th children and adults were
taught not only elementary studies but housework, cooking and laundry
work; the women were paid moderate wages with which to clothe themselves
and their children, and were taught some of the first lessons of a
better civilization. In the superintendence of this good work, Mrs.
Alfred Clapp, the President of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, Mrs.
Joseph Crawshaw, an active member of that Society, Mrs. Lucien Eaton,
the President of the Ladies' Freedmen's Association, and Mrs. N.
Stevens, one of the managers of that Society, were assiduous and
faithful.

There were great numbers of other ladies equally efficient in the
Freedmen's Schools and Homes in the Atlantic States, but their work was
mainly under the direction of the Freedmen's Relief, and subsequently of
the American Union Commission, and it is not easy to obtain from them
accounts of the labors of particular individuals. The record of the
women who have labored faithfully, and not a few of them to the loss of
their health or lives in work which was in some respects even more
repulsive to the natural sensibilities than that in the hospitals, if
smaller in numbers, is not less honorable than that of their sisters in
the hospitals.

PART V.

LADIES DISTINGUISHED FOR SERVICES IN SOLDIERS' HOMES, VOLUNTEER
REFRESHMENT SALOONS, ON GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL TRANSPORTS, ETC.

MRS. O. E. HOSMER.

At the opening of the late war, the subject of this sketch, Mrs. O. E.
Hosmer, was residing with her family in Chicago, Illinois. Hers was by
no means a vague patriotism that contented itself with verbal
expressions of sympathy for her country's cause and defenders. She
believed that she had sacrifices to make, and work to do, and could hope
for no enjoyment, or even comfort, amidst the luxuries of home, while
thousands to whom these things were as dear as to herself, had
resolutely turned away from them, willing to perish themselves, if the
national life might be preserved.

Her first sacrifice was that of two of her sons, whom she gave to the
service of the country in the army. Then, to use her own words, "feeling
a burning desire to aid personally in the work, I did not wait to hear
of sufferings I have since so often witnessed, but determined, as God
had given me health and a good husband to provide for me, to go forth as
a volunteer and do whatever my hands found to do." Few perhaps will ever
know to the full extent, how much the soldi