at the West--Services
in the hospitals, of garrisons and fortified towns--Soldiers' homes
and lodges, and their matrons--Homes for Refugees--Instruction of
the Freedmen--Refreshment Saloons at Philadelphia--Regular visiting
of hospitals in the large cities--The Soldiers' Aid Societies, and
their mode of operation--The extraordinary labors of the managers of
the Branch Societies--Government clothing contracts--Mrs. Springer,
Miss Wormeley and Miss Gilson--The managers of the local Soldiers'
Aid Societies--The sacrifices made by the poor to contribute
supplies--Examples--The labors of the young and the old--
Inscriptions on articles--The poor seamstress--Five hundred bushels
of wheat--The five dollar gold piece--The army of martyrs--The
effect of this female patriotism in stimulating the courage of the
soldiers--Lack of persistence in this work among the Women of the
South--Present and future--Effect of patriotism and self-sacrifice
in elevating and ennobling the female character.

An intense and passionate love of country, holding, for the time, all
other ties in abeyance, has been a not uncommon trait of character among
women of all countries and climes, throughout the ages of human history.
In the nomadic races it assumed the form of attachment to the
patriarchal rules and chiefs of the tribe; in the more savage of the
localized nations, it was reverence for the ruler, coupled with a filial
regard for the resting-places and graves of their ancestors.

But in the more highly organized and civilized countries, it was the
institutions of the nation, its religion, its sacred traditions, its
history, as well as its kings, its military leaders, and its priests,
that were the objects of the deep and intense patriotic devotion of its
noblest and most gifted women.

The manifestations of this patriotic zeal were diverse in different
countries, and at different periods in the same country. At one time it
contented itself with triumphal paeans and dances over victories won by
the nation's armies, as in the case of Miriam and the maidens of Israel
at the destruction of the Egyptians at the Red Sea, or the victories of
the armies led by David against the Philistines; or in the most
heart-rending lamentations over the fall of the nation's heroes on the
field of battle, as in the mourning of the Trojan maidens over the death
of Hector; at other times, some brave and hero