MRS. STEPHEN BARKER.

M

RS. BARKER is a lady of great refinement and high culture, the sister of the Hon. William Whiting, late Attorney-General of Massachusetts, and the wife of the Rev. Stephen Barker, during the war, Chaplain of the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery.

This regiment was organized in July, 1861, as the Fourteenth Massachusetts Infantry (but afterwards changed as above) under the command of Colonel William B. Green, of Boston, and was immediately ordered to Fort Albany, which was then an outpost of defense guarding the Long Bridge over the Potomac, near Washington.

Having resolved to share the fortunes of this regiment in the service of its hospitals, Mrs. Barker followed it to Washington in August, and remained in that city six months before suitable quarters were arranged for her at the fort.

except a few

During her stay in Washington, she spent much of her time in visiting hospitals, and in ministering to their suffering inmates. Especially was this the case with the E. Street Infirmary, which was destroyed by fire in the autumn of that year. After the fire the inmates were distributed to other hospitals, whose wounds would not admit of a removal. These were collected together in a small brick school-house, which stands on the corner of the lot now occupied by the Judiciary Square Hospital, and there was had the first Thanksgiving Dinner which was given in an army hospital.

After dinner, which was made as nice and home-like as possible, they played games of checkers, chess, and backgammon on some new boards presented from the supplies of the Sanitary Commission, and Mrs. Barker read aloud "The Cricket on the Hearth." This occupied all the afternoon and made the day seem so short to these poor convalescents that they all confessed afterwards that they had no idea, nor expectation that they could so enjoy a day which they had hoped to spend at home; and they always remembered and spoke of it with pleasure.

This was a new and entirely exceptional experience to Mrs. Barker. Like all the ladies who have gone out as volunteer nurses or helps in the hospitals, she had her whole duty to learn. In this she was aided by a sound judgment, and an evident natural capacity and executive ability. Without rules or instructions in hospital visiting, she had to learn by experience the best methods of aiding sick soldiers without coming into conflict with the regulations peculiar to military hospitals. Of course, no useful work could be accomplished without the sanction and confidence of the surgeons, and these could only be won by strict and honorable obedience to orders.

The first duty was to learn what Government supplies could properly be expected in the hospitals; next to be sure that where wanting they were not withheld by the ignorance or carelessness of the sub-officials; and lastly that the soldier was sincere and reliable in the statement of his wants. By degrees these questions received their natural solution; and the large discretionary power granted by the surgeons, and the generous confidence and aid extended by the Sanitary Commission, in furnishing whatever supplies she asked for, soon gave Mrs. Barker all the facilities she desired for her useful and engrossing work.

In March, 1862, Mrs. Barker removed to Fort Albany, and systematically commenced the work which had first induced her to leave her home. This work was substantially the same that she had done in Washington, but was confined to the Regimental

Hospitals. But it was for many reasons pleasanter and more interesting. As the wife of the Chaplain of the Regiment, the men all recognized the fitness of her position, and she shared with him all the duties, not strictly clerical, of his office, finding great happiness in their mutual usefulness and sustaining power. She also saw the same men oftener, and became better acquainted, and more deeply interested in their individual conditions, and she had here facilities at her command for the preparation of all the little luxuries and delicacies demanded by special cases.

While the regiment held Fort Albany, and others of the forts forming the defenses of Washington, the officers' quarters were always such as to furnish a comfortable home, and Mrs. Barker had, consequently, none of the exposures and hardships of those who followed the army and labored in the field. As she, herself, has written in a private letter-"It was no sacrifice to go to the army, because my husband was in it, and it would have been much harder to stay at home than to go with him.* * * I cannot even claim the merit of acting from a sense of duty-for I wanted to work for the soldiers, and should have been desperately disappointed had I been prevented from doing it."

And so, with a high heart, and an unselfish spirit, which disclaimed all merit in sacrifice, and even the existence of the sacrifice, she entered upon and fulfilled to the end the arduous and painful duties which devolved upon her.

For nearly two years she continued in unremitting attendance upon the regimental hospitals, except when briefly called home to the sick and dying bed of her father.

All this time her dependence for hospital comforts was upon the Sanitary Commission, for though the regiment was performing the duties of a garrison it was not so considered by the War Department, and the hospital received none of the furnishings it would have been entitled to as a Post Hospital. Most of the hospital bedding and clothing, as well as delicacies of diet came from the Sanitary Commission, and a little money contributed

from private sources helped to procure the needed furniture. Mrs. Barker found this "camp life" absorbing and interesting. She became identified with the regiment and was accustomed to speak of it as a part of herself. And even more closely and intimately did she identify herself with her suffering patients in the hospital.

On Sundays, while the chaplain was about his regular duties, she was accustomed to have a little service of her own for the patients, which mostly consisted in reading aloud a printed sermon of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, which appeared in the Weekly Traveller, and which was always listened to with eager interest.

The chaplain's quarters were close by the hospital, and at any hour of the day and till a late hour of the night Mr. and Mrs. Barker could assure themselves of the condition and wants of any of the patients, and be instantly ready to minister to them. Mrs. Barker, especially, bore them continually in her thoughts, and though not with them, her heart and time were given to the work of consolation, either by adding to the comforts of the body or the mind.

In January, 1864, it became evident to Mrs. Barker that she could serve in the hospitals more effectually by living in Washington, than by remaining at Fort Albany. She therefore offered her services to the Sanitary Commission without other compensation than the expenses of her board, and making no stipulation as to the nature of her duties, but only that she might remain within reach of the regimental hospital, to which she had so long been devoted.

Just at this time the Commission had determined to secure a more sure and thorough personal distribution of the articles intended for soldiers, and she was requested to become a visitor in certain hospitals in Washington. It was desirable to visit bedsides, as before, but henceforth as a representative of the Sanitary Commission, with a wider range of duties, and a proportionate

increase of facilities. Soldiers were complaining that they saw nothing of the Sanitary Commission, when the shirts they wore, the fruits they ate, the stationery they used, and numerous other comforts from the Commission abounded in the hospitals. Mrs. Barker found that she had only to refuse the thanks which she constantly received, and refer them to the proper object, to see a marked change in the feeling of the sick toward the Sanitary Commission. And she was so fully convinced of the beneficial results of this remarkable organization, that she found the greatest pleasure in doing this.

In all other respects her work was unchanged. There was the same need of cheering influences-the writing of letters and procuring of books, and obtaining of information. There were the thousand varied calls for sympathy and care which kept one constantly on the keenest strain of active life, so that she came to feel that no gift, grace, or accomplishment could be spared without leaving something wanting of a perfect woman's work in the hospitals.

Nine hospitals, in addition to the regimental hospital, which she still thought of as her "own," were assigned her. Of these Harewood contained nearly as many patients as all the others. During the summer of 1864, its wards and tents held twentyeight hundred patients. It was Mrs. Barker's custom to commence here every Monday morning at the First Ward, doing all she saw needful as she went along, and to go on as far as she could before two o'clock, when she went to dinner. In the afternoon she would visit one of the smaller hospitals, all of whose inmates she could see in the course of one visit, and devote the whole afternoon entirely to that hospital.

The next morning she would begin again at Harewood, where she stopped the day before, doing all she could there, previous to two o'clock, and devoting the afternoon to a smaller hospital. When Harewood was finished, two hospitals might be