Womans Work in the Civil War | Page 2

to Annapolis and to Wilmington, and unmindful of
the deadly infection, gentle and tender women ministered to them as
faithfully and lovingly, as if they were their own brothers. Ever and
anon, in these works of mercy, one of these fair ministrants died a
martyr to her faithfulness, asking, often only, to be buried beside her
"boys," but the work never ceased while there was a soldier to be
nursed. Nor were these the only fields in which noble service was
rendered to humanity by the women of our time. In the larger
associations of our cities, day after day, and year after year, women
served in summer's heat and winter's cold, at their desks, corresponding
with auxiliary aid societies, taking account of goods received for
sanitary supplies, re-packing and shipping them to the points where
they were needed, inditing and sending out circulars appealing for aid,
in work more prosaic but equally needful and patriotic with that
performed in the hospitals; and throughout every village and hamlet in
the country, women were toiling, contriving, submitting to privation,
performing unusual and severe labors, all for the soldiers. In the general
hospitals of the cities and larger towns, the labors of the special diet
kitchen, and of the hospital nurse were performed steadily, faithfully,
and uncomplainingly, though there also, ever and anon, some fair toiler
laid down her life in the service. There were many too in still other
fields of labor, who showed their love for their country; the faithful
women who, in the Philadelphia Refreshment Saloons, fed the hungry
soldier on his way to or from the battle-field, till in the aggregate, they
had dispensed nearly eight hundred thousand meals, and had cared for
thousands of sick and wounded; the matrons of the Soldiers' Homes,
Lodges, and Rests; the heroic souls who devoted themselves to the
noble work of raising a nation of bondmen to intelligence and freedom;
those who attempted the still more hopeless task of rousing the blunted
intellect and cultivating the moral nature of the degraded and abject
poor whites; and those who in circumstances of the greatest peril,
manifested their fearless and undying attachment to their country and
its flag; all these were entitled to a place in such a record. What wonder,

then, that, pursuing his self-appointed task assiduously, the writer
found it growing upon him; till the question came, not, who should be
inscribed in this roll, but who could be omitted, since it was evident no
single volume could do justice to all.
In the autumn of 1865, Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan, a skilful and practiced
writer, whose tastes and sympathies led her to take an interest in the
work, became associated with the writer in its preparation, and to her
zeal in collecting, and skill in arranging the materials obtained, many of
the interesting sketches of the volume are due. We have in the
prosecution of our work been constantly embarrassed, by the reluctance
of some who deserved a prominent place, to suffer anything to be
communicated concerning their labors; by the promises, often repeated
but never fulfilled, of others to furnish facts and incidents which they
alone could supply, and by the forwardness of a few, whose services
were of the least moment, in presenting their claims.
We have endeavored to exercise a wise and careful discrimination both
in avoiding the introduction of any name unworthy of a place in such a
record, and in giving the due meed of honor to those who have wrought
most earnestly and acceptably. We cannot hope that we have been
completely successful; the letters even now, daily received, render it
probable that there are some, as faithful and self-sacrificing as any of
those whose services we have recorded, of whom we have failed to
obtain information; and that some of those who entered upon their
work of mercy in the closing campaigns of the war, by their zeal and
earnestness, have won the right to a place. We have not, knowingly,
however, omitted the name of any faithful worker, of whom we could
obtain information, and we feel assured that our record is far more full
and complete, than any other which has been, or is likely to be prepared,
and that the number of prominent and active laborers in the national
cause who have escaped our notice is comparatively small.
We take pleasure in acknowledging our obligations to Rev. Dr. Bellows,
President of the United States Sanitary Commission, for many services
and much valuable information; to Honorable James E. Yeatman, the
President of the Western Sanitary Commission, to Rev. J. G. Forman,

late Secretary of that Commission, and now Secretary of the Unitarian
Association, and his accomplished wife, both of whom were
indefatigable in their efforts to obtain facts relative to western ladies; to