those long hours of the nation's peril, in which the best blood of her sons was poured out a red libation to Liberty.

After the close of the Lincoln Home, Mrs. Marsh continued to devote herself to suffering soldiers and their families, making herself notably useful in this important department of the nation's work.

SAINT LOUIS LADIES' UNION AID

SOCIETY.

HIS Society, the principal Auxiliary of the Western Sanitary Commission, and holding the same relation to it that the Women's Central Association of Relief in New York, did to the United States Sanitary Commission had its origin in the summer of 1861. On the 26th of July, of that year, a few ladies met at the house of Mrs. F. Holy, in St. Louis, to consider the propriety of combining the efforts of the loyal ladies of that city into a single organization in anticipation of the conflict then impending within the State. At an adjourned meeting held a week later, twenty-five ladies registered themselves, as members of the "Ladies' Union Aid Society," and elected a full board of officers. Most of these resigned in the following autumn, and in November, 1861, the following list was chosen, most of whom served through the war.

President: Mrs. Alfred Clapp; Vice Presidents, Mrs. Samuel C. Davis, Mrs. T. M. Post, Mrs. Robert Anderson; Recording Secretary, Miss H. A. Adams; Treasurer, Mrs. S. B. Kellogg ; Corresponding Secretary, Miss Belle Holmes; afterwards, Miss Anna M. Debenham. An Executive Committee was also appointed, several of the members of which, and among the number, Mrs. C. R. Springer, Mrs. S. Palmer, Mrs. Joseph Crawshaw, Mrs. Washington King, Mrs. Charles L. Ely, Mrs. F. F. Maltby, Mrs. C. N. Barker, Miss Susan J. Bell, Miss Eliza S. Glover,

and Miss Eliza Page, were indefatigable in their labors for the soldiers.

This Society was from the beginning, active and efficient. It conducted its business with great ability and system, and in every direction made itself felt as a power for good throughout the Mississippi Valley. Its officers visited for a considerable period, fourteen hospitals in the city and vicinity, and were known in the streets by the baskets they carried. Of one of these baskets the recording Secretary, Miss Adams, gives us an interesting inventory in one of her reports: "Within was a bottle of cream, a home-made loaf, fresh eggs, fruit and oysters; stowed away in a corner was a flannel shirt, a sling, a pair of spectacles, a flask of cologne; a convalescent had asked for a lively book, and the lively book was in the basket; there was a dressing-gown for one, and a white muslin handkerchief for another; and paper, envelopes and stamps for all."

The Christian Commission made the ladies of the Society their agents for the distribution of religious reading, and they scattered among the men one hundred and twenty-five thousand pages of tracts, and twenty thousand books and papers.

The Ladies' Union Aid Society, sent delegates to all the earlier battle-fields, as well as to the camps and trenches about Vicksburg, and these ladies returned upon the hospital steamers, pursuing their heroic work, toiling early and late, imperilling in many cases their health, and even their lives, in the midst of the trying and terrible scenes which surrounded them. During the fall and winter of 1862-3, the Society's rooms were open day and evening, for the purpose of bandage-rolling, so great was the demand for supplies of this kind.

Amid their other labors, they were not unmindful of the distress which the families of the soldiers were suffering. So great was the demand for hospital clothing, that they could not supply it alone, and they expended five thousand five hundred dollars received for the purpose from the Western Sanitary Commission,

in paying for the labor on seventy-five thousand garments for the hospitals, The Medical Purveyor, learning of their success, offered the Aid Society a large contract for army work. They accepted it, and prepared the work at their rooms, and gave out one hundred and twenty-eight thousand articles to be made, paying out over six thousand dollars for labor. Several other contracts followed, particularly one for two hundred and sixty-one thousand yards of bandages, for the rolling of which six hundred and fifty-two dollars were paid. By these means and a judicious liberality, the Society prevented a great amount of suffering in the families of soldiers. The Benton Barracks Hospital, one of the largest in the West, to which reference has been frequently made in this volume, had for its surgeon-in-charge, that able surgeon and earnest philanthropist, Dr. Ira Russell. Ever anxious to do all in his power for his patients, and satisfied that more skilfully prepared special diet, and in greater variety than the government supplies permitted would be beneficial to them, he requested the Indies of the Union Aid Society, to occupy a reception-room, storeroom, and kitchen at the hospital, in supplying this necessity. Donations intended for the soldiers could be left at these rooms. for distribution; fruit, vegetables, and other offerings could here be prepared and issued as required. Thus all outside bounty could be systematized, and the surgeon could regulate the diet of the entire hospital. Miss Bettie Broadhead, was the first superintendent of these rooms which were subsequently enlarged and multiplied. Bills of fare were distributed in each ward every morning; the soldiers wrote their names and numbers opposite the special dishes they desired; the surgeon examined the bills of fare, and if he approved, endorsed them. At the appointed time the dishes distinctly labelled, arrived at their destination in charge of an orderly. Nearly forty-eight thousand dishes were issued in one year.

In the fall of 1863, the Society established a branch at Nashville, Tennessee, Mrs. Barker and Miss H. A. Adams, going

thither with five hundred dollars and seventy-two boxes of stores. Miss Adams, though surrounded with difficulties, and finding the surgeons indifferent if not hostile, succeeded in establishing a special diet kitchen, like that at Benton Barracks' Hospital. This subsequently became a very important institution, sixty-two thousand dishes being issued in the single month of August, 1864. The supplies for this kitchen, were mostly furnished by the Pittsburg Subsistence Committee, and Miss Ellen Murdoch, the daughter of the elocutionist to whom we have already referred, in the account of the Pittsburg Branch, prepared the supplies with her own hands, for three months. During this period, no reasonable wish of an invalid ever went ungratified.

This Society also did a considerable work for the freedmenand the white refugees, in connection with the Western Sanitary Commission. On the formation of the Freedmen's Relief Society, this part of their work was transferred to them.

We have no means of giving definitely the aggregate receipts and disbursements of this efficient Association. They were so involved with those of the Western Sanitary Commission, that it would be a difficult task to separate them. The receipts of the Commission were seven hundred and seventy-one thousand dollars in money, and about three millions five hundred thousand dollars in supplies. Of this sum we believe we are not in the wrong in attributing nearly two hundred thousand dollars in cash, and one million dollars in supplies to the Ladies' Union Aid Society, either directly or indirectly.

Believing that the exertions of the efficient officers of the Society deserve commemoration, we have obtained the following brief sketches of Mrs. Clapp, Miss Adams, (now Mrs. Collins), Mrs. Springer, and Mrs. Palmer.

Among the earnest and noble women of St. Louis, who devoted themselves to the cause of their country and its heroic defenders at the beginning of the great Rebellion, and whose labors and sacrifices were maintained throughout the struggle for na