Intent to be where her kind offices were most needed, Mrs. Harvey proceeded thither about the first of April. After a few weeks' labor, she, herself, overcome by the terrible miasma, was taken seriously ill, and was obliged to return homeward. Months of rest, and a visit to the sea-side, were required to bring back a measure of her wonted strength, and so for the summer her services were lost to the army.

But though for a while withheld from her chosen work, Mrs. Harvey never forgot the sick soldier. Her observation while with the army, convinced her of the necessity of establishing general hospitals in the Northern States, where soldiers suffering from diseases incurable in the South, might be sent with prospect of recovery. Her own personal experience deepened her conviction, and, although the plan found little favor then among high officials, she at once gave her heart to its accomplishment. Although repeated efforts had been made in vain to lead the Government into this policy, Mrs. Harvey determined to go to Washington and make her plea in person to the president.

As the result of her interview with Mr. Lincoln, which was of the most cordial character, a General Hospital was granted to the State of Wisconsin; and none who visit the city of Madison can fail to observe, with patriotic pride, the noble structure known as Harvey Hospital. As proof of the service it has done, and as fully verifying the arguments urged by Mrs. Harvey to secure its establishment, the reader is referred to the reports of the surgeon in charge of the hospital.

Her mission at Washington accomplished, Mrs. Harvey returned immediately home, where she soon received official intelligence that the hospital would be located at Madison and be prepared for the reception of patients at the earliest possible moment. Upon this, she went immediately to Memphis, Tennessee, where she was informed by the medical director of the Sixteenth Army Corps, that there were over one hundred men in Fort Pickering (used as a Convalescent Camp) who had been vacillating between camp and hospital for a year, and who would surely die unless removed North. At his suggestion, she accompanied these sick men up the river, to get them, if possible, north of St. Louis. She landed at Cairo, and proceeded to St. Louis by rail, and, on the arrival of the transport, had transportation to Madison ready for the men. As they were needy, and had not been paid, she procured of the Western Sanitary Commission a change of clothing for every one. Out of the whole number, only seven died, and only five were discharged. The remainder returned, strong and healthy, to the service.

Returning South, she visited all points on the river down to New Orleans, coming back to make her home for the time at Vicksburg, as the place nearest the centre of her field of labor. The Superintendent and Matrons of the Soldiers' Home extended to her a hearty welcome, happy to have their institution honored by her presence, and receive her sympathizing and kindly aid. So substantial was the reputation she had won among the army, that her presence alone, at a military post in the West, was a power for good. Officers and attendants in charge of hospitals knew how quick she was to apprehend and bring to light any delinquency in the performance of their duties, and profited by this knowledge to the mutual advantage of themselves and those thrown upon their care.

During the summer of 1864, the garrison of Vicksburg suffered much from diseases incident to the season in that latitude. Perhaps in no regiment was the mortality greater than in the Second Wisconsin Cavalry. Strong men sickened and died within a few days, and others lingered on for weeks, wasting by degrees, till only skin and bone were left. The survivors, in evidence of their appreciation of her sympathy and exertions for them in their need, presented her an elegant enameled gold watch, beautifully set with diamonds. The presentation was an occasion on which she could not well avoid a public appearance, and those who were present, must have wondered that one of such power in private conversation should have so little control, even of her own feelings, before an assembly. Mrs. Harvey has never distinguished herself as a public speaker. Resolute, impetuous, confident to a degree bordering on the imperious, with power of denunciation to equip an orator, she yet shrinks from the gaze of a multitude with a woman's modesty, and the humility of a child. She does not underestimate the worth of true womanhood by attempting to act a distinctively manly part.

Although known as the agent of the State of Wisconsin, Mrs. Harvey has paid little regard to state lines, and has done a truly national work. Throughout the time of her stay with the army, applications for her aid came as often from the soldiers of other states as from those of her own, and no one was ever refused relief if to obtain it was in her power. Acting in the character of a friend to every Union soldier, from whatever state, she has had the entire confidence of the great Sanitary Commissions, and rendered to their agents invaluable aid in the distribution of goods. The success that has everywhere attended Mrs. Harvey's efforts, directly or indirectly, to benefit the soldier, has given to her life an unusual charm, and established for her a national reputation.

