at No. 198 Broadway, and Dr. Everett Herrick,
was appointed its resident Surgeon, and Mrs. E. A. Russell, its Matron.
The Home was a hospital as well as a home, and in its second floor
accommodated a very considerable number of patients. Its Matron was
faithful and indefatigable in her performance of her duties, and in the
three years of her service had under her care more than sixty thousand
soldiers, many of them wounded or disabled.
A Women's Auxiliary Committee was formed soon after the establishment of
the Association, consisting of thirty ladies who took their turn of
service as nurses for the sick and wounded through the year, and
provided for them additional luxuries and delicacies to those furnished
by the Association and the Government rations. These ladies, the wives
and daughters of eminent merchants, clergymen, physicians, and lawyers
of the city, performed their work with great faithfulness and assiduity.
The care of the sick and wounded men during the night, devolved upon the
Night Watchers' Association, a voluntary committee of young men of the
highest character, who during a period of three years never failed to
supply the needful watchers for the invalid soldiers.
The ladies in addition to their services as nurses, took part in a choir
for the Sabbath services, in which all the exercises were by volunteers.
The Soldiers' Depot in Howard Street, New York, organized in 1863, was
an institution of somewhat similar character to the New England
Soldiers' Relief, though it recognized a primary responsibility to New
York soldiers. It was founded and sustained mainly by State
appropriations, and a very earnest and faithful association of ladies,
here also bestowed their care and services upon the soldiers. Mrs. G. T.
M. Davis, was active and prominent in this organization.
PART IV.
LADIES DISTINGUISHED FOR SERVICES AMONG THE FREEDMEN AND REFUGEES.
MRS. FRANCES D. GAGE.
On the 12th of October, 1808, was born in the township of Union,
Washington County, Ohio, Frances Dana Barker. Her father had, twenty
years before that time, gone a pioneer to the Western wilds. His name
was Joseph Barker, a native of New Hampshire. Her mother was Elizabeth
Dana, of Massachusetts, and her maternal grandmother was Mary Bancroft.
She was thus allied on the maternal side to the well-known Massachusetts
families of Dana and Bancroft.
During her childhood, schools were scarce in Ohio, and in the small
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