paper,
she removed it to Washington, D. C., where its publication was for some
time continued. It was then transferred to New York.

The National Banner did not meet with all the success, its patriotic
object and its real literary excellence, demanded. During the last year
of the war it was not published with complete regularity, owing to this
cause, and to the lack of pecuniary means. But it was undoubtedly the
means of doing a great deal of good. Among other things it kept
constantly before the people the great object into which Miss Baker had
now entered with all the ardor and the persistence of her nature.

This object was the founding of a National Home for totally disabled
volunteers of the Union service, and included all who had in their
devotion to the cause of the nation become incompetent to provide for
their own wants or those of their families.

For years, with a devotion seldom equalled, and a self-sacrifice almost
unparalleled, Miss Baker gave herself to this work. She wrote, she
travelled, she enlisted the aid of her numerous friends, she importuned
the Executive, Heads of Departments, and members of Congress. She gave
herself no rest, she flinched at no privations. She apparently existed
by the sheer necessity of living for her object, and in almost total
self-abnegation she encountered opposition, paralyzing delays, false
promises, made only to be broken, and hypocritical advice, intended only
to mislead.

Hopeful, unsubdued, unchanged, she at last saw herself nearing success.
The session of 1865 was drawing to a close, and repeated promises of
reporting the bill for the establishment of the Asylum had been broken.
But at length her almost agonized pleadings had their effect. Three days
before the adjournment of Congress Hon. Henry Wilson, chairman of the
Committee on Military Affairs, in the Senate introduced the bill. It
provided for the establishment of a National Military and Naval Asylum
for the totally disabled of both branches of the service.

In the confusion and hurry of the closing scenes of the session the bill
did not probably meet the attention it would have done under other
circumstances. But it was well received, passed by a large vote of both
houses, was sanctioned by the signature of President Lincoln, and became
a law before the adjournment of Congress.

The bill appointed one hundred corporators who were to organize and
assume the powers granted them under its provisions, for th