In years to come, the war-scarred veteran will recount to listening children around the domestic hearth, along with many a thrilling deed of valor performed by his own right arm, the angel visits of this lady to his cot, when languishing with disease, or how, when ready to die, her intercessions secured him a furlough, and sent him home to feel the curative power of his native air and receive the care of loving hands and hearts. Not a few unfortunates will remember, if they do not tell, how her care reached them, not only in hospital but in prison as well, bringing clothing and comfort to them when shivering in their rags; while others, again, will not be ashamed to relate, as we have heard them, with tears, their gratitude for release from unjust imprisonment, secured by her faithful exertions.

The close of the war has brought Mrs. Harvey back to her home, and closed her work for the soldiers. Her attention now is turned in the direction of soothing the sorrows the war has caused among the households of her State. Many a soldier who has died for his country, has left his little ones to the charity of the world. Through her exertions the State of Wisconsin now has a Soldiers' Orphan Asylum, where all these children of our dead heroes shall be gathered in. By a visit to Washington she has recently obtained from the United States Government, the donation of its interest in Harvey Hospital, and has turned it into an institution of this kind, and has set her hand and heart to the work of securing from the people a liberal endowment for it.

Happy indeed has she been in her truly Christian work, begun in sadness and opening into the joy that crowns every good work. The benedictions of thousands of the brave and victorious rest upon her, and the purest spirits of the martyred ones have her in their gentle care! May America be blest with many more like her to teach us by example the nature and practice of a true Christian heroism.

MRS. SARAH R. JOHNSTON.

At the breaking out of the war Mrs. Johnston was teaching a school at Salisbury, North Carolina, where she was born and always resided. When the first prisoners were brought into that place, the Southern women turned out in their carriages and with a band escorted them through the town, and when they filed past saluted them with contemptuous epithets. From that time Mrs. Johnston determined to devote herself to the amelioration of the condition of the prisoners; and the testimony of thousands of the Union soldiers confined there proved how nobly she performed the duties she undertook. It was no easy task, for she was entirely alone, being the only woman who openly advocated Union sentiments and attempted to administer to the wants of the prisoners. For fifteen months none of the women of Salisbury spoke to her or called upon her, and every possible indignity was heaped on her as a "Yankee sympathizer." Her scholars were withdrawn from her school, and it was broken up, and her means were very limited; nevertheless, she accomplished more by systematic arrangements than many would have done with a large outlay of money.

When the first exchange of prisoners was made, she went to the depot to arrange some pallets for some of the sick who were leaving, when she stumbled in the crowd, and looking down she found a young Federal soldier who had fainted and fallen, and was in danger of being trodden to death. She raised him up and called for water, but none of the people would get a drop to save a "Yankee's" life. Some of the soldiers who were in the cars threw their canteens to her, and she succeeded in reviving him; during this time the crowd heaped upon her every insulting epithet they could think of, and her life even was in danger. But she braved all, and succeeded in obtaining permission from Colonel Godwin, then in command of the post, who was a kind-hearted man, to let her remove him to her own house, promising to take care of him as if he were her own son, and if he died to give him Christian burial. He was in the last stages of consumption, and she felt sure he would die if taken to the prison hospital. None of the citizens of the place would even assist in carrying him, and after a time two gentlemen from Richmond stepped forward and helped convey him to her house. There she watched over him for hours, as he was in a terrible state from neglect, having had blisters applied to his chest which had never been dressed and were full of vermin.

The poor boy, whose name was Hugh Berry, from Ohio, only lived a few days, and she had a grave dug for him in her garden in the night, for burial had been refused in the public graveyard, and she had been threatened that if she had him interred decently his body should be dug up and buried in the street. They even attempted to take his body from the house for that purpose, but she stood at her door, pistol in hand, and said to them that the first man who dared to cross her threshold for such a purpose should be shot like a dog. They did not attempt it, and she performed her promise to the letter.

