The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1893-06-15

she appealed 70 q body of merchants in
western city for funds to alleviate the sui
ferings of the soldiers at the front, and was
repulsed with the plea that the community
had contributed to fl out n regiment and
must draw the line at that.
Fresh from scenes where hunger and
thirst, cold and nakedness, sickness and
wounds, pain and death were the lot Of
the patriotic soldiers. her indignation burst
forth In rebuke. shame ON your she
cried "You are not men: you are towards.
Go over to Canada This country has no
PLACE for such creaturesl" She left the hall
with purse larger than she had asked for.
Mrs Isabella Fogg, of Maine, passed three
years in the field hospitals Of the Army of
the Potomac. and after being Frustrated
by overwork and exposure recovered and
entered the service in the west. While on
duty in hospital boat she was accidentally
injured and disabled for life.
Scores and hundreds again Of brave and
faithful souls were bankrupted in money
and health by casting aside every motive
except duty when they once saw the terri
BILE necessity for their ministrat:ons. A
drop of cordial, a cool bandage, "A cup of
hot broth, is trifle for "a man OF arms to
long for, but the getting Of 1t from woman
thrills the faltering heart with warrior
blood, and many life was saved on the
field because woman was around.
At Gettysburg Mrs. r. ii. Spencer, n
New York soldiers wife, found fellow
townsman shot through the throat so that
he could swallow nothing, liquids even
draining out through the orifice made by
the ball. The surgeons said that there was
no hope. and the luckless boy begged Mrs.
Spencer to come to his aid. DO as I tell
you and you shall not die" said she. "Can
you bear TO go without food for n week."
"Yes," the weak head nodded. An almost
constant application of cold water reduced
the Inflammation so that at the end of week
the famished man could plunge his head
into basin Of broth and sup down enough
to nourish life. None but a woman would
have hit upon an expedient like that or had
patience to apply 1t.
Then there were the women who gave up
everything in life to embrace martyrtlom
In the service of the soldiers. The very
first woman who went into the camp hos
pitfalls in the west, and perhaps in the coun-
try, was Miss Mary j. Stafford, a native Of
Vermont, but living in Illinois when the
war broke out. She organized the system
at Cairo in 1861 and went to the field of
Shiloh, where the men knew her as the
Cairo angel" Afterward she travelled on
the Mississippi hospital boats, cooking for
the soldiers, dressing their wounds, sing
ing to them and praying with them" She
was frail, petite figure, unused to hard
ships and scenes of distress, and after
eighteen months service broke down and
went to Europe confirmed invalid.
Death amid the sound of cannon and
In the embattled camps was the fate
Of many. Margaret f. Breckinridge, Of
the celebrated Kentucky family, who was
called the American Florence Nightingale,
emancipated her slaves and went to work
Id the Union camps early in the war. She
labored in the west and in Baltimore and
Philadelphia, and died of typhoid con-