Chapter XVII: Part II (7)

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 Her scholars were withdrawn from her school, and it was broken up, and her means were very limited; nevertheless, she accomplished more by systematic arrangements than many would have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.

Among the honorable and heroic women of New England whose hearts were immediately enlisted in the cause of their country, in its recent struggle against the rebellion of the slave States, and who prepared themselves to do useful service in the hospitals as nurses, was Miss Emily E. Parsons, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a daughter of Professor Theophilus Parsons, of the Cambridge Law School, and granddaughter of the late Chief Justice Parsons, of Massachusetts.

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:

"And slow, as in a dream of bliss
The speechless sufferer turned to kiss
Her shadow as it falls
Upon the darkening walls."

MRS. ALMIRA FALES.

Mrs. Fales, it is believed, was the first woman in America who performed any work directly tending to the aid and comfort of the soldiers of the nation in the late war. In truth, her labors commenced before any overt acts of hostility had taken place, even so long before as December, 1860. Hostility enough there undoubtedly was in feeling, but the fires of secession as yet only smouldered, not bursting into the lurid flames of war until the following spring.

Yet Mrs. Fales, from her home in Washington, was a keen observer of the "signs of the times," and read aright the portents of rebellion. In her position, unobserved herself, she saw and heard much, which probably would have remained unseen and unheard by loyal eyes and ears, had the haughty conspirators against the nation's life dreamed of any danger arising from the knowledge of their projects, obtained by this humble woman.

So keen was the prescience founded on these things that, as has been said, she, as early as December, 1860, scarcely a month after the election of Abraham Lincoln, gave a pretext for secession which its leaders were eager to avail themselves of, "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."

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.

Among the most zealous and untiring of the women who ministered to the wounded men "at the front," in the long and terrible campaign of the Army of the Potomac in 1864-5, was Miss Cornelia Hancock, of Philadelphia. Of this lady's early history or her previous labors in the war, we have been unable to obtain any very satisfactory information. She had, we are told, been active in the United States General Hospitals in Philadelphia, and had there learned what wounded men need in the way of food and attention. She had also rendered efficient services at Gettysburg. Of her work among the wounded men at Belle Plain and Fredericksburg, Mr. John Vassar, one of the most efficient agents of the Christian Commission, writes as follows:

"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."

MRS. MARY MORRIS HUSBAND.

There are some noble souls whose devotion to duty, to the welfare of the suffering and sorrowing, and to the work which God has set before them, is so complete that it leaves them no time to think of themselves, and no consciousness that what they have done or are doing, is in any way remarkable. To them it seems the most natural thing in the world to undergo severe hardships and privations, to suffer the want of all things, to peril health and even life itself, to endure the most intense fatigue and loss of rest, if by so doing they may relieve another's pain or soothe the burdened and aching heart; and with the utmost ingenuousness, they will avow that they have done nothing worthy of mention; that it is the poor soldier who has been the sufferer, and has made the only sacrifices worthy of the name.

The worthy and excellent lady who is the subject of this sketch, is one of the representative women of this class. Few, if any, have passed through more positive hardships to serve the soldiers than she; but few have as little consciousness of them.

Mrs. Mary Morris Husband, is a granddaughter of Robert Morris, the great financier of our Revolutionary War, to whose abilities and patriotism it was owing that we had a republic at all. She is, in her earnest patriotism, well worthy of her ancestry. Her husband, a well-known and highly respectable member of the Philadelphia bar, her two sons and herself constituted her household at the commencement of the war, and her quiet home in the Quaker City, was one of the pleasantest of the many delightful homes in that city. The patriotic instincts were strong in the family; the two sons enlisted in the army at the very beginning of the conflict, one of them leaving his medical studies to do so; and the mother, as soon as there was any hospital work to do was fully prepared to take her part in it. She had been in poor health for some years, but in her anxiety to render aid to the suffering, her own ailings were forgotten. She was an admirable nurse and a skilful housewife and cook, and her first efforts for the sick and wounded soldiers in Philadelphia, were directed to the preparation of suitable and palatable food for them, and the rendering of those attentions which should relieve the irksomeness and discomforts of sickness in a hospital. The hospital on Twenty-second and Wood streets, Philadelphia, was the principal scene of these labors.

