ading and conversation--softening the rougher treatment and manners of
the male nurses, by their presence, and performing the more delicate
offices of kindness that are natural to woman.

In this important and useful service these women nurses, many of them
having but little experience, needed one of their own number of superior
knowledge, judgment and experience, to supervise their work, counsel and
advise with them, instruct them in their duties, secure obedience to
every necessary regulation, and good order in the general administration
of this important branch of hospital service. For this position Miss
Parsons was most admirably fitted, and discharged its duties with great
fidelity and success for many months, as long as Dr. Russell continued
in charge of the hospital. The whole work of female nursing was reduced
to a perfect system, and the nurses under Miss Parsons' influence became
a sisterhood of noble women, performing a great and loving service to
the maimed and suffering defenders of their country. In the organization
of this system and the framing of wise rules for carrying it into effect
Dr. Russell and Mr. Yeatman lent their counsel and assistance, and Dr.
Russell, as the chief surgeon, entertained those enlightened and liberal
views which gave the system a full chance to accomplish the best
results. Under his administration, and Miss Parsons' superintendence of
the nursing, the Benton Barracks Hospital became famous for its
excellence, and for the rapid recovery of the patients.

It was not often that the army surgeons could be induced to give so fair
a trial to female nursing in the hospitals. Too often they allowed their
prejudices to interfere, and used their authority to thwart instead of
aid the best plans for making the services of women all that was needed
in the hospitals. But in the case of Dr. Russell, enlightened judgment
and humane sympathies combined to make him friendly to the highest
exertions of woman, in this holy service of humanity. And the result
entirely justified the most sanguine expectations.

Having served six months in this capacity, Miss Parsons went to her home
at Cambridge, on a furlough from the Sanitary Commission, to recruit her
health. After a short period of rest she returned to St. Louis and
resumed her position at Benton Barracks, in which she continued till
August, 1864, when in consequence of illness, caused by malaria, she
returned to her home in Cambridge a second