n Chicago in September,
1863, and June, 1865.

The Wisconsin Soldiers' Home, at Milwaukee, connected with the Wisconsin
Aid Society, was an institution of great importance during the war. Its
necessity has not passed away, and will not for many years. The ladies
who originated and sustained it were indefatigable in their labors, and
the benevolent public gave them their heartiest sanction. It gave
thousands of soldiers a place of entertainment as they passed through
the city to and from the army, and thus promoted their comfort and good
morals. The sick and wounded were there tenderly nursed; the dying
stranger there had friends.

During the year ending April 15, 1865, four thousand eight hundred and
forty-two soldiers there received free entertainment, and the total
number of meals served in the year was seventeen thousand four hundred
and fifty-six, an average of forty-eight daily. These soldiers
represented twenty different States, two thousand and ninety belonging
in Wisconsin. A fair in 1865 realized upwards of one hundred thousand
dollars, which is to be expended on a permanent Soldiers' Home, one of
the three National Soldiers' Homes having been located at Milwaukee, and
the Wisconsin Soldiers' Home being the nucleus of it.

[Illustration: MRS. HENRIETTA L. COLT.
Eng^d. by A.H. Ritchie.]

Mrs. Colt was so efficient a worker for the soldiers, that a brief
sketch of her labors, prepared by a personal friend, will be appropriate
in this connection.

MRS. HENRIETTA L. COLT, was born March 16th, 1812, in Rensselaerville,
Albany County, New York. Her maiden name was Peckham. She was educated
in a seminary at Albany, and was married in 1830, to Joseph S. Colt,
Esq., a man well known throughout the State, as an accomplished
Christian gentleman. Mr. Colt was a member of the Albany bar, and
practiced his profession there until 1853, when he removed to Milwaukee.
After three years' residence there he returned to New York, where he
died, leaving an honored name and a precious memory among men.

The death of Mr. Colt brought to his widow a sad experience. In a letter
to the writer, she expresses the deep sense of her loss, and the effect
it had in preparing her for that devotion to the cause of her country,
which, during the late rebellion, has led her to leave the comforts and
refinements of her home to minister to the soldiers of the Union, in
hospitals, to labor in the work of the Wisconsin Soldiers' Aid Society,