But the time had come for other and more engrossing labors for the sick and wounded, and she was to be inducted into them by the avenue of personal anxiety for one of her sons. In that fearful "change of base" which resulted in the seven days' battle on the peninsula, when from the combined influence of marsh malaria, want of food, overmarching, the heat and fatigue of constant fighting, and the depression of spirits incident to the unexpected retreat, more of our men fell down with mortal sickness than were slain or wounded in the battles, one of Mrs. Husband's sons was among the sufferers from disease, and word was sent to her that he was at the point of death. She hastened to nurse him, and after a great struggle and frequent relapses, he rallied and began to recover. Meantime she had not been so wholly engrossed with her care for him as to be neglectful of the hundreds and thousands around, who, like him, were suffering from the deadly influences of that pestilential climate and soil, or of the wounded who were wearing out their lives in agony, with but scant attention or care; and every moment that could be spared from her sick boy, was given to the other sufferers around her.

It was in this period of her work that she rendered the service to a young soldier, now a physician of Brooklyn, New York, so graphically described in the following extract from a letter addressed to the writer of this sketch:

"I was prostrated by a severe attack of camp dysentery, stagnant water and _unctuous_ bean soup not being exactly the diet for a sick person to thrive on. I got "no better" very rapidly, till at length, one afternoon, I lay in a kind of stupor, conscious that I was somewhere, though where, for the life of me I could not say. As I lay in this state, I imagined I heard my name spoken, and opening my eyes with considerable effort, I saw bending over me a female form. I think the astonishment restored me to perfect consciousness (though some liquor poured into my mouth at the same time, may have been a useful adjunct). As soon as I could collect myself sufficiently, I discovered the lady to be a Mrs. Husband, who, with a few other ladies, had just arrived on one of the hospital boats. Having lost my own mother when a mere child, you may imagine the effect her tender nursing had upon me, and when she laid her hand upon my forehead, all pain seemed to depart. I sank into a sweet sleep, and awoke the next morning refreshed and strengthened in mind and in body. From that moment my recovery was rapid, and in ten days I returned to my duty."

As her son began to recover, she resolved, in her thankfulness for this mercy, to devote herself to the care of the sick and wounded of the army. She was on one of the hospital transports off Harrison's Landing, when the rebels bombarded it, and though it was her first experience "under fire," she stood her ground like a veteran, manifesting no trepidation, but pursuing her work of caring for the sick as calmly as if in perfect safety. Finding that she was desirous of rendering assistance in the care of the disabled soldiers, she was assigned, we believe, by the Sanitary Commission, to the position of Lady Superintendent of one of the hospital transports which bore the wounded and sick to New York. She made four trips on these vessels, and her faithful attention to the sick, her skilful nursing, and her entire forgetfulness of self, won for her the hearty esteem and regard of all on board. The troops being all transferred to Acquia Creek and Alexandria, Mrs. Husband went to Washington, and endeavored to obtain a pass and transportation for supplies to Pope's army, then falling back, foot by foot, in stern but unavailing resistance to Lee's strong and triumphant force. These she was denied, but Miss Dix requested her to take charge temporarily of the Camden Street Hospital, at Baltimore, the matron of which had been stricken down with illness. After a few weeks' stay here, she relinquished her position, and repaired to Antietam, where the smoke of the great battle was just rolling off over the heights of South Mountain. Here, at the Smoketown Hospital, where the wounded from French's and some other divisions were gathered, she found abundant employment, and at the request of that able surgeon and excellent man, Dr. Vanderkieft, she remained in charge two months. Mrs. Harris was with her here for a short time, and Miss Maria M. C. Hall, during her entire stay. Her presence at this hospital brought perpetual sunshine. Arduous as were her labors, for there were very many desperately wounded, and quite as many dangerously sick, she never manifested weariness or impatience, and even the sick and wounded men, usually exacting, because forgetful of the great amount of labor which their condition imposes upon the nurses, wondered that she never manifested fatigue, and that she was able to accomplish so much as she did. Often did they express their anxiety lest she should be compelled from weariness and illness to leave them, but her smiling, cheerful face reassured them. She and Miss Hall occupied for themselves and their stores, a double hospital tent, and let the weather be what it might, she was always at her post in the hospitals promptly at her hours, and dispensed with a liberal hand to those who needed, the delicacies, the stimulants, and medicines they required. She had made a flag for her tent by sewing upon a breadth of calico a figure of a bottle cut out of red flannel, and the bottle-flag flew to the wind at all times, indicative of the medicines which were dispensed from the tent below. We have endeavored to give a view of this tent, from which came daily such quantities of delicacies, such excellent milk-punch to nourish and support the patients whose condition was most critical, such finely flavored flaxseed tea for the army of patients suffering from pulmonic diseases ("_her_ flaxseed tea," says one of her boys, "was _never_ insipid"), lemonades for the feverish, and something for every needy patient. See her as she comes out of her tent for her round of hospital duties, a substantial comely figure, with a most benevolent and motherly face, her hands filled with the good things she is bearing to some of the sufferers in the hospital; she has discarded hoops, believing with Florence Nightingale, that they are utterly incompatible with the duties of the hospital; she has a stout serviceable apron nearly covering her dress, and that apron is a miracle of pockets; pockets before, behind, and on each side; deep, wide pockets, all stored full of something which will benefit or amuse her "boys;" an apple, an orange, an interesting book, a set of chess-men, checkers, dominoes, or puzzles, newspapers, magazines, everything desired, comes out of those capacious pockets. As she enters a ward, the whisper passes from one cot to another, that "mother" is coming, and faces, weary with pain, brighten at her approach, and sad hearts grow glad as she gives a cheerful smile to one, says a kind word to another, administers a glass of her punch or lemonade to a third, hands out an apple or an orange to a fourth, or a book or game to a fifth, and relieves the hospital of the gloom which seemed brooding over it. But not in these ways alone does she bring comfort and happiness to these poor wounded and fever-stricken men. She encourages them to confide to her their sorrows and troubles, and the heart that, like the caged bird, has been bruising itself against the bars of its cage, from grief for the suffering or sorrow of the loved ones at home or oftener still, the soul that finds itself on the confines of an unknown hereafter, and is filled with distress at the thought of the world to come, pours into her attentive ear, the story of its sorrows, and finds in her a wise and kind counsellor and friend, and learns from her gentle teachings to trust and hope.