During the first two years she was enabled to do a great many acts of kindness for the prisoners, but after that time she was watched very closely as a Yankee sympathizer, and the rules of the prison were stricter, and what she could do was done by strategy.

Her means were now much reduced, but she still continued in her good work, cutting up her carpets and spare blankets to make into moccasins, and when new squads of prisoners arrived, supplied them with bread and water as they halted in front of her house, which they were compelled to do for hours, waiting the routine of being mustered into the prison. They were not allowed to leave their ranks, and she would turn an old-fashioned windlass herself for hours, raising water from her well; for the prisoners were often twenty-four to forty-eight hours on the railroad without rations or water.

Generally the officer in command would grant her request, but once a sergeant told her, in reply, if she gave any of them a drop of water or a piece of bread, or dared to come outside her gate for that purpose, he would pin her to the earth with his bayonet. She defied him, and taking her pail of water in one hand, and a basket of bread in the other, she walked directly past him on her errand of mercy; he followed her, placing his bayonet between her shoulders, just so that she could feel the cold steel. She turned and coolly asked him why he did not pin her to the earth, as he had threatened to do, but got no reply. Then some of the rebels said, "Sergeant, you can't make anything on that woman, you had better let her alone," and she performed her work unmolested.

Not content with these labors, she visited the burial-place where the deceased Union prisoners of that loathsome prison-pen at Salisbury were buried, and transcribed with a loving fidelity every inscription which could be found there, to let the sorrowing friends of those martyrs to their country know where their beloved ones are laid. The number of these marked graves is small, only thirty-one in all, for the greater part of the four or five thousand dead starved and tortured there till they relinquished their feeble hold on life, were buried in trenches four or five deep, and no record of their place of burial was permitted. Mrs. Johnston also copied from the rebel registers at Salisbury after the place was captured the statistics of the Union prisoners, admitted, died, and remaining on hand in each month from October, 1864, to April, 1865. The aggregates in these six months were four thousand and fifty-four admitted, of whom two thousand three hundred and ninety-seven died, and one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven remained.

Mrs. Johnston came North in the summer of 1865, to visit her daughter, who had been placed at a school in Connecticut by the kindness of some of the officers she had befriended in prison; transportation having been given her by Generals Schofield and Carter, who testified to the services she had rendered our prisoners, and that she was entitled to the gratitude of the Government and all loyal citizens.

EMILY E. PARSONS.

Miss Parsons was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, was educated in Boston, and resided at Cambridge at the beginning of the war. She at once foresaw that there would be need of the same heroic work on the part of the women of the country as that performed by Florence Nightingale and her army of women nurses in the Crimea, and with her father's approval she consulted with Dr. Wyman, of Cambridge, how she could acquire the necessary instruction and training to perform the duties of a skilful nurse in the hospitals. Through his influence with Dr. Shaw, the superintendent of the Massachusetts General Hospital, she was received into that institution as a pupil in the work of caring for the sick, in the dressing of wounds, in the preparation of diet for invalids, and in all that pertains to a well regulated hospital. She was thoroughly and carefully instructed by the surgeons of the hospital, all of whom took great interest in fitting her for the important duties she proposed to undertake, and gave her every opportunity to practice, with her own hands, the labors of a good hospital nurse. Dr. Warren and Dr. Townshend, two distinguished surgeons, took special pains to give her all necessary information and the most thorough instruction. At the end of one year and a half of combined teaching and practice, she was recommended by Dr. Townshend to Fort Schuyler Hospital, on Long Island Sound, where she went in October, 1862, and for two months performed the duties of hospital nurse, in the most faithful and satisfactory manner, when she left by her father's wishes, on account of the too great exposure to the sea, and went to New York.

