Woman's Work in the Civil War Part 5

MRS. JOSEPHINE R. GRIFFIN.

Her n.o.ble efforts--Her position at the commencement of the war--Her interest in the condition of the Freedmen--Her attempts to overcome their faults--Her success--Organization of schools--Finding employment for them--Influx of Freedmen into the District of Columbia--Their helpless condition--Mrs. Griffin attempts to find situations for them at the North--Extensive correspondence--Her expeditions with companies of them to the Northern cities--Necessities of the freedmen remaining in the District in the Autumn of 1866--Mrs. Griffin's circular--The denial of its truth by the Freedmen's Bureau--Their subsequent retraction--The Congressional appropriation--Should have been put in Mrs. Griffin's hands--She continues her labors.

MRS. M. M. HALLOWELL.

Condition of the loyal whites of the mountainous district of the South.

Their sufferings and persecutions--Cruelty of the Rebels--Contributions for their aid in the north--Boston, New York, Philadelphia--Mrs.

Hallowell's efforts--She and her a.s.sociates visit Nashville, Knoxville, Huntsville and Chattanooga and distribute supplies to the families of refugees--Peril of their journey--Repeated visits of Mrs. Hallowell--The Home for Refugees, near Nashville--Grat.i.tude of the Refugees for this aid--Colonel Taylor's letter.

OTHER FRIENDS OF THE FREEDMEN AND REFUGEES.

Mrs. Harris' labors--Miss Tyson and Mrs. Beck--Miss Jane Stuart Woolsey--Mrs. Governor Hawley--Miss Gilson--Mrs. Lucy S. Starr--Mrs.

Clinton B. Fisk--Mrs. H. F. Hoes and Miss Alice F. Royce--Mrs. John S.

Phelps--Mrs. Mary A. Whitaker--Fort Leavenworth--Mrs. Nettie C.

Constant--Miss G. D. Chapman--Miss Sarah E. M. Lovejoy, daughter of Hon.

Owen Lovejoy--Miss Mary E. Sheffield--Her labors at Vicksburg--Her death--Helena--Mrs. Sarah Coombs--Nashville--Mrs. Mary R. Fogg--St.

Louis Refugee and Freedmen's Home--Mrs. H. M. Weed--The supervision of this Home by Mrs. Alfred Clapp, Mrs. Joseph Crawshaw, Mrs. Lucien Eaton and Mrs. N. Stevens.

PART V. LADIES DISTINGUISHED FOR SERVICES IN SOLDIERS' HOMES, VOLUNTEER REFRESHMENT SALOONS, ON GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL TRANSPORTS ETC.

MRS. O. E. HOSMER.

Mrs. Hosmer's residence at Chicago--Her two sons enter the army--She determines to go to the hospitals--Her first experiences in the hospitals at Tipton and Smithtown--The lack of supplies--Mrs. Hosmer procures them from the Sanitary Commission at St. Louis--Return to Chicago--Organization of the "Ladies' War Committee"--Mrs. Hosmer its Secretary--Efficiency of the organization--The Board of Trade Regiments--Mrs. Hosmer and Mrs. Smith Tinkham go to Murfreesboro'

with supplies after the battle of Stone River--Their report on their return--Touching incident--The wounded soldier--Return to Chicago-- Establishment of the Soldiers' Home at Chicago--Mrs. Hosmer its first Vice President--Her zeal for its interests and devotion to the Soldiers there--To the battle-field after Chickamauga--Taken prisoner but recaptured--Supplies lost--Return home--Her labors at the Soldiers'

Home and Soldiers' Rest for the next fifteen months--The Northwestern Sanitary and Soldiers' Home Fair--Mrs. Hosmer Corresponding Secretary of the Executive Committee--She visits the hospitals from Cairo to New Orleans--Success of her Mission--The emaciated prisoners from Andersonville and Catawba at Vicksburg--Mrs. Hosmer ministers to them-- The loss of the Sultana--Return and further labors at the Soldiers'

Rest--Removal to New York.

MISS HATTIE WISWALL.

Enters the service as Hospital Nurse in 1863--At Benton Barracks Hospital--A Model nurse--Her cheerfulness--Removal to Nashville, Tennessee--She is sent thence to Vicksburg, first as an a.s.sistant and afterwards as princ.i.p.al matron at the Soldiers' Home--One hundred and fifteen thousand soldiers accommodated there during her stay--The number of soldiers daily received ranging from two hundred to six hundred--Her admirable management--Scrupulous neatness of the Home--Her labors among the Freedmen and Refugees at Vicksburg--Her care of the wounded from the Red River Expedition--Her tenderness and cheerful spirit--She accompanies a hospital steamer loaded with wounded men, to Cairo, and cheers and comforts the soldiers on their voyage--Takes charge of a wounded officer and conducts him to his home--Return to her duties--The Soldiers' Home discontinued in June, 1865.

MRS. LUCY E. STARR.

A Clergyman's widow--Her service in the Fifth Street Hospital, St.

Louis--Her admirable adaptation to her duties--Appointed by the Western Sanitary Commission, Matron of the Soldiers' Home at Memphis--Nearly one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers received there during two and a half years--Mrs. Starr manages the Home with great fidelity and success--Mr. O. R. Waters' acknowledgment of her services--Closing of the Home--Mrs. Starr takes charge of an inst.i.tution for suffering freedmen and refugees, in Memphis--Her faithfulness.

MISS CHARLOTTE BRADFORD.

Her reticence in regard to her labors--The public and official life of ladies occupying positions in charitable inst.i.tutions properly a matter of public comment and notice--Miss Bradford's labors in the Hospital Transport Service--The Elm City--The Knickerbocker--Her a.s.sociates in this work--Other Relief Work--She succeeds Miss Bradley as matron of the Soldiers' Home at Washington--Her remarkable executive ability, dignity and tenderness for the sick and wounded soldier.

