eously pressing. There was a strong call for
the coming "council" of friends.

There were hindrances and delays. Delay at starting, in taking a
regiment on board the cars, necessitating other delays, and waiting for
trains on time through the whole distance.

The days spent in Washington were filled with good deeds, and a thousand
incidents all connected in some way with the great work. Of the results
of that council, the public was long since informed, and few who were
interested in the work, did not learn to appreciate the more earnest
labor, the greater sacrifice and self-devotion which soon spread from it
through the country. Spirits, self-consecrated to so holy a work, could
scarcely meet without the kindling of a flame that should spread all
over the country, till every tender woman's heart, in all the land, had
been touched by it, to the accomplishment of greater and brighter deeds.

While in Washington, Mrs. Livermore spent a day at the camp near
Alexandria, set apart for convalescents from the hospitals, and known as
"Camp Misery." The suffering there, as we have already stated in the
sketch of Miss Amy M. Bradley's labors, was terrible from insufficient
food, clothing and fuel, from want of drainage, and many other causes,
any one of which might well have proved fatal to the feeble sufferers
there crowded together. The pen of Mrs. Livermore carried the story of
these wrongs all around the land. While she was in Washington, eighteen
half sick soldiers died at the camp in one night, from cold and
starvation. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," and
the blood of these soaking into the soil where dwelt patriotic,
warm-souled men and women, presently produced a noble growth and
fruitage of charity, and sacrifice, and blessed deeds.

Mrs. Livermore has given her impressions of the President, gained from a
visit made to the White House during this stay. She was one capable
fully of appreciating the noble, simple, yet lofty nature of Abraham
Lincoln.

Early in this year, Mrs. Livermore made a tour of the hospitals and
military posts scattered along the Mississippi river. She was everywhere
a messenger of good tidings. Sanitary supplies and cheering words seem
to have been always about equally appreciated among the troops.
Volunteers, fresh from home, and the quiet comfort of domestic life,
willing to fight, and if need be die for the glorious idea of freedom,
they yet had no thought of war as a p