While in New York Miss Parsons wrote to Miss Dix, the agent of the Government for the employment of women nurses, offering her services wherever they might be needed, and received an answer full of encouragement and sympathy with her wishes. At the same time she also made the acquaintance of Mrs. John C. Fremont, who wrote to the Western Sanitary Commission at St. Louis, of her qualifications and desire of usefulness in the hospital service, and she was immediately telegraphed to come on at once to St. Louis.

At this time, January, 1863, every available building in St. Louis was converted into a hospital, and the sick and wounded were brought from Vicksburg, and Arkansas Post, and Helena up the river to be cared for at St. Louis and other military posts. At Memphis and Mound City, (near Cairo) at Quincy, Illinois, and the cities on the Ohio River, the hospitals were in equally crowded condition. Miss Parsons went immediately to St. Louis and was assigned by Mr. James E. Yeatman, (the President of the Western Sanitary Commission, and agent for Miss Dix), to the Lawson Hospital. In a few weeks, however, she was needed for a still more important service, and was placed as head nurse on the hospital steamer "City of Alton," Surgeon Turner in charge. A large supply of sanitary stores were entrusted to her care by the Western Sanitary Commission, and the steamer proceeded to Vicksburg, where she was loaded with about four hundred invalid soldiers, many of them sick past recovery, and returned as far as Memphis. On this trip the strength and endurance of Miss Parsons were tried to the utmost, and the ministrations of herself and her associates to the poor, helpless and suffering men, several of whom died on the passage up the river, were constant and unremitting. At Memphis, after transferring the sick to the hospitals, an order was received from General Grant to load the boat with troops and return immediately to Vicksburg, an order prompted by some military exigency, and Miss Parsons and the other female nurses were obliged to return to St. Louis.

For a few weeks after her return she suffered from an attack of malarious fever, and on her recovery was assigned to duty as superintendent of female nurses at the Benton Barracks Hospital, the largest of all the hospitals in St. Louis, built out of the amphitheatre and other buildings in the fair grounds of the St. Louis Agricultural Society, and placed in charge of Surgeon Ira Russell, an excellent physician from Natick, Mass. In this large hospital there were often two thousand patients, and besides the male nurses detailed from the army, the corps of female nurses consisted of one to each of the fifteen or twenty wards, whose duty it was to attend to the special diet of the feebler patients, to see that the wards were kept in order, the beds properly made, the dressing of wounds properly done, to minister to the wants of the patients, and to give them words of good cheer, both by reading and conversation—softening the rougher treatment and manners of the male nurses, by their presence, and performing the more delicate offices of kindness that are natural to woman.

In this important and useful service these women nurses, many of them having but little experience, needed one of their own number of superior knowledge, judgment and experience, to supervise their work, counsel and advise with them, instruct them in their duties, secure obedience to every necessary regulation, and good order in the general administration of this important branch of hospital service. For this position Miss Parsons was most admirably fitted, and discharged its duties with great fidelity and success for many months, as long as Dr. Russell continued in charge of the hospital. The whole work of female nursing was reduced to a perfect system, and the nurses under Miss Parsons' influence became a sisterhood of noble women, performing a great and loving service to the maimed and suffering defenders of their country. In the organization of this system and the framing of wise rules for carrying it into effect Dr. Russell and Mr. Yeatman lent their counsel and assistance, and Dr. Russell, as the chief surgeon, entertained those enlightened and liberal views which gave the system a full chance to accomplish the best results. Under his administration, and Miss Parsons' superintendence of the nursing, the Benton Barracks Hospital became famous for its excellence, and for the rapid recovery of the patients.

It was not often that the army surgeons could be induced to give so fair a trial to female nursing in the hospitals. Too often they allowed their prejudices to interfere, and used their authority to thwart instead of aid the best plans for making the services of women all that was needed in the hospitals. But in the case of Dr. Russell, enlightened judgment and humane sympathies combined to make him friendly to the highest exertions of woman, in this holy service of humanity. And the result entirely justified the most sanguine expectations.