UNION VOLUNTEER REFRESHMENT SALOON OF PHILADELPHIA.

The labors of Mrs. Lee and Miss Ross in inst.i.tutions of this cla.s.s--The beginning of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon--Rival but not hostile organization--Samuel B. Fales, Esq., and his patriotic labors-- The two inst.i.tutions well supplied with funds--Nearly nine hundred thousand soldiers fed at the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, and four hundred thousand at the Cooper Shop--The labors of the patriotic women connected with the organizations--Mrs. Eliza G. Plummer--Her faithful and abundant labors--Her death from over exertion--Mrs. Mary B.

Wade--Her great age, and extraordinary services--Mrs. Ellen J. Lowry-- Mrs. Margaret Boyer--Other ladies and their constant and valuable labors--The worthy ladies of the Cooper Shop Saloon.

MRS. R. M. BIGELOW.

"Aunty Bigelow"--Mrs. Bigelow a native of Washington--Her services in the Indiana Hospital in the Patent Office Building--"Hot cakes and mush and milk"--Mrs. Billing an a.s.sociate in Mrs. Bigelow's Labors-- Mrs. Bigelow the almoner of many of the Aid Societies at the North--Her skill and judgment in the distribution of supplies--She maintains a regular correspondence with the soldier boys who have been under her care--Her house a "Home" for the sick soldier or officer who asked that he might be sheltered and nursed there--She welcomes with open doors the hospital workers from abroad--Her personal sorrows in the midst of these labors.

MISS HATTIE R. SHARPLESS AND HER a.s.sOCIATES.

The Government Hospital Transports early in the war--Great improvements made in them at a later period--The Government Transport Connecticut-- Miss Sharpless serves as matron on this for seventeen months--His previous labors in army hospitals at Fredericksburg, Falls Church, Antietam and elsewhere--Her admirable adaptation to her work--A true Christian heroine--Thirty-three thousand sick and wounded men under charge on the Transport--Her religious influence on the men--Miss Hattie S. Reifsnyder of Catawissa, Penn. and Mrs. Cynthia Case of Newark, Ohio, her a.s.sistants are actuated by a similar spirit--Miss W. F. Harris of Providence, R. I., also on the Transport, for some months, and previously in the Indiana Hospital, in Ascension Church and Carver Hospital, and after leaving the Transport at Harper's Ferry and Winchester--Her health much broken by her excessive labors--Devotes herself to the instruction and training of the Freedmen after the close of the war.

PART VI. LADIES DISTINGUISHED FOR OTHER SERVICES IN THE NATIONAL CAUSE.

MRS. ANNIE ETHERIDGE.

Mrs. Etheridge's goodness and purity of character--Her childhood and girlhood pa.s.sed in Wisconsin--She marries there--Return of her father to Michigan--She visits him and while there joins the Second Michigan Regiment, to attend to its sick and wounded--Transferred subsequently to the Third Regiment, and at the expiration of its term of service joins the Fifth Michigan Regiment--She is in the skirmish of Blackburn's Ford and at the first battle of Bull Run--In hospital service--On a hospital transport with Miss Amy M. Bradley--At the second battle of Bull Run-- The soldier boy torn to pieces by a shot while she is ministering to him--General Kearny's recognition of her services--Kearny's death prevents her receiving promotion--At Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863--She leads in a skirmish, rides along the front exhorting the men to do their duty, and finds herself under heavy fire--An officer killed by her side and she herself slightly wounded--Her horse, wounded, runs with her--She seeks General Berry and after a pleasant interview takes charge of a rebel officer, a prisoner, whom she escorts to the rear--"I would risk my life for Annie, any time"--General Berry's death--The wounded artillery-man--She binds up his wounds and has him brought to the hospital--Touching letter--The retreating soldiers at Spottsylvania-- Annie remonstrates with them, and brings them back into the fight, under heavy fire--Outside the lines, and closely pursued by the enemy-- Hatcher's Run--She dashes through the enemy's line unhurt--She receives a Government appointment at the close of the war--Her modesty and diffidence of demeanor.

DELPHINE P. BAKER.

Her birth and education--Character of her parents--Her lectures on the sphere and culture of women--Her labors in Chicago in the collection and distribution of hospital supplies--Her hospital work--Ill health--She commences the publication of "The National Banner" first in Chicago, next in Washington and finally in New York--Its success but partial--Her efforts long, persistent and unwearied, for the establishment of a National Home for Soldiers--The bill finally pa.s.ses Congress--Delay in organization--Its cause--Miss Baker meantime endeavors to procure Point Lookout as a location for one of the National Soldiers' Homes--Change in the act of incorporation--The purchase of the Point Lookout property consummated.

MRS. S. BURGER STEARNS.

A native of New York City--Her education at the State Normal School of Michigan--Her marriage--Her husband a Colonel of volunteers--She visits the hospitals and devotes herself to lecturing in behalf of the Aid movement.

BARBARA FRIETCHIE.

Her age--Her patriotism--Whittier's poem.

MRS. HETTIE M. McEWEN.

Of revolutionary lineage--Her devotion to the Union--Her defiance of Isham Harris' efforts to have the Union flag lowered on her house--Mrs.

Hooper's poem.

OTHER DEFENDERS OF THE FLAG.

Mrs. Effie t.i.tlow--Mrs. Alfred Clapp--Mrs. Moore (Parson Brownlow's daughter)--Miss Alice Taylor--Mrs. Booth--"_Never surrender the flag to traitors_".