The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-02-03

she appealed to a body Of merchants In O
western city for funds to alleviate the suf-
ferings of the soldiers ut the front, and was
repulsed with the plea that the community
had contributed to fit out regiment and
must draw the limo 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,
TO over to Canada. This country has no
place for such creatures" 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 i'll the west. While on
duty i'll 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
bic necessity for their ministrations. 4
drop of cordial, n cool bandagc, u cup of
hot broth, is u trifle for II man of arms to
long for, but the getting of it from woman
thrills the faltering heart with warrior
blood, and many life was saved on the
Held because n woman was around.
AT Gettysburg Mrs. r.. II. Spencer, II
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 l 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
theinammation so that ut the end of Il week
the famishcd man could plunge his head
into basin of broth and sup down enough
to nOurish life. None but woman would
have hit upon an eXpedient like that or had
patience to apply it.
Then there were the women who gave I'D
everything i'll life to embrace martyrdom
IN the service of the soldiers The very
first woman who went into the camp hos
pitals iii the west, and perhaps in the coun-
try, was Miss Mary j. Stafford, u 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 tile men knew her rs the
Cairo angel" Aftcrward 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 II confirmed invalid
Death amid the sound of cannon and
in the embattlcd camps was the fate
of many. Margaret Il. breckenridge, of
the celebrated Kentucky family, who was
called the American Florence Nightingale,
enlancipated her slaves and went to work
III the Union camps carly i'll the war. She
labored i'll the west and in Baltimore and
Philadelphia, and died of typhoid COL