Having served six months in this capacity, Miss Parsons went to her home at Cambridge, on a furlough from the Sanitary Commission, to recruit her health. After a short period of rest she returned to St. Louis and resumed her position at Benton Barracks, in which she continued till August, 1864, when in consequence of illness, caused by malaria, she returned to her home in Cambridge a second time. On her recovery she concluded to enter upon the same work in the eastern department, but the return of peace, and the disbanding of a large portion of the army rendered her services in the hospitals no longer necessary.

From this time she devoted herself at home to working for the freedmen and refugees, collecting clothing and garden seeds for them, many boxes of which she shipped to the Western Sanitary Commission, at St. Louis, to be distributed in the Mississippi Valley, where they were greatly needed, and were received as a blessing from the Lord by the poor refugees and freedmen, who in many instances were without the means to help themselves, or to buy seed for the next year's planting.

In the spring of 1865, she took a great interest in the Sanitary Fair held at Chicago, collected many valuable gifts for it, and was sent for by the Committee of Arrangements to go out as one of the managers of the department furnished by the New Jerusalem Church—the different churches having separate departments in the Fair. This duty she fulfilled, with great pleasure and success, and the general results of the Fair were all that could be desired.

Returning home from the Chicago Fair, and the war being ended, Miss Parsons conceived a plan of establishing in her own city of Cambridge, a Charity Hospital for poor women and children. For this most praiseworthy object she has already collected a portion of the necessary funds, which she has placed in the hand of a gentleman who consents to act as Treasurer, and is entirely confident of the ultimate success of her enterprise. There is no doubt but that she possesses the character, good judgment, Christian motive and perseverance to carry it through, and she has the encouragement, sympathies and prayers of many friends to sustain her in the noble endeavor.

In concluding this sketch of the labors of Miss Parsons in the care and nursing of our sick and wounded soldiers, and in the Sanitary and other benevolent enterprises called forth by the war, it is but just to say that in every position she occupied she performed her part with judgment and fidelity, and always brought to her work a spirit animated by the highest motives, and strengthened by communion with the Infinite Spirit, from whom all love and wisdom come to aid and bless the children of men. Everywhere she went among the sick and suffering she brought the sunshine of a cheerful and loving heart, beaming from a countenance expressive of kindness, and good will and sympathy to all. Her presence in the hospital was always a blessing, and cheered and comforted many a despondent heart, and compensated in some degree, for the absence of the loved ones at home. Her gentle ministrations so faithful and cheering, might well have received the reverent worship bestowed on the shadow of Florence Nightingale, so admirably described by Longfellow in his Saint Filomena:

MRS. ALMIRA FALES.

Of course, she was derided for this act. Inured to peace, seemingly more eager for the opening of new territory, the spread of commerce, the gain of wealth and power than even for the highest national honor, the North would not believe in the possibility of war until the boom of the guns of Sumter, reverberating from the waves of the broad Atlantic, and waking the echoes all along its shores, burst upon their ears to tell in awful tones that it had indeed commenced.

But there was one—a woman in humble life, yet of wonderful benevolence, of indomitable energy, unflagging perseverance, and unwavering purpose, who foresaw its inevitable coming and was prepared for it.

Almira Fales was no longer young. She had spent a life in doing good, and was ready to commence another. Her husband had employment under the government in some department of the civil service, her sons entered the army, and she, too,—a soldier, in one sense, as truly as they—since she helped and cheered on the fight.

From that December day that commenced the work, until long after the war closed, she gave herself to it, heart and soul—mind and body. No one, perhaps, can tell her story of work and hardship in detail, not even herself, for she acts rather than talks or writes. "Such women, always doing, never think of pausing to tell their own stories, which, indeed, can never be told; yet the hint of them can be given, to stir in the hearts of other women a purer emulation, and to prove to them that the surest way to happiness is to serve others and forget yourself."

In detail we have only this brief record of what she has done, yet what volumes it contains, what a history of labor and of self-sacrifice!

