d and fellow-laborer, Mrs. M. A. Livermore,
of Chicago. After the return of these ladies they immediately commenced
the organization of the Northwest for sanitary labor, being appointed
agents of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission, and devoting their
entire time to this work.

They opened a correspondence with leading women in all the cities and
prominent towns of the Northwest. They prepared and circulated great
numbers of circulars, relating to the mode and necessity of the
concentrated efforts of the Aid Societies, and they visited in person
very many towns and large villages, calling together audiences of women,
and telling them of the hardships, sufferings and heroism of the
soldiers, which they had themselves witnessed, and the pressing needs of
these men, which were to be met by the supplies contributed by, and the
work of loyal women of the North. They thus stimulated the enthusiasm of
the women to the highest point, greatly increased the number of Aid
Societies, and taught them how, by systematizing their efforts, they
could render the largest amount of assistance, as well as the most
important, to the objects of the Sanitary Commission.

The eloquence and pathos of these appeals has never been surpassed; and
it is no matter of wonder that they should have opened the hearts and
purses of so many thousands of the listeners. "But for these noble
warriors," Mrs. Hoge would say, "who have stood a living wall between us
and destruction, where would have been our schools, our colleges, our
churches, our property, our government, our lives? Southern soil has
been watered with their blood, the Mississippi fringed with their
graves, measured by acres instead of numbers. The shadow of death has
passed over almost every household, and left desolate hearth-stones and
vacant chairs. Thousands of mothers, wives and sisters at home have died
and made no sign, while their loved ones have been hidden in Southern
hospitals, prisons and graves--the separation, thank God, is short, the
union eternal. I have only a simple story of these martyred heroes to
tell you. I have been privileged to visit a hundred thousand of them in
hospitals; meekly and cheerfully lying _there_, that you and I may be
enabled to meet _here_, in peace and comfort to-day.

"Could I, by the touch of a magician's wand, pass before you in solemn
review, this army of sufferers, you would say a tithe cannot be told."

And then with simple and effective path