Hers was a truly heroic spirit. Darkness, storm, or contagion, had no terrors for her, when there was suffering to be alleviated, or anguish to be soothed. Amid the raging storms of the severe winter of 1862-3, she often left her tent two or three times in the night and went round to the beds of those who were apparently near death, from the fear that the nurses might neglect something which needed to be done for them. When diphtheria raged in the hospital, and the nurses fearing its contagious character, fled from the bed-sides of those suffering from it, Mrs. Husband devoted herself to them night and day, fearless of the exposure, and where they died of the terrible disease received and forwarded to their friends the messages of the dying.

It is no matter of surprise that when the time came for her to leave this hospital, where she had manifested such faithful and self-sacrificing care and tenderness for those whom she knew only as the defenders of her country, those whom she left, albeit unused to the melting mood, should have wept at losing such a friend. "There were no dry eyes in that hospital," says one who was himself one of its inmates; "all, from the strong man ready again to enter the ranks to the poor wreck of humanity lying on his death-bed gave evidence of their love for her, and sorrow at her departure in copious tears." On her way home she stopped for an hour or two at camps A and B in Frederick, Maryland, where a considerable number of the convalescents from Antietam had been sent, and these on discovering her, surrounded her ambulance and greeted her most heartily, seeming almost wild with joy at seeing their kind friend once more. After a brief stay at Philadelphia, during which she visited the hospitals almost constantly, she hastened again to the front, and at Falmouth early in 1863, after that fearful and disastrous battle of Fredericksburg she found ample employment for her active and energetic nature. As matron of Humphreys' Division Hospital (Fifth Corps) she was constantly engaged in ministering to the comfort of the wounded, and her solicitude for the welfare and prosperity of the men did not end with their discharge from the hospital. The informalities or blunders by which they too often lost their pay and were sometimes set down as deserters attracted her attention, and so far as possible she always procured the correction of those errors. Early in April, 1863, she made a flying visit to Philadelphia, and thus details in a letter to a friend, at the time the kind and amount of labor which almost always filled up every hour of those journeys. "Left Monday evening for home, took two discharged soldiers with me; heard that I could not get a pass to return; so instead of going directly through, stayed in Washington twenty-four hours, and fought a battle for a pass. I came off conqueror of course, but not until wearied almost to death--my boys in the meantime had gotten their pay--so I took them from the Commission Lodge (where I had taken them on arriving) to the cars, and off for Baltimore. There I placed them in the care of one of the gentlemen of the Relief Associations, and arrived home at 1.30 A. M. I carried money home for some of the boys, and had business of my own to attend to, keeping me constantly going on Wednesday and Thursday; left at midnight (Thursday night) for Washington, took the morning boat and arrived here this afternoon." This record of five days of severe labor such as few men could have gone through without utter prostration, is narrated in her letter to her friend evidently without a thought that there was anything extraordinary in it; yet it was in a constant succession of labors as wearing as this that she lived for full three years of her army life.

