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. 719-724

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 assistant and afterwards as principal 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. 726-727

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 institution for suffering freedmen and refugees, in Memphis--Her faithfulness. 728-730

MISS CHARLOTTE BRADFORD.

Her reticence in regard to her labors--The public and official life of ladies occupying positions in charitable institutions properly a matter of public comment and notice--Miss Bradford's labors in the Hospital Transport Service--The Elm City--The Knickerbocker--Her associates 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. 731, 732

UNION VOLUNTEER REFRESHMENT SALOON OF PHILADELPHIA.

The labors of Mrs. Lee and Miss Ross in institutions of this class--The beginning of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon--Rival but not hostile organization--Samuel B. Fales, Esq., and his patriotic labors-- The two institutions 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. 733-737

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 associate 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. 738-740

MISS HATTIE R. SHARPLESS AND HER ASSOCIATES.

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 assistants 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. 741-743