haired women of the North encouraged
their heroes to deeds of valor, and at times, ministered in their rude
way to their wounds. The monks, at their monasteries, rendered some care
and aid to the wounded in return for their exemption from plunder and
rapine, and in the ninth century, an order of women consecrated to the
work, the Beguines, predecessors of the modern Sisters of Charity, was
established "to minister to the sick and wounded of the armies which
then, and for centuries afterward, scarred the face of continental
Europe with battle-fields." With the Beguines, however, and their
successors, patriotism was not so much the controlling motive of action,
as the attainment of merit by those deeds of charity and self-sacrifice.

In the wars of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and the early part of the
nineteenth century, while the hospitals had a moderate share of fair
ministrants, chiefly of the religious orders, the only female service on
the battle-field or in the camp, often the scene of fatal epidemics, was
that of the _cantinieres_, _vivandieres_, _filles du regiment_, and
other camp followers, who, at some risk of reputation, accompanied the
armies in their march, and brought to the wounded and often dying
soldier, on the field of battle, the draught of water which quenched his
raging thirst, or the cordial, which sustained his fast ebbing strength
till relief could come. Humble of origin, and little circumspect in
morals as many of these women were, they are yet deserving of credit for
the courage and patriotism which led them to brave all the horrors of
death, to relieve the suffering of the wounded of the regiments to which
they were attached. Up to the period of the Crimean war in 1854, though
there had been much that was praiseworthy in the manifestations of
female patriotism in connection with the movements of great armies,
there had never been any systematic ministration, prompted by patriotic
devotion, to the relief of the suffering sick and wounded of those
armies.

There were yet other modes, however, in which the women of ancient and
modern times manifested their love of their country. The Spartan mother,
who, without a tear, presented her sons with their shields, with the
stern injunction to return with them, or upon them, that is, with honor
untarnished, or dead,--the fair dames and maidens of Carthage, who
divested themselves of their beautiful tresses, to furnish bowstrings
for their soldiers,--the