Immediately after the battles of Chancellorsville she went to United States Ford, but was not allowed to cross, and joined two Maine ladies at the hospital on the north side of the Rappahannock, where they dressed wounds until dark, slept in an ambulance, and early in the morning went to work again, but were soon warned to leave, as it was supposed that the house used as a hospital would be shelled. They left, and about half a mile farther on found the hospital of the Third and Eleventh Corps. Here the surgeon in charge urged Mrs. Husband to remain and assist him, promising her transportation. She accordingly left her ambulance and dressed wounds until midnight. By this time the army was in full retreat and passing the hospital. The surgeon forgot his promise, and taking care of himself, left her to get away as best she could. It was pitch dark and the rain pouring in torrents. She was finally offered a part of the front seat of an army (medicine) wagon, and after riding two or three miles on the horrible roads the tongue of the wagon broke, and she was compelled to sit in the drenching rain for two or three hours till the guide could bring up an ambulance, in which she reached Falmouth the next day.

The hospital of which she was lady matron was broken up at the time of this battle, but she was immediately installed in the same position in the hospital of the Third Division of the Third Corps, then filled to overflowing with the Chancellorsville wounded. Here she remained until compelled to move North with the army by Lee's raid into Pennsylvania in June and July, 1863.

On the 3d of July, the day of the last and fiercest of the Gettysburg battles, Mrs. Husband, who had been, from inability to get permission to go to the front, passing a few anxious days at Philadelphia, started for Gettysburg, determined to go to the aid and relief of the soldier boys, who, she well knew, needed her services. She reached the battle-field on the morning of the 4th by way of Westminster, in General Meade's mail-wagon. She made her way at first to the hospital of the Third Corps, and labored there till that as well as the other field hospitals were broken up, when she devoted herself to the wounded in Camp Letterman. Here she was attacked with miasmatic fever, but struggled against it with all the energy of her nature, remaining for three weeks ill in her tent. She was at length carried home, but as soon as she was convalescent, went to Camp Parole at Annapolis, as agent of the Sanitary Commission, to fill the place of Miss Clara Davis, (now Mrs. Edward Abbott), who was prostrated by severe illness induced by her severe and continued labors.

In December, 1863, she accepted the position of matron to her old hospital, (Third Division of the Third Corps), then located at Brandy Station, where she remained till General Grant's order issued on the 15th of April caused the removal of all civilians from the army.

A month had not elapsed, before the terrible slaughter of the "Wilderness" and "Spottsylvania," had made that part of Virginia a field of blood, and Mrs. Husband hastened to Fredericksburg where no official now barred her progress with his "red tape" prohibitions; here she remained till the first of June, toiling incessantly, and then moving on to Port Royal and White House, where the same sad scenes were repeated, and where, amid so much suffering and horror, it was difficult to banish the feeling of depression. At White House, she took charge of the low diet kitchen for the whole Sixth Corps, to which her division had been transferred. The number of wounded was very large, this corps having suffered severely in the battle of Cold Harbor, and her duties were arduous, but she made no complaint, her heart being at rest, if she could only do something for her brave soldier boys.

When the base was transferred to City Point, she made her way to the Third Division, Sixth Corps' Hospital at the front, where she remained until the Sixth Corps were ordered to the Shenandoah Valley, when she took charge of the low diet kitchen of the Second Corps' Hospital at City Point, and remained there until the end. Her labors among the men in this hospital were constant and severe, but she won all hearts by her tenderness, cheerfulness, and thoughtful consideration of the needs of every particular ease. Each one of those under her care felt that she was specially _his_ friend, and interesting and sometimes amusing were the confidences imparted to her, by the poor fellows. The one bright event of the day to all was the visit of "Mother" Husband to their ward. The apron, with its huge pockets, always bore some welcome gift for each, and however trifling it might be in itself, it was precious as coming from her hands. Her friends in Philadelphia, by their constant supplies, enabled her to dispense many articles of comfort and luxury to the sick and wounded, which could not otherwise have been furnished.

On the 6th of May, 1865, Mrs. Husband was gratified by the sight of our gallant army marching through Richmond. As they passed, in long array, they recognized her, and from hundreds of the soldiers of the Second, Third, and Sixth Corps, rang out the loud and hearty "Hurrah for Mother Husband!" while their looks expressed their gratitude to one who had been their firm and faithful friend in the hour of suffering and danger.

Mrs. Husband felt that she must do something more for her "boys" before they separated and returned to their distant homes; she therefore left Richmond immediately, and traveling with her accustomed celerity, soon reached Philadelphia, and gathering up from her liberal friends and her own moderate means, a sufficient sum to procure the necessary stores, she returned with an ample supply, met the soldiers of the corps to which she had been attached at Bailey's Cross Roads, and there spent six or seven days in distributing to them the clothing and comforts which they needed. Her last opportunity of seeing them was a few days later at the grand review in Washington.