"After a life spent in benevolence, it was in December, 1860, that Almira Fales began to prepare lint and hospital stores for the soldiers of the Union, not one of whom had then been called to take up arms. People laughed, of course; thought it a 'freak;' said that none of these things would ever be needed. Just as the venerable Dr. Mott said, at the women's meeting in Cooper Institute, after Sumter had been fired: 'Go on, ladies! Get your lint ready, if it will do your dear hearts any good, though I don't believe myself that it will ever be needed.' Since that December Mrs. Fales has emptied over seven thousand boxes of hospital stores, and distributed with her own hands over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of comforts to sick and wounded soldiers. Besides, she supplied personally between sixty and seventy forts with reading matter. She was months at sea—the only woman on hospital ships nursing the wounded and dying men. She was at Corinth, and at Pittsburg Landing, serving our men in storm and darkness. She was at Fair Oaks. She was under fire through the seven days' fight on the Peninsula, with almost breaking heart ministering on those bloody fields to 'the saddest creatures that she ever saw.'

"Through all those years, every day, she gave her life, her strength, her nursing, her mother-love to our soldiers. For her to be a soldier's nurse meant something very different from wearing a white apron, a white cap, sitting by a moaning soldier's bed, looking pretty. It meant days and nights of untiring toil; it meant the lowliest office, the most menial service; it meant the renouncing of all personal comfort, the sharing of her last possession with the soldier of her country; it meant patience, and watching, and unalterable love. A mother, every boy who fought for his country was her boy; and if she had nursed him in infancy, she could not have cared for him with a tenderer care. Journey after journey this woman has performed to every part of the land, carrying with her some wounded, convalescing soldier, bearing him to some strange cottage that she never saw before, to the pale, weeping woman within, saying to her with smiling face, 'I have brought back your boy. Wipe your eyes, and take care of him.' Then, with a fantastic motion, tripping away as if she were not tired at all, and had done nothing more than run across the street. Thousands of heroes on earth and in heaven gratefully remember this woman's loving care to them in the extremity of anguish. The war ended, her work does not cease. Every day you may find her, with her heavily-laden basket, in hovels of white and black, which dainty and delicate ladies would not dare to enter. No wounds are so loathsome, no disease so contagious, no human being so abject, that she shrinks from contact; if she can minister to their necessity."

During the Peninsular campaign Mrs. Fales was engaged on board the Hospital Transports, during most of the trying season of 1862. She was at Harrison's Landing in care of the wounded and wearied men worn down by the incessant battles and hard marches which attended the "change of base" from the Chickahominy to the James. She spent a considerable time in the hospitals at Fortress Monroe; and was active in her ministrations upon the fields in the battles of Centreville, Chantilly, and the second battle of Bull Run, indeed most of those of Pope's campaign in Virginia in the autumn of 1862.

At the battle of Chancellorsville, or rather at the assault upon Marye's Heights, in that fierce assault of Sedgwick's gallant Sixth Corps on the works which had on the preceding December defied the repeated charges of Burnside's best troops, Mrs. Fales lost a son. About one-third of the attacking force were killed or badly wounded in the assault, and among the rest the son of this devoted mother, who at that very hour might have been ministering to the wounded and dying son of some other mother. This loss was to her but a stimulus to further efforts and sacrifices. She mourned as deeply as any mother, but not as selfishly, as some might have done. In this, as in all her ways of life, she but carried out its ruling principle which was self-devotion, and deeds not words.

Mrs. Fales may not, perhaps, be held up as an example of harmonious development, but she has surely shown herself great in self-forgetfulness and heroic devotion to the cause of her country. In person she is tall, plain in dress, and with few of the fashionable and stereotyped graces of manner. No longer young, her face still bears ample traces of former beauty, and her large blue eyes still beam with the clear brightness of youth. But her hands tell the story of hardship and sacrifice.

"Poor hands! darkened and hardened by work, they never shirked any task, never turned from any drudgery, that could lighten the load of another. Dear hands! how many blood-stained faces they have washed, how many wounds they have bound up, how many eyes they have closed in dying, how many bodies they have sadly yielded to the darkness of death!"

