Womans Work in the Civil War | Page 8

in connection with it--The tour of inspection at the Annapolis
hospitals--Letters to the Sanitary Commission--Condition of the
returned prisoners--Their hunger--The St. John's College
Hospital--Admirable arrangement--Camp Parole Hospital-- The Naval
Academy Hospital--The landing of the prisoners--Their frightful
sufferings--She compiles "The Soldiers' Friend" of which more than a
hundred thousand copies were circulated--Her efforts for the freedmen.
362-372

MRS. ANNIE WITTENMEYER.
Early efforts for the soldiers--She urges the organization of Aid
Societies, and these become auxiliary at first to the Keokuk Aid Society,
which she was active in establishing--The Iowa State Sanitary
Commission--Mrs. Wittenmeyer becomes its agent--Her active efforts
for the soldiers--She disburses one hundred and thirty-six thousand
dollars worth of goods and supplies in about two years and a-half--She
aids in the establishment of the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home--Her
plan of special diet kitchens--The Christian Commission appoint her
their agent for carrying out this plan--Her labors in their establishment
in connection with large hospitals--Special order of the War
Department-- The estimate of her services by the Christian
Commission. 373-378
MELCENIA ELLIOTT. By Rev. J. G. Forman.
Previous pursuits--In the hospitals in Tennessee in the summer and
autumn of 1862--A remarkably skilful nurse--Services at
Memphis--The Iowa soldier--She scales the fence to watch over him
and minister to his needs, and at his death conveys his body to his
friends, overcoming all difficulties to do so--In the Benton Barracks
Hospital--Volunteers to nurse the patients in the erysipelas
ward--Matron of the Refugee Home at St. Louis--"The poor white
trash"--Matron of Soldiers' Orphans' Home at Farmington, Iowa.
379-383
MARY DWIGHT PETTES. By Rev. J. G. Forman.
A native of Boston--Came to St. Louis in 1861, and entered upon
hospital work in January, 1862--Her faithful earnest work--Labors for
the spiritual as well as physical welfare of the soldiers, reading the
Scriptures to them, singing to them, etc.--Attachment of the soldiers to
her--She is seized with typhoid fever contracted in her care for her
patients, and dies after five weeks' illness--Dr. Eliot's impressions of
her character. 384-388
LOUISA MAERTZ. By Rev. J. G. Forman.

Her birth and parentage--Her residence in Germany and
Switzerland--Her fondness for study--Her extraordinary sympathy and
benevolence--She commences visiting the hospitals in her native city,
Quincy, Illinois, in the autumn of 1861--She takes some of the
wounded home to her father's house and ministers to them there--She
goes to St. Louis--Is commissioned as a nurse--Sent to Helena, then full
of wounded from the battles in Arkansas--Her severe labors
here--Almost the only woman nurse in the hospitals there--"God bless
you, dear lady"--The Arkansas Union soldier--The half-blind
widow--Miss Maertz at Vicksburg--At New Orleans. 390-394
MRS. HARRIET R. COLFAX.
Early life--A widow and fatherless--Her first labors in the hospitals in
St. Louis--Her sympathies never blunted--The sudden death of a
soldier-- Her religious labors among the patients--Dr. Paddock's
testimony--The wounded from Fort Donelson--On the hospital boat--In
the battle at Island No. Ten--Bringing back the wounded--Mrs. Colfax's
care of them-- Trips to Pittsburg Landing, before and after the battle of
Shiloh--Heavy and protracted labor for the nurses--Return to St.
Louis--At the Fifth Street Hospital--At Jefferson Barracks--Her
associates--Obliged to retire from the service on account of her health
in 1864. 395-399
CLARA DAVIS.
Miss Davis not a native of this country--Her services at the Broad and
Cherry Street Hospital, Philadelphia--One of the Hospital Transport
corps--The steamer "John Brooks"--Mile Creek Hospital--Mrs.
Husband's account of her--At Frederick City, Harper's Ferry, and
Antietam--Agent of the Sanitary Commission at Camp Parole,
Annapolis, Maryland--Is seized with typhoid fever here--When
partially recovered, she resumes her labors, but is again attacked and
compelled to withdraw from her work--Her other labors for the soldiers,
both sick and well--Obtaining furloughs--Sending home the bodies of
dead soldiers--Providing head-boards for the soldiers' graves. 400-403
MRS. R. H. SPENCER.

Her home in Oswego, New York--Teaching--An anti-war Democrat is
convinced of his duty to become a soldier, though too old for the
draft--Husband and wife go together--At the Soldiers' Rest in
Washington--Her first work--Matron of the hospital--At Wind-Mill
Point--Matron in the First Corps Hospital--Foraging for the sick and
wounded--The march toward Gettysburg--A heavily laden
horse--Giving up her last blanket--Chivalric instincts of American
soldiers--Labors during the battle of Gettysburg--Under fire--Field
Hospital of the Eleventh Corps--The hospital at White
Church--Incessant labors--Saving a soldier's life--"Can you go without
food for a week?"--The basin of broth--Mrs. Spencer appointed agent
of the State of New York for the care of the sick and wounded soldiers
in the field--At Brandy Station--At Rappahannock Station and Belle
Plain after the battle of the Wilderness--Virginia mud--Working
alone--Heavy rain and no shelter--Working on at Belle Plain--"Nothing
to wear"--Port Royal--White House--Feeding the wounded--Arrives at
City Point--The hospitals and the Government kitchen--At the
front--Carrying supplies to the men in the rifle pits--Fired at by a
sharpshooter--Shelled by the enemy--The great explosion at City
Point--Her narrow escape--Remains at City Point till the hospitals are
broken up--The gifts received from