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the soldiers. She visited the hospitals East and West, in Indiana, Illinois, St. Louis, and the interior of Missouri, and all along the Mississippi, as far South as Vicksburg, stopping at every place where Wisconsin troops were stationed.

Her voyage to Vicksburg in May, 1863, was one of considerable peril, from the swarms of guerrillas all along the river, who on several occasions fired at the boat, but fortunately did no harm.

She found at Vicksburg, a vast amount of suffering to be relieved, and abundant work to do, and possessing firm health and a vigorous constitution, she was able to accomplish much without impairing her health. At the first Sanitary Fair at Chicago, Mrs. Salomon organized a German Department, in which she sold needle and handiwork contributed by German ladies of Wisconsin and Chicago, to the amount of six thousand dollars. When, in January 1864, Governor Salomon returned to private life, Mrs. Salomon did not intermit her efforts for the good of the soldiers; her duty had become a privilege, and she continued her efforts for their relief and assistance, according to her opportunity till the end of the war.

PITTSBURG BRANCH, U. S. SANI

TARY COMMISSION.

P

ITTSBURG, as the Capital of Western Pennsylvania, and the center of a large district of thoroughly loyal citizens, early took an active part in furnishing sup

plies for the sick and wounded of our armies. As its commercial relations and its readiest communications were with the West, most of its supplies were sent to the Western Armies, and after the battle of Belmont, the capture of Fort Donelson, and the terrible slaughter at Shiloh, the Pittsburg Subsistence Committee, and the Pittsburg Sanitary Committee, sent ample supplies and stores to the sufferers. The same noble generosity was displayed after the battles of Perryville, Chickasaw Bluffs, Murfreesboro' and Arkansas Post. In the winter of 1863, it was deemed best to make the Pittsburg Sanitary Committee, which had been reorganized for the purpose, an auxiliary of the United States Sanitary Commission, and measures were taken for that purpose by Mr. Thomas Bakewell, the President, and the other officers of the Committee. The Committee still retained its name, but in the summer of 1863, a consolidation was effected of the Sanitary and Subsistence Committees, and the Pittsburg Branch of the Commission was organized. Auxiliaries had previously been formed in the circumjacent country, acknowledging one or the other of these Committees as their head, and sending their contributions and supplies to it. The number of these was now greatly increased, and though latest in the order of time of

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all the daughters of the Commission, it was surpassed by few of the others in efficiency. The Corresponding Secretary and active manager of this new organization was Miss Rachael W. Mc Fadden, a lady of rare executive ability, ardent patriotism, untiring industry, and great tact and discernment. Miss McFadden was ably seconded in her labors by Miss Mary Bissell, Miss Bakewell, and Miss Annie Bell, and Miss Ellen E. Murdoch, the daughter of the patriotic actor and elocutionist, gave her services with great earnestness to the work. In the spring of 1864, the people of Pittsburg, infected by the example of other cities, determined to hold a Sanitary Fair in their enterprising though smoke-crowned city. In its inception, development and completion, Miss McFadden was the prime mover in this Fair. She was at the head of the Executive Committee, and Miss Bakewell, Miss Ella Steward, and Mrs. McMillan, were its active and indefatigable Secretaries. The appeals made to all classes in city and country for contributions in money and goods were promptly responded to, and on the first of June, 1864, the Fair opened in buildings expressly erected for it in Alleghany, Diamond Square. The display in all particulars, was admirable, but that of the Mechanical and Floral Halls was extraordinary in its beauty, its tasteful arrangement and its great extent. The net results of the Fair, were three hundred and thirty thousand four hundred and ninety dollars, and eighty cents, and while it was in progress, fifty thousand dollars were also raised in Pittsburg, for the Christian Commission. The great Central Fair in Philadelphia, was at the same time in progress, so that the bulk of the contributions were drawn from the immediate vicinage of Pittsburg.

The Pittsburg Branch continued its labors to the close of the war. After the fair, a special diet kitchen on a grand scale was established and supplied with all necessary appliances by the Pittsburg Branch. Miss Murdoch gave it her personal supervision for three months, and in August, 1864, prepared sixty-two thousand dishes.

MRS. ELIZABETH S. MENDENHALL.

HIS lady and Mrs. George Hoadly, were the active and efficient managers of the Soldiers' Aid Society, of Cincinnati, which bore the same relations to the branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, at Cincinnati, which the Woman's Central Association of Relief did to the Sanitary Commission itself. Mrs. Mendenhall is the wife of Dr. George Mendenhall, an eminent and public-spirited citizen of Cincinnati. Mrs. Mendenhall was born in Philadelphia, in 1819, but her childhood and youth were passed in Richmond, Virginia, where a sister, her only near relative, still resides. Her relatives belonged to the society of Friends, and though living in a slaveholding community, she grew up with an abhorrence of slavery. On her marriage, in 1838, she removed with her husband to Cleveland, Ohio, and subsequently to Cincinnati, where she has since resided, and where her hatred of oppression increased in intensity.

When the first call for troops was made in April, 1861, and thenceforward throughout the summer and autumn of that year, and the winter of 1861-2, she was active in organizing sewing circles and aid societies to make the necessary clothing and comforts which the soldiers so much needed when suddenly called to the field. She set the example of untiring industry in these pursuits, and by her skill in organizing and systematizing their labor, rendered them highly efficient. In February, 1862, the sick and wounded began to pour into the government hospitals of Cincin

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nati, from the siege of Fort Donelson, and ere these were fairly convalescent, still greater numbers came from Shiloh; and from that time forward, till the close of the war, the hospitals were almost constantly filled with sick or wounded soldiers. To these suffering heroes Mrs. Mendenhall devoted herself with the utmost assiduity. For two and a half years from the reception of the first wounded from Fort Donelson, she spent half of every day, and frequently the whole day, in personal ministrations to the sick and wounded in any capacity that could add to their comfort. She procured necessaries and luxuries for the sick, waited upon them, wrote letters for them, consoled the dying, gave information to their friends of their condition, and attended to the necessary preparations for the burial of the dead. During the four years of the war she was not absent from the city for pleasure but six days, and during the whole period there were not more than ten days in which she did not perform some labor for the soldiers' comfort.

Her field of labor was in the four general hospitals in the city, but principally in the Washington Park Hospital, over which Dr. J. B. Smith, who subsequently fell a martyr to his devotion to the soldiers, presided, who gave her ample opportunities for doing all for the patients which her philanthropic spirit prompted. During all this time she was actively engaged in the promotion of the objects of the Women's Soldiers' Aid Society, of which, she was at this time, president, having been from the first an officer. The enthusiasm manifested in the northwest in behalf of the Sanitary Fair at Chicago, led Mrs. Mendenhall to believe that a similar enterprise would be feasible in Cincinnati, which should draw its supplies and patrons from all portions of the Ohio valley. With her a generous and noble thought was sure to be followed by action equally generous and praiseworthy. She commenced at once the agitation of the subject in the daily papers of the city, her first article appearing in the Times, of October 31, 1863, and being followed by others from her pen in the other loyal papers

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