r country should receive its honors and its heartfelt
thanks.

MICHIGAN SOLDIERS' AID SOCIETY

Few of the States of the Northwest, patriotic as they all were, present
as noble a record as Michigan. Isolated by its position from any
immediate peril from the rebel forces, (unless we reckon their
threatened raids from Canada, in the last year of the War), its loyal
and Union-loving citizens volunteered with a promptness, and fought with
a courage surpassed by no troops in the Armies of the Republic. They
were sustained in their patriotic sacrifices by an admirable home
influence. The successive Governors of the State, during the war, its
Senators and Representatives in Congress, and its prominent citizens at
home, all contributed their full share toward keeping up the fervor of
the brave soldiers in the field. Nor were the women of the State
inferior to the other sex in zeal and self-sacrifice. The services of
Mrs. Annie Etheridge, and of Bridget Divers, as nurses in the
field-hospitals, and under fire are elsewhere recorded in this volume.
Others were equally faithful and zealous, who will permit no account of
their labors of love to be given to the public. There were from an early
period of the war two organizations in the State, which together with
the Northwestern Sanitary Commission, received and forwarded the
supplies contributed throughout the State for the soldiers to the great
depots of distribution at Louisville, St. Louis, and New York. These
were "The Soldiers' Relief Committee," and the Soldiers' Aid Society of
Detroit. There were also State agencies at Washington and New York, well
managed, and which rendered early in the war great services to the
Michigan troops. The Soldiers' Aid Society of Detroit, though acting
informally previously, was formally organized in November, 1862, with
Mrs. John Palmer, as President, and Miss Valeria Campbell, as
Corresponding Secretary. In the summer of 1863, the Society changed its
name to "The Michigan Soldiers' Aid Society," and the Soldiers' Relief
Committee, having been merged in it, became the Michigan Branch of the
Sanitary Commission, and addressed itself earnestly to the work of
collecting and increasing the supplies gathered in all parts of the
State, and sending them to the depots of the Commission at Louisville
and New York, or directly to the front when necessary. At the time of
this change, Hon. John Owen, one of the Associate members of the
Sanitary Co