to the seat of war, and from that time forward, in every battle in which
the Army of the Potomac was engaged, he was promptly upon the field with
his stores and appliances of healing, and moved gently though rapidly
among the dead and wounded, soothing helpless, suffering and bleeding
men parched with fever, crazed with thirst, or lying neglected in the
last agonies of death. After two years of this independent work
performed when as yet the Sanitary Commission had no field agencies, and
did not attempt to minister to the suffering and wounded until they had
come under the hands of the surgeons, Mr. Fay laid before the Sanitary
Commission, in the winter of 1863-4, his plans for an Auxiliary Relief
Corps, to afford personal relief in the field, to the wounded soldier,
and render him such assistance, as should enable him to bear with less
injury the delay which must ensue before he could come under the
surgeon's care or be transferred to a hospital, and in cases of the
slighter wounds furnish the necessary dressings and attention. The
Sanitary Commission at once adopted these plans and made Mr. Fay chief
of the Auxiliary Relief Corps. In this capacity he performed an amount
of labor of which few men were capable, till December, 1864, when he
retired from it but continued his independent work till the close of the
war. During his visits at home he was active in organizing and directing
measures for raising supplies and money for the Sanitary Commission and
the independent measures of relief.

Influenced by such an example of lofty and self-sacrificing patriotism,
and with her own young heart on fire with love for her country, Miss
Gilson from the very commencement of the war, gave herself to the work
of caring for the soldiers, first at home, and afterward in the field.
In that glorious uprising of American women, all over the North, in the
spring of 1861, to organize Soldiers' Aid Societies she was active and
among the foremost in her own city. She had helped to prepare and
collect supplies, and to arrange them for transportation. She had also
obtained a contract for the manufacture of army clothing, from the
Government, by means of which she provided employment for soldiers'
wives and daughters, raising among the benevolent and patriotic people
of Chelsea and vicinity, a fund which enabled her to pay a far more
liberal sum than the contractors' prices, for this labor.

When Mr. Fay commenced his personal services with t