usands. To how many poor sufferers she brought relief from the raging
thirst and the racking agony of their wounds, to how many aching hearts
her words of cheer and her sweet songs bore comfort and hope, to how
many of those on whose countenances the Angel of death had already set
his seal, she whispered of a dying and risen Saviour, and of the
mansions prepared for them that love him, will never be known till the
judgment of the great day; but this we know, that thousands now living
speak with an almost rapturous enthusiasm, of "the little lady who in
their hours of agony, ministered to them with such sweetness, and never
seemed to weary of serving them."

A young physician in the service of the Sanitary Commission, Dr. William
Howell Reed, who was afterwards for many months associated with her and
Mr. Fay in their labors of auxiliary relief, thus describes his first
opportunity of observing her work. It was at Fredericksburg in May,
1864, when that town was for a time the base of the Army of the Potomac,
and the place to which the wounded were brought for treatment before
being sent to the hospitals at Washington and Baltimore. The building
used as a hospital, and which she visited was the mansion of John L.
Marie, a large building, but much of it in ruins from the previous
bombardment of the city. It was crowded with wounded in every part. Dr.
Reed says:--

"One afternoon, just before the evacuation, when the atmosphere of our
rooms was close and foul, and all were longing for a breath of our
cooler northern air, while the men were moaning in pain, or were
restless with fever, and our hearts were sick with pity for the
sufferers, I heard a light step upon the stairs; and looking up I saw a
young lady enter, who brought with her such an atmosphere of calm and
cheerful courage, so much freshness, such an expression of gentle,
womanly sympathy, that her mere presence seemed to revive the drooping
spirits of the men, and to give a new power of endurance through the
long and painful hours of suffering. First with one, then at the side of
another, a friendly word here, a gentle nod and smile there, a tender
sympathy with each prostrate sufferer, a sympathy which could read in
his eyes his longing for home love, and for the presence of some absent
one--in those few minutes hers was indeed an angel ministry. Before she
left the room she sang to them, first some stirring national melody,
then some sweet or plaintive hymn to