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MRS. R. M. BIGELOW.

In the ordinary acceptation of the term, Mrs. Bigelow has not been
connected with Soldiers' Homes either in Washington or elsewhere; yet
there are few if any ladies in the country who have taken so many sick
or wounded soldiers to their own houses, and have made them _at home_
there, as she. To hundreds, if not thousands, of the soldiers of the
Army of the Potomac, the name of "Aunty Bigelow," the title by which she
was universally known among the sick and wounded soldiers, is as
carefully, and quite as gratefully cherished as the name of their
commanders. Mrs. Bigelow is a native of Washington, in which city she
has always resided. She was never able, in consequence of her family
duties, to devote herself exclusively to hospital work, but was among
the first to respond to the call for friendly aid to the sick soldier.
She was, in 1861, a daily visitor to the Indiana Hospital in the Patent
Office Building, coming at such hours as she could spare from her home
duties; and she was always welcome, for no one was more skillful as a
nurse than she, or could cheer and comfort the sick better. When she
could not come, she sent such delicacies as would tempt the appetite of
the invalid to the hospital. Many a soldier remembers to this day the
hot cakes, or the mush and milk, or the custard which came from Aunty
Bigelow's, on purpose for him, and always exactly at the right time.
Mrs. R. K. Billing, a near relative of Mrs. Bigelow, and the mother of
that Miss Rose M. Billing whose patriotic labors ended only with her
life--a life freely sacrificed for the relief of our poor returned
prisoners from Andersonville, as related in our sketch of the Annapolis
Hospital Corps,--was the co-laborer of her kinswoman in these labors of
love. Both were indefatigable in their labors for the sick soldiers;
both knew how to make "that bread which tasted exactly like mother's" to
the convalescent soldier, whose feeble appetite was not easily tempted;
and both opened their houses, as well as their hearts to these poor
suffering invalids, and many is the soldier who could and did say: "I
don't know what would have become of me if I had not met with such good
friends."

Mrs. Bigelow became, ere long, the almoner of the bounty of many Aid
Societies at the North, and vast quantities of supplies passed through
her hands, to the patients of the hospitals; and they were always
judiciously distributed. She not only kept