Another, and another day passed. The wounded from those fearful battles continued to arrive, and to be cared for, as well as was possible under the circumstances. The workers were shortly afterward made as comfortable as was possible. For two weeks Mrs. Spencer remained, and labored at Belle Plain, remained till her clothing of which, not expecting to remain, she had brought no change, was nearly worn out. The need was so pressing, of care for the wounded, that she scarcely thought of herself.

In the latter part of May, she left Belle Plain, and went to Port Royal, where similar scenes were enacted, save that there a shelter was provided. She had joined forces with the Sanitary Commission, and the facilities were now good and the workers numerous, yet it was barely possible, with all these, and with Government and Commission supplies, and private contributions, to feed the applicants.

The Medical Purveyor's boat with her husband on board, having arrived, Mrs. Spencer proceeded on that boat to White House, where she was placed in Superintendence of the Government Cooking Barge, continuing at the same time her supervision of the wants of the New York soldiery.

Here they fed the first wounded who arrived from the field, and here Mrs. Spencer continued many days directing the feeding of thousands more, ever remembering the regiments from her own State, as her special charge, and assisted by many volunteers and others in her arduous task.

On the 18th of June, 1864, Mrs. Spencer arrived at City Point. The wounded were still arriving, and there was enough for all to do. A Hospital was here established, a mile from the landing. The Government kitchen was kept up, till the hospitals and their kitchens were in full operation, when it was discontinued, and Mrs. Spencer relieved from her double task.

From that time, Mrs. Spencer confined herself mostly to the duties of her agency, and continued to make City Point her headquarters and base of operations until the close of the war closed

the agency, and left her free once again to seek the welcome seclusion of her home.

She occasionally visited the General Hospitals to distribute supplies to her New York soldiers and others, but these being now well organized, did not, owing to the plenty of attendants greatly need her services, and they were mostly confined to visits to soldiers in the field, at the Front, Field Hospitals, and in the Rifle Pits.*

Her equestrian skill now often came in use. Often a ride of from twenty to forty miles in the day would enable her to visit some outlying regiment or picket station, or even to reach the Rifle Pits that honeycombed plain and hill-side all about Petersburg and Richmond, and return the same day. On these occasions she was warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by the soldiers, not only for what she brought, but for the comfort and solace of her presence.

She was often in positions of great peril from whizzing shot and bursting shell, but was never harmed during these dangerous visits. On one occasion, she was probably by reason of her black hat and feather, mistaken for an officer, as she for a moment carelessly showed the upper part of her person, from a slight eminence near the rifle pits, and was fired at by one of the enemy's sharp-shooters. The ball lodged in a tree, close by her side, from which she deliberately dug it out with her penknife, retaining it as a memento of her escape.

Few of us whose days have been passed in the serene quietude of home, can imagine the comfort and joy her presence and cheering words brought to the "boys" undergoing the privations and discomforts of their station at the "Front," in those days of peril and siege. As she approached, her name would be heard passing from man to man, with electric swiftness, and often the shouts

* Every facility was furnished her by the various officers in command, and a special and permanent pass by General Grant.

that accompanied it, would receive from the enemy a warlike response in the strange music of the whistling shot, or the bursting shell.

Through all this she seemed to bear a charmed life. "I never believed I should be harmed by shot or shell," she says, and her simple faith was justified.

She even escaped nearly unharmed the fearful peril of the great explosion at City Point, when, as it is now supposed, by rebel treachery, the ammunition barge was fired, and hundreds of human beings without an instant's warning, were hurried into eternity.

When this event occurred, she was on horseback near the landing, and in turning to flee was struck, probably by a piece of shell, in the side. Almost as by a miracle she escaped with only a terrible and extensive bruise, and a temporary paralysis of the lower limbs. The elastic steel wires of her crinoline, had resisted the deadly force of the blow, which otherwise would undoubtedly have killed her. A smaller missile, nearly cut away the string of her hat, which was found next day covered by the ghastly smear of human blood and flesh, which also sprinkled all her garments.

After the surrender of Richmond, Mrs. Spencer, with a party of friends, visited that city, and she records that she experienced a very human sense of satisfaction, as she saw some rebel prisoners marching into that terrible Libby Prison, to take the place of the Union prisoners who had there endured such fearful and nameless sufferings.

On the 8th of April the President came to visit the hospitals at City Point, shaking hands with the convalescents, who were drawn up to receive him, and speaking cheering words to all. A week later he had fallen the victim of that atrocious plot which led to his assassination.

Mrs. Spencer remained at City Point, engaged in her duties, till all the wounded had been removed, and the hospitals broken

up. On the 31st of May, she went on the medical supply boat to Washington. She there offered her services to aid in any way in care of the wounded, while she remained, which she did for several days. About the middle of June she once more found herself an inmate of her own home, and, after the long season of busy and perilous days, gladly retired to the freedom and quiet of private life. She remained in the service about three years, and the entire time, with only the briefest intervals of rest, was well and profitably occupied in her duties, a strong will and an excellent constitution having enabled her to endure fatigues which would soon have broken down a person less fitted, in these respects, for the work.

Mrs. Spencer has received from soldiers, (who are all her grateful friends) from loyal people in various parts of the country, and from personal friends and neighbors, many tokens of appreciation, which she enumerates with just pride and gratitude. Not the least of these is her house and its furniture, a horse, a sewing machine, silver ware, and expensive books; beside smaller articles whose chief value arises from the feeling that caused the gifts. Her health has suffered in consequence of her labors but she now hopes for permanent recovery.

MRS. HARRIET FOOTE HAWLEY.

MONG the many heroic women who gave their services to their country in our recent warfare, few deserve more grateful mention than Mrs. Harriet Foote Hawley, wife of Brevet Major-General Hawley, the present Governor of Connecticut.

Mrs. Hawley is of a fragile and delicate constitution, and one always regarded by her friends as peculiarly unfitted to have part in labors or hardships of any kind. But from the beginning to the end of the war, she was an exemplification of how much may be done by one "strong of spirit," even with the most delicate physical frame.

She went alone to Beaufort, South Carolina, in November, 1862, to engage in teaching the colored people. While there she regularly visited the army hospitals, and interested herself in the practical details of nursing, to which she afterwards more particularly devoted herself, and that spring and summer did the same at Fernandina and St. Augustine.

In November, 1863, she rejoined her husband on St. Helena Island, to which he had returned with his regiment from the siege of Charleston. She visited the Beaufort and Hilton Head General Hospitals, as well as the post hospital at St. Helena frequently during the winter, especially after the severe battle of Olustee, in February, 1864. When the Tenth Corps went to Fortress Monroe, to join General Butler's army, Mrs. Hawley went with them, and failing to find work in the Chesapeake Hos