r its Alert Club, or both. Though plain and _petite_ in
person, she possessed a rare power of influencing those whom she
addressed, and never failed to inspire them with the resolution to do
all in their power for the country. At a later period the laborious
duties of the home office of the society required her constant
attention.

Miss Mary Clark Brayton, the secretary of the society, is a young lady
of wealth, high social position and accomplished education, but of
gentle and modest disposition. Since the spring of 1861, she has
isolated herself from society, and the pleasures of intellectual
pursuits, and has given her whole time and thoughts to the one work of
caring for the welfare of the soldiers. From early morning till evening,
and sometimes far into the night, she has toiled in the rooms of the
society, or elsewhere, superintending the receiving or despatch of
supplies, conducting the immense correspondence of the society,
preparing, setting up and printing its weekly bulletins, or writing the
two columns weekly of matter for the Cleveland papers, on topics
connected with the society's work, now in her turn superintending and
purchasing supplies for the Soldiers' Home, looking out a place for some
partially disabled soldier, or supplying the wants of his family;
occasionally, though at rare intervals, varying her labors by a journey
to the front, or a temporary distribution of supplies at some general
hospital at Nashville, Huntsville, Bridgeport or Chattanooga, and then,
having ascertained by personal inspection what was most necessary for
the comfort and health of the army, returning to her work, and by
eloquent and admirable appeals to the auxiliaries, and to her personal
friends in Cleveland, securing and forwarding the necessary supplies so
promptly, that as the officers of the Commission at Louisville said, it
seemed as if she could hardly have reached Cleveland, before the
supplies began to flow in at the Commission's warehouses at Louisville.
Miss Brayton possesses business ability sufficient to have conducted the
enterprises of a large mercantile establishment, and the complete system
and order displayed in her transaction of business would have done honor
to any mercantile house in the world. Her untiring energy repeatedly
impaired her health, but she has never laid down her work, and has no
disposition to do so, while there is an opportunity of serving the
defenders of her country.

Miss Ellen F. T