ceased, a delegation of ladies connected with the Sanitary
Commission toiled most faithfully to alleviate the horrors of war. In
the subsequent battles of the Army of the Potomac, the Field Relief
Corps of the Sanitary Commission with its numerous male and female
collaborators, after, or at the time of all the great battles, the
ladies connected with the Christian Commission and a number of efficient
independent workers, did all in their power to relieve the constantly
swelling tide of human suffering, especially during that period of less
than ninety days, when more than ninety thousand men, wounded, dying, or
dead, covered the battle-fields with their gore.

In the West, after the battle of Shiloh, and the subsequent engagements
of Buell's campaign, women of the highest social position visited the
battle-field, and encountered its horrors, to minister to those who were
suffering, and bring them relief. Among these, the names of Mrs. Martha
A. Wallace, the widow of General W. H. L. Wallace, who fell in the
battle of Shiloh; of Mrs. Harvey, the widow of Governor Louis Harvey of
Wisconsin, who was drowned while on a mission of philanthropy to the
Wisconsin soldiers wounded at Shiloh; and the sainted Margaret E.
Breckinridge of St. Louis, will be readily recalled. During Grant's
Vicksburg campaign, as well as after Rosecrans' battles of Stone River
and Chickamauga, there were many of these heroic women who braved all
discomforts and difficulties to bring healing and comfort to the gallant
soldiers who had fallen on the field. Mrs. Hoge and Mrs. Livermore, of
Chicago, visited Grant's camp in front of Vicksburg, more than once, and
by their exertions, saved his army from scurvy; Mrs. Porter, Mrs.
Bickerdyke, and several others are deserving of mention for their
untiring zeal both in these and Sherman's Georgian campaigns. Mrs.
Bickerdyke has won undying renown throughout the Western armies as
pre-eminently the friend of the private soldier.

As our armies, especially in the West and Southwest, won more and more
of the enemy's territory, the important towns of which were immediately
occupied as garrisons, hospital posts, and secondary bases of the
armies, the work of nursing and providing special diet and comfort in
the general hospitals at these posts, which were often of great extent,
involved a vast amount of labor and frequently serious privation, and
personal discomfort on the part of the nurses. Some of these who
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