e the bodies of the deceased to their
friends." Five of these faithful nurses were attacked by the typhus
fever, contracted by their attention to the patients, exhausted as they
were by overwork, from the great number of the very sick and helpless
men brought to the hospital in the winter of 1864-5; and the illness of
these threw a double duty upon those who were fortunate enough to escape
the epidemic. To the honor of these ladies, it should be said that not
one of them shrank from doing her full proportion of the work, and
nearly all who survived, remained to the close of the war. For twenty
months, Miss Titcomb was absent from duty but two days, and others had a
record nearly as satisfactory. Nearly all would have done so but for
illness.

Miss Rebecca Usher, of whom we have spoken as one of Miss Titcomb's
associates, in the winter of 1864-5, accepted the invitation of the
Maine Camp and Hospital Association, to go to City Point, and minister
to the sick and wounded, especially of the Maine regiments there. She
was accompanied by Miss Mary A. Dupee, who was one of the assistants at
Annapolis, from Maine.

The Maine Camp and Hospital Association, was an organization founded by
benevolent ladies of Portland, and subsequently having its auxiliaries
in all parts of the state, having for its object the supplying of
needful aid and comfort, and personal attention, primarily to the
soldiers of Maine, and secondarily to those from other states. Mrs.
James E. Fernald, Mrs. J. S. Eaton, Mrs. Elbridge Bacon, Mrs. William
Preble, Miss Harriet Fox, and others were the managers of the
association. Of these Mrs. J. S. Eaton, the widow of a Baptist
clergyman, formerly a pastor in Portland, went very early to the front,
with Mrs. Isabella Fogg, the active agent of the association, of whom we
have more to say elsewhere, and the two labored most earnestly for the
welfare of the soldiers. Mrs. Fogg finally went to the Western armies,
and Mrs. Eaton invited Miss Usher and Miss Dupee, with some of the other
Maine ladies to join her at City Point, in the winter of 1864-5. Mrs.
Ruth S. Mayhew had been a faithful assistant at City Point from the
first, and after Mrs. Fogg went to the West, had acted as agent of the
association there. Miss Usher joined Mrs. Eaton and Mrs. Mayhew, in
December, 1864, but Miss Dupee did not leave Annapolis till April,
1865. The work at City Point was essentially different from that at
Annapolis, and less sadde