cooking conveniences are much the same as at Mission Ridge, but there is to be a change soon. The Medical Director informs me that this is to be a recovering hospital, and cooking apparatus will soon be provided.” "Mrs. Bickerdyke was greeted on the street by a soldier on horseback; 'Mother,' said he, 'is that you? Don't you remember me? I was in the hospital, my arm amputated, and I was saved by your kindness. I am so glad to see you,' giving her a beautiful bouquet of roses, the only token of grateful remembrance he could command. Mrs. Bickerdyke daily receives such greetings from men, who say they have been saved from death by her efforts." "To-day three hundred and twelve men have been fed and comforted here. This morning Mrs. Bickerdyke made mush for two hundred, having gathered up in various places kettles, so that by great effort out of doors she can cook something. Potatoes, received from Iowa, and dried fruit and canned, have been distributed among the men.. Many of them are from Iowa. 'What could we do without these stores?' is the constant inquiry." "Almost every article of special diet has been cooked by Mrs. Bickerdyke personally, and all has been superintended by her." After the close of the Atlanta Campaign and the convalescence of the greater part of the wounded, Mrs. Bickerdyke returned to Chicago for a brief period of rest, but was soon called to Nashville and Franklin to attend the wounded of General Thomas's Army after the campaign which ended in Hood's utter discomfiture. When Savannah was surrendered she hastened thither, and after organizing the supply department of its hospitals, she and Mrs. Porter, who still accompanied her, established their system of Field Relief in Sherman's Campaign through the Carolinas. When at last in June, 1865, Sherman's veterans reached the National Capitol and were to be mustered out, the Sanitary Commission commenced its work of furnishing the supplies of clothing and other needful articles to these grim soldiers, to make their homeward journey more comfortable and their appearance to their families more agreeable. The work of distribution in the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps was assigned to Mrs. Bickerdyke and Mrs. Porter, and was performed, says Mrs. Barker, who had the general superintendence of the distribution, admirably. With this labor Mrs. Bickerdyke's connection with the sanitary work of the army ceased. She had, however, been too long engaged in philanthropic labor, to be content to sit down quietly, and lead a life of inaction; and after a brief period of rest, she began to gather the more helpless of the freedmen, in Chicago, and has since devoted her time and efforts to a "Freedmen's Home and Refuge" in that city, in which she is accomplishing great good. Out of the host of zealous workers in the hospitals and in the field, none have borne to their homes in greater measure the hearty and earnest love of the soldiers, as none had been more zealously and persistently devoted to their interests. MARGARET E. BRECKINRIDGE. TRUE heroine of the war was Margaret Elizabeth Breckinridge. Patