Woman's Work in the Civil War Part 4

Seymour's rare ability and system--Her encomiums on the labors of the patriot workers in country homes--The workers in the cities equally faithful and praiseworthy.

MICHIGAN SOLDIERS' AID SOCIETY.

The Patriotic women of Michigan--Annie Etheridge, Mrs. Russell and others--"The Soldiers' Relief Committee" and "The Soldiers' Aid Society"

of Detroit--Their Consolidation--The officers of the New Society--Miss Valeria Campbell the soul of the organization--Her multifarious labors-- The Military Hospitals in Detroit--The "Soldiers' Home" in Detroit-- Michigan in the two Chicago Fairs--Amount of money and supplies raised by the Michigan Branch.

WOMEN'S PENNSYLVANIA BRANCH OF UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION.

The loyal women of Philadelphia--Their numerous organizations for the relief of the Soldier--The organization of the Women's Pennsylvania Branch--Its officers--Sketch of Mrs. Grier--Her parentage--Her residence in Wilmington, N. C.--Persecution for loyalty--Escape--She enters immediately upon Hospital Work--Her appointment to the Presidency of the Women's Branch--Her remarkable tact and skill--Her extraordinary executive talent--Mrs. Clara J. Moore--Sketch of her labors--Other ladies of the a.s.sociation--Testimonials to Mrs. Grier's ability and admirable management from officers of the Sanitary Commission and others--The final report of this Branch--The condition of the state and country at its inception--The a.s.sociate Managers--The work accomplished--Peace at last--The details of Expenses of the Supply Department--The work of the Relief Committee--Eight hundred and thirty women employed--Widows of Soldiers aided--Total expenditures of Relief Committee.

THE WISCONSIN SOLDIERS' AID SOCIETY. _By Rev. J. G. Forman._

The Milwaukie Ladies Soldiers' Aid Society--Labors of Mrs. Jackson, Mrs.

Delafield and others--Enlargement and re-organization as the Wisconsin Soldiers' Aid Society--Mrs. Henrietta L. Colt, chosen Corresponding Secretary--Her visits to the front, and her subsequent labors among the Aid Societies of the State--Efficiency of the Society--The Wisconsin Soldiers' Home--Its extent and what it accomplished--It forms the Nucleus of one of the National Soldiers' Homes--Sketch of Mrs. Colt-- Death of her husband--Her deep and overwhelming grief--She enters upon the Sanitary Work, to relieve herself from the crushing weight of her great sorrow--Her labors on a Hospital Steamer--Her frequent subsequent visits to the front--Her own account of these visits--"The beardless boys, all heroes"--Sketch of Mrs. Governor Salomon--Her labors in behalf of the German and other soldiers of Wisconsin.

PITTSBURG BRANCH UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION.

The Pittsburg Sanitary Committee and Pittsburg Subsistence Committee-- Organization of the Branch--Its Corresponding Secretary, Miss Rachael W.

McFadden--Her executive ability zeal and patriotism--Her colleagues in her labors--The Pittsburg Sanitary Fair--Its remarkable success--Miss Murdock's labors at Nashville.

MRS. ELIZABETH S. MENDENHALL.

Mrs. Mendenhall's childhood and youth pa.s.sed in Richmond, Va.--Her relatives Members of the Society of Friends--Her early Hospital labors-- President of the Women's Soldiers' Aid Society of Cincinnati--Her appeal to the citizens of Cincinnati to organize a Sanitary Fair--Her efforts to make the Fair a success--The magnificent result--Subsequent labors in the Sanitary Cause--Fair for Soldiers' Families in December, 1864-- Labors for the Freedmen and Refugees--In behalf of fallen women.

DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH.

Dr. M. M. Marsh appointed Medical Inspector of Department of the South-- Early in 1863 he proceeded thither with his wife--Mrs. Marsh finds abundant work in the receipt and distribution of Sanitary Stores, in the visiting of Hospitals--Spirit of the wounded men--The exchange of prisoners--Sufferings of our men in Rebel prisons--Their self-sacrificing spirit--Supplies sent to the prisoners, and letters received from them--The sudden suspension of this benevolent work by order from General Halleck--The sick from Sherman's Army--Dr. Marsh ordered to Newbern, N. C., but detained by sickness--Return to New York--The "Lincoln Home"--Dr. and Mrs. Marsh's labors there--Close of the Lincoln Home.

ST. LOUIS LADIES' UNION AID SOCIETY.

Organization of the Society--Its officers--Was the princ.i.p.al Auxiliary of Western Sanitary Commission--Visits of its members to the fourteen hospitals in the vicinity of St. Louis--The hospital basket and its contents--The Society's delegates on the battle-fields--Employs the wives and daughters of soldiers in bandage rolling, and subsequently on contracts for hospital and other clothing for soldiers--Its committees cutting, fitting and examining the work--Undertakes the special diet kitchen of the Benton Barracks Hospital--Establishes a branch at Nashville--Special Diet Kitchen there--Its work for the Freedmen and Refugees--Sketches of its leading officers and managers--Mrs. Anna L.

Clapp, a native of Washington County, N. Y.--Resides in Brooklyn, N. Y., and subsequently in St. Louis--Elected President of Ladies' Union Aid Society at the beginning of the war, and retains her position till its close--Her arduous labors and great tact and skill--She organizes a Refugee Home and House of Industry--Aids the Freedmen, and a.s.sists in the proper regulation of the Soldiers' Home--Miss H. A. Adams, (now Mrs.

Morris Collins)--Born and educated in New Hampshire--At the outbreak of the war, a teacher in St. Louis--Devoted herself to the Sanitary work throughout the war--Was secretary of the society till the close of 1864, and a part of the time at Nashville, where she established a special diet kitchen--Death of her brother in the army--Her influence in procuring the admission of female nurses in the Nashville hospitals-- Mrs. C. R. Springer, a native of Maine, one of the directors of the Society, and the superintendent of its employment department, for furnishing work to soldiers' families--Her unremitting and faithful labors--Mrs. Mary E. Palmer--A native of New Jersey--An earnest worker, visiting and aiding soldiers' families and dispensing the charities of the Society among them and the dest.i.tute families of refugees--Her labors were greater than her strength--Her death occasioned by a decline, the result of over exertion in her philanthropic work.

LADIES' AID SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA, &C.

Organization of the Society--Its officers--Mrs. Joel Jones, Mrs. John Harris, Mrs. Stephen Caldwell--Mrs. Harris mostly engaged at the front-- The Society organized with a view to the spiritual as well as physical benefit of the soldiers--Its great efficiency with moderate means--The ladies who distributed its supplies at the front--Extract from one of its reports--Its labors among the Refugees--The self-sacrifice of one of its members--Its expenditures. THE PENN RELIEF a.s.sOCIATION--An organization originating with the Friends, but afterward embracing all denominations--Its officers--Its efficiency--Amount of supplies distributed by it through well-known ladies. THE SOLDIERS' AID SOCIETY--Another of the efficient Pennsylvania Organizations for the relief of the soldiers--Its President, Mrs. Mary A. Brady--Her labors in the Satterlee Hospital--At "Camp Misery"--At the front--After Gettysburg, and at Mine Run--Her health injured by her exposure and excessive labors--She dies of heart-disease in May, 1864.

WOMEN'S RELIEF a.s.sOCIATION OF BROOKLYN AND LONG ISLAND.

Brooklyn early in the war--Numerous channels for distribution of the Supplies contributed--Importance of a Single Comprehensive Organization--The Relief a.s.sociation formed--Mrs. Stranahan chosen President--Sketch of Mrs. Stranahan--Her social position--First directress of the Graham Inst.i.tute--Her rare tact and efficiency as a presiding officer and in the dispatch of business--The Long Island Sanitary Fair--Her excessive labors there, and the perfect harmony and good feeling which prevailed--Rev. Dr. Spear's statement of her worth-- The resolutions of the Relief a.s.sociation--Rev. Dr. Bellows' Testimony-- Her death--Rev. Dr. Farley's letter concerning her--Rev. Dr. Budington's tribute to her memory.

MRS. ELIZABETH M. STREETER.

Loyal Southern Women--Mrs. Streeter's activity in promoting a.s.sociations of loyal women for the relief of the soldiers--Her New England parentage and education--The Ladies' Union Relief a.s.sociation of Baltimore--Mrs.

Streeter at Antietam--As a Hospital Visitor--The Eutaw Street Hospital-- The Union Refugees in Baltimore--Mrs. Streeter organizes the Ladies'

Union Aid Society for the Relief of Soldiers' families--Testimony of the Maryland Committee of the Christian Commission to the value of her labors--Death of her husband--Her return to Ma.s.sachusetts.

MRS. CURTIS T. FENN.

The loyal record of the men and women of Berkshire County--Mrs. Fenn's history and position before the war--Her skill and tenderness in the care of the sick--Her readiness to enter upon the work of relief--She becomes the embodiment of a Relief a.s.sociation--Liberal contributions made and much work performed by others but no organization--Mrs. Fenn's incessant and extraordinary labors for the soldiers--Her packing and shipping of the supplies to the hospitals in and about New York and to more distant cities--Refreshments for Soldiers who pa.s.sed through Pittsfield--Her personal distribution of supplies at the soldiers'

Thanksgiving dinner at Bedloe's Island in 1862, and at David's Island in 1864--"The gentleman from Africa and his vote"--Her efforts for the disabled soldiers and their families--The soldiers' monument.

MRS. JAMES HARLAN.

Women in high stations devoting themselves to the relief of the Soldiers--Instances--Mrs. Harlan's early interest in the soldier--At Shiloh--Cutting red-tape--Wounded soldiers removed northward after the battle--Death of her daughter--Her labors for the religious benefit of the soldier--Her health impaired by her labors.

NEW ENGLAND SOLDIERS' RELIEF a.s.sOCIATION.

History of the organization--Its Matron, Mrs. E. A. Russell--The Women's Auxiliary Committee--The Night Watchers' a.s.sociation--The Hospital Choir--The SOLDIERS' DEPOT in Howard Street, N. Y.--The Ladies'

a.s.sociation connected with it.

PART IV. LADIES DISTINGUISHED FOR SERVICES AMONG THE FREEDMEN AND REFUGEES.

MRS. FRANCES DANA GAGE.

Childhood and youth of Mrs. Gage--Anti-slavery views inculcated by her parents and grand-parents--Her marriage--Her husband an earnest reformer--Her connection with the press--Ostracism on account of her opposition to slavery--Propositions made to her husband to swerve from principle and thereby attain office--"Dare to stand alone"--Removal to St. Louis--A contributor to the Missouri Republican--The n.o.ble stand of Colonel Chambers--His death--She contributes to the Missouri Democrat, but is finally excluded from its columns--Personal peril--Her advocacy of the cause of Kansas--Editor of an Agricultural paper in Columbus, Ohio--Her labors among the freedmen in the department of the South for thirteen months, (1862-3)--Helps the soldiers also--Her four sons in the army--Return Northward in the Autumn of 1863--Becomes a lecturer-- Advocating the Emanc.i.p.ation Act and the Const.i.tutional Amendment, prohibiting slavery--Labors for the Freedmen and Refugees in 1864-- Is injured by the overturning of a carriage at Galesburg, Ill., in September, 1864--Lecturing again on her partial recovery--Summary of her character.

MRS. LUCY g.a.y.l.o.r.d POMEROY.

Birth and early education--Half-sister of the poets Lewis and Willis g.a.y.l.o.r.d Clark--Educates herself for a Missionary--A Sunday-school teacher--Sorrow--Is married to S. C. Pomeroy (afterward United States Senator from Kansas)--Residence in Southampton, Ma.s.s.--Ill health-- Removal to Kansas--The Kansas Struggle and Border Ruffian War--Mrs.

Pomeroy a firm friend to the escaping slaves--The famine year of 1860-- Her house an office of distribution for supplies to the starving-- Accompanies her husband to Washington in 1861--Her labors and contributions for the soldiers--In Washington and at Atchison, Kansas-- Return to Washington--Founding an asylum for colored orphans and dest.i.tute aged colored women--The building obtained and furnished--Her failing health--She comes north, but dies on the pa.s.sage.

MARIA R. MANN.

Miss Mann a near relative of the late Hon. Horace Mann--Her career as a teacher--Her loyalty--Comes to St. Louis--Becomes a nurse in the Fifth St. Hospital--Condition of the Freedmen at St. Helena, Ark.--The Western Sanitary Commission becomes interested in endeavoring to help them--They propose to Miss Mann to go thither and establish a hospital, distribute clothing and supplies to them, and instruct them as far as possible--She consents--Perilous voyage--Her great and beneficent labors at Helena--Extraordinary improvement in the condition of the freedmen-- She remains till August, 1863--Her heroism--Grat.i.tude of the freedmen-- "You's light as a fedder, anyhow"--Return to St. Louis--Becomes the teacher and manager of a colored asylum at Washington, D. C.--Her school for colored children at Georgetown--Its superior character--It is, in intention, a normal school--Miss Mann's sacrifices in continuing in that position.

SARAH J. HAGAR.

A native of Illinois--Serves in the St. Louis Hospitals till August, 1863--Is sent to Vicksburg in the autumn of 1863, by the Western Sanitary Commission, as teacher for the Freedmen's children--Her great and successful labors--Is attacked in April, 1864, with malarial fever, and dies May 3--Tribute to her character and work, from Mr. Marsh, superintendent of Freedmen at Vicksburg.