showed them to be in some
degree the products and representatives of a new social era, and a new
political development.

The distinctive features in woman's work in this war, were magnitude,
system, thorough co-operativeness with the other sex, distinctness of
purpose, business-like thoroughness in details, sturdy persistency to
the close. There was no more general rising among the men, than among
the women. Men did not take to the musket, more commonly than women took
to the needle; and for every assembly where men met for mutual
excitation in the service of the country, there was some corresponding
gathering of women, to stir each other's hearts and fingers in the same
sacred cause. All the caucuses and political assemblies of every kind,
in which speech and song quickened the blood of the men, did not exceed
in number the meetings, in the form of Soldiers' Aid Societies, and
Sewing Circles, which the women held, where they talked over the
national cause, and fed the fires of sacrifice in each other's hearts.
Probably never in any war in any country, was there so universal and so
specific an acquaintance on the part of both men and women, with the
principles at issue, and the interests at stake. And of the two, the
women were clearer and more united than the men, because their moral
feelings and political instincts were not so much affected by
selfishness and business, or party considerations. The work which our
system of popular education does for girls and boys alike, and which in
the middle and upper classes practically goes further with girls than
with boys, told magnificently at this crisis. Everywhere, well educated
women were found fully able to understand and explain to their sisters,
the public questions involved in the war. Everywhere the newspapers,
crowded with interest and with discussions, found eager and appreciative
readers among the gentler sex. Everywhere started up women acquainted
with the order of public business; able to call, and preside over public
meetings of their own sex; act as secretaries and committees, draft
constitutions and bye-laws, open books, and keep accounts with adequate
precision, appreciate system, and postpone private inclinations or
preferences to general principles; enter into extensive correspondence
with their own sex: co-operate in the largest and most rational plans
proposed by men who had studied carefully the subject of soldiers'
relief, and adhere through good report