n or the Refugees or both.

All these organizations employed or supported teachers, an all worked in
remarkable harmony. At Vicksburg the Western Sanitary Commission sent,
in the spring of 1864, Miss G. D. Chapman of Exeter, Maine, to take
charge of a school for the children of Refugees, of whom there were
large numbers there. Miss Chapman served very faithfully for some
months, and then was compelled by her failing health, to return home.
The Commission then appointed Miss Sarah E. M. Lovejoy, daughter of Hon.
Owen Lovejoy, to take charge of the school. It soon became one of the
largest in the South, and was conducted with great ability by Miss
Lovejoy till the close of the War.

The National Freedmen's Relief Association had, at the same time, a
school for Freedmen and the children of Freedmen there, and Miss Mary E.
Sheffield, a most faithful and accomplished teacher from Norwich,
Connecticut, was in charge of it. The climate, the Rebel prejudices and
the indifference or covert opposition to the school of those from whom
better things might have been expected, made the position one of great
difficulty and responsibility; but Miss Sheffield was fully equal to the
work, and continued in it with great usefulness until late in May, 1865,
when finding herself seriously ill she attempted to return North, but on
reaching Memphis was too ill to proceed farther, and died there on the
5th of June, 1865, a martyr to her faithfulness and zeal.

In Helena, a Refugee Home was established by the Western Sanitary
Commission, and Mrs. Sarah Coombs, a benevolent and excellent lady of
that town, placed in charge of it. At Nashville, Tennessee, the
Nashville Refugee Relief Society, under the management of Mrs. Mary R.
Fogg, established a Refugees' Home which was aided by the Western
Sanitary Commission, the Philadelphia ladies, and other associations. At
Little Rock, Arkansas, was another Home which did good service. But the
most extensive institution of this description, was the Refugee and
Freedmen's Home at St. Louis, occupying the Lawson Hospital in that
city, and established by the Western Sanitary Commission with the
co-operation of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, and the Ladies'
Freedmen's Relief Association. Mrs. H. M. Weed was its efficient matron,
and was supported by a staff of six or seven assistants and teachers.
Over three thousand Refugees were received and aided here in the six
months from February to July, 1865, and bo