orphans, we may be certain that there
was a vast amount of work done by them. Of this aggregate of labor, it
is difficult to form any adequate idea. The ladies who were at the head
of the Branch or Central organizations, worked day after day, during the
long and hot days of summer, and the brief but cold ones of winter, as
assiduously and steadily, as any merchant in his counting-house, or the
banker at his desk, and exhibited business abilities, order, foresight,
judgment, and tact, such as are possessed by very few of the most
eminent men of business in the country. The extent of their operations,
too, was in several instances commensurate with that of some of our
merchant princes. Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler and Miss Ellen Collins, of
the Women's Central Association of Relief at New York, received and
disbursed in supplies and money, several millions of dollars in value;
Mrs. Rouse, Miss Mary Clark Brayton, and Miss Ellen F. Terry, of the
Cleveland Soldiers' Aid Society, somewhat more than a million; Miss Abby
May, of Boston, not far from the same amount; Mrs. Hoge, and Mrs.
Livermore, of the N. W. Sanitary Commission, over a million; while Mrs.
Seymour, of Buffalo, Miss Valeria Campbell, of Detroit, Mrs. Colt, of
Milwaukie, Miss Rachel W. McFadden, of Pittsburg, Mrs. Hoadley, and Mrs.
Mendenhall, of Cincinnati, Mrs. Clapp, and Miss H. A. Adams, of the St.
Louis Ladies' Aid Society, Mrs. Joel Jones, and Mrs. John Harris, of the
Philadelphia Ladies' Aid Society, Mrs. Stranahan, and Mrs. Archer, of
Brooklyn, if they did not do quite so large a business, at least
rivaled the merchants of the smaller cities, in the extent of their
disbursements; and when it is considered, that these ladies were not
only the managers and financiers of their transactions, but in most
cases the book-keepers also, we think their right to be regarded as
possessing superior business qualifications will not be questioned.

But some of these lady managers possessed still other claims to our
respect, for their laborious and self-sacrificing patriotism. It
occurred to several ladies in different sections of the country, as they
ascertained the suffering condition of some of the families of the
soldiers, (the early volunteers, it will be remembered, received no
bounties, or very trifling ones), that if they could secure for them, at
remunerative prices, the making of the soldiers' uniforms, or of the
hospital bedding and clothing, they might thus rende