on which could serve to
bring comfort to the sufferers under their charge.

Active and endowed with extraordinary executive ability, Miss Wormeley
was distinguished for her great usefulness during this time of fierce
trial, when the malaria of the Chickahominy swamps was prostrating its
thousands of brave men, and the battles of Williamsburg, White House,
and Fair Oaks, and the disastrous retreat to Harrison's Landing were
marked by an almost unexampled carnage.

While the necessity of exertion continued, Miss Wormeley and her
associates bore up bravely, but no sooner was this ended than nearly all
succumbed to fever, or the exhaustion of excessive and protracted
fatigue. Nevertheless, within a few days after Miss Wormeley's return
home, the Surgeon-General, passing through Newport, came to call upon
her and personally solicit her to take charge of the Woman's Department
of the Lowell General Hospital, then being organized at Portsmouth
Grove, R. I. After a brief hesitation, on account of her health, Miss
Wormeley assented to the proposal, and on the 1st of September, 1862,
went to the hospital. She was called, officially, the "Lady
Superintendent," and her duties were general; they consisted less of
actual nursing, than the organization and superintendence of her
department. Under her charge were the Female Nurses, the Diet Kitchens,
and Special diet, the Linen Department, and the Laundry, where she had a
steam Washing Machine, which was capable of washing and mangling four
thousand pieces a day.

The hospital had beds for two thousand five hundred patients. Four
friends of Miss Wormeley joined her here, and were her Assistant
Superintendents--Misses G. M. and J. S. Woolsey, Miss Harriet D.
Whetten, of New York, and Miss Sarah C. Woolsey, of New Haven. Each of
these had charge of seven Wards, and was responsible to the surgeons for
the nursing and diet of the sick men. To the exceedingly valuable
co-operation of these ladies, Miss Wormeley has, on all occasions,
attributed in a great measure the success which attended and rewarded
her services in this department of labor, as also to the kindness of the
Surgeon in charge, Dr. Lewis A. Edwards, and of his Assistants.

She remained at Portsmouth Grove a little more than a year, carrying on
the arrangements of her department with great ability and perfect
success. On holidays, through the influence of herself and her
assistants, the inmates received ample donations for