rofession. It was a sad, stern
incident in their lives, but not the life they longed for, or meant to
follow. Anything that was like home, the sight of a woman's face, or the
sound of her voice, and all the sordid hardness of their present lives,
all the martial pageantry faded away, and they remembered only that they
were sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. Everywhere her reception was
a kind, a respectful, and even a grateful one.

There was much sickness among the troops, and the fearful ravages of
scurvy and the deadly malaria of the swamps and bottom-lands along the
great river were enemies far more to be dreaded than the thunder of
artillery, or the hurtling shells.

During this trip she found in the hospitals, at St. Louis, and
elsewhere, large numbers of female nurses, and ladies who had
volunteered to perform these services temporarily. The surgeons were at
that time, almost without exception, opposed to their being employed in
the hospitals, though their services were afterwards, as the need
increased, greatly desired and warmly welcomed. For these she soon
succeeded in finding opportunities for rendering the service which they
desired to the sick and wounded.

Were it possible in the space allowed for this sketch, to give a tithe
of the incidents which came under the eyes of Mrs. Livermore, or even a
small portion of her observations in steamer, train, or hospital, some
idea of the magnitude and importance of her work might be gained. But
this we cannot do, and must content ourselves with this partial allusion
to her constant and indefatigable labors.

The premonitory symptoms of scurvy in the camps around Vicksburg, and
its actual existence in many cases in the hospitals, so aroused the
sympathies of Mrs. Livermore and Mrs. Hoge, on a second visit to these
camps, that after warning General Grant of the danger which his medical
directors had previously concealed from him, these two ladies hastened
up the river, and by their earnest appeals and their stirring and
eloquent circulars asking for onions, potatoes, and other vegetables,
they soon awakened such an interest, that within three weeks, over a
thousand bushels of potatoes and onions were forwarded to the army, and
by their timely distribution saved it from imminent peril.

In the autumn of 1863, the great Northwestern Sanitary Fair, the first
of that series of similar fairs which united the North in a bond of
large and wide-spread charity, occurre