ng so long a period, we
are astonished at learning that her health was never seriously injured,
and that she was able to perform all her duties with comfort, and
without yielding to fatigue.
In addition to these labors, she devoted much time and personal
attention to such sick and wounded soldiers as fell in her way cheered
and aided many a raw recruit, faltering on the threshhold of his new and
dangerous career. Twice, at least, in each year, she herself proceeded
to the hospitals at New York, or some other point, herself the bearer of
the bounties she had arranged, and in some years she made more frequent
visits.
Early in her efforts, she joined hands with Mrs. Col. G. T. M. Davis,
of New York, (herself a native of Pittsfield, and a sister of Robert
Pomeroy, Esq., of that place), in the large and abundant efforts of that
lady, for the welfare of the sick and wounded soldiers. Mrs. Davis was a
member of the Park Barracks' Ladies' Aid Society, and through her a
large part of the bounty of Berkshire was directed in that channel. The
sick and weary, and fainting men at the Barracks, at the New England
Rooms, and Bedloe's Island, were principally aided by this Association,
which were not long in discovering the great value of the nicely
selected, arranged and packed articles contained in the boxes which had
passed through the hands of Mrs. Fenn, and came from Pittsfield.
But the ladies of this Association, were desirous of concentrating all
their efforts upon the sufferers who had reached New York, while Mrs.
Fenn, and her associates in Berkshire, desired to place no bound or
limit to their divine charity. The soldiers of the whole army were their
soldiers, and all had equal wants, and equal rights. Thus they often
answered individual appeals from a variety of sources, and their
supplies often helped to fit out expeditions, and were sent to Sherman's
and Grant's, and Burnside's forces--to Annapolis, to Alexandria, to the
Andersonville and Libby prisoners, and wherever the cry for help seemed
most importunate.
Among other things, Mrs. Fenn organized a plan for giving refreshments
to the weary soldiers, who from time to time passed through Pittsfield.
A signal gun would be fired when a transport-train reached the station
at Richmond, ten miles distant, and the ladies would hasten to prepare
the palatable lunch and cooling drink, against the arrival of the
wearied men, and to distribute them with their own hands.
I
|