She is full of a quaint humor, and in all her visits to hospitals her aim seemed to be to awake smiles, and arouse the cheerfulness of the patients; and she was generally successful in this, being everywhere a great favorite. One more quotation from the written testimony of a lady who knew her well and we have done.

"An electric temperament, a nervous organization, with a brain crowded with a variety of memories and incidents that could only come to one in a million—all combine to give her a pleasant abruptness of motion and of speech, which I have heard some very fine ladies term insanity. 'Now don't you think she is crazy, to spend all her time in such ways?' said one. When we remember how rare a thing utter unselfishness and self-forgetfulness is, we must conclude that she is crazy. If the listless and idle lives which we live ourselves are perfectly sane, then Almira Fales must be the maddest of mortals. But would it not be better for the world, and for us all, if we were each of us a little crazier in the same direction?"

MISS CORNELIA HANCOCK.

"Miss Cornelia Hancock was the first lady who arrived at Fredericksburg to aid in the care of the wounded. As one of the many interesting episodes of the war, it has seemed that her good deeds should not be unheralded. She was also among the very first to arrive at Gettysburg after the fearful struggle, and for days and weeks ministered unceasingly to the suffering. During the past winter she remained constantly with the army in winter quarters, connecting herself with the Second Division of the Second Corps. So attached were the soldiers, and so grateful for her ministration in sickness, that they built a house for her, in which she remained until the general order for all to leave was given.

"When the news of Grant's battles reached the North, Miss Hancock left Philadelphia at once for Washington. Several applications were made by Members of Congress at the War Department for a permit for her to go to the wounded. It was each time declined, as being unfeasible and improper. With a woman's tact, she made application to go with one of the surgeons then arriving, as assistant, as each surgeon was entitled to one. The plan succeeded, and I well remember the mental ejaculation made when I saw her at such a time on the boat. I lost sight of her at Belle Plain, and had almost forgotten the circumstance, when, shortly before our arrival at Fredericksburg, she passed in an ambulance. On being assigned to a hospital of the Second Corps, I found she had preceded me, and was earnestly at work. It was no fictitious effort, but she had already prepared soup and farina, and was dispensing it to the crowds of poor fellows lying thickly about.

"All day she worked, paying little attention to others, only assiduous in her sphere. When, the next morning, I opened a new hospital at the Methodist Church, I invited her to accompany me; she did so; and if success and amelioration of suffering attended the effort, it was in no small degree owing to her indefatigable labors. Within an hour from the time one hundred and twenty had been placed in the building, she had seen that good beef soup and coffee was administered to each, and during the period I was there, no delicacy or nutriment attainable was wanting to the men.

"Were any dying, she sat by to soothe their last moments, to receive the dying message to friends at home, and when it was over to convey by letter the sad intelligence. Let me rise ever so early, she had already preceded me at work, and during the many long hours of the day, she never seemed to weary or flag; in the evening, when all in her own hospital had been fully cared for, she would go about the town with delicacies to administer to officers who were so situated they could not procure them. At night she sought a garret (and it was literally one) for her rest.

"One can but feebly portray the ministrations of such a person. She belonged to no association—had no compensation. She commanded respect, for she was lady-like and well educated; so quiet and undemonstrative, that her presence was hardly noticed, except by the smiling faces of the wounded as she passed. While she supervised the cooking of the meats and soups and coffee, all nice things were made and distributed by herself. How the men watched for the dessert of farina and condensed milk, and those more severely wounded for the draughts of milk punch!

"Often would she make visits to the offices of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and when delicacies arrived, her men were among the first to taste them. Oranges, lemons, pickles, soft bread and butter, and even apple-sauce, were one or the other daily distributed. Such unwearied attention is the more appreciated, when one remembers the number of females who subsequently arrived, and the desultory and fitful labor performed. Passing from one hospital to another, and bestowing general sympathy, with small works, is not what wounded men want. It was very soon perceptible how the men in that hospital appreciated the solid worth of the one and the tinsel of the other.

"This imperfect recognition is but a slight testimonial to the lady-like deportment and the untiring labors in behalf of sick and wounded soldiers of Miss Hancock."