as well as military complications. They felt all the impulses of home
strengthening their arms and encouraging their hearts. And their letters
home, as a rule, were designed to put the best face upon things, and to
encourage their wives and sweet-hearts, their sisters and parents, to
bear their absence with fortitude, and even with cheerfulness.

The influence on the tone of their correspondence, exerted by the fact
that the women were always working for the Army, and that the soldiers
always knew they were working, and were always receiving evidence of
their care, may be better imagined than described. It largely ministered
to that sympathetic unity between the soldiers and the country, which
made our army always a corrective and an inspiration to our Governmental
policy, and kept up that fine reciprocal influence between civil and
military life, which gave an heroic fibre to all souls at home, and
finally restored us our soldiers with their citizen hearts beating
regularly under their uniforms, as they dropped them off at the last
drum-tap.

H. W. B.

WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Patriotism in some form, an attribute of woman in all nations and
climes--Its modes of manifestation--Paeans for victory--Lamentations
for the death of a heroic leader--Personal leadership by women--The
assassination of tyrants--The care of the sick and wounded of
national armies--The hospitals established by the Empress Helena--
The Beguines and their successors--The cantinieres, vivandieres,
etc.--Other modes in which women manifested their patriotism--
Florence Nightingale and her labors--The results--The awakening of
patriotic zeal among American women at the opening of the war--The
organization of philanthropic effort--Hospital nurses--Miss Dix's
rejection of great numbers of applicants on account of youth--Hired
nurses--Their services generally prompted by patriotism rather than
pay--The State relief agents (ladies) at Washington--The hospital
transport system of the Sanitary Commission--Mrs. Harris's, Miss
Barton's, Mrs. Fales', Miss Gilson's, and other ladies' services at
the front during the battles of 1862--Services of other ladies at
Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg--The Field Relief of the Sanitary
Commission, and services of ladies in the later battles--Voluntary
services of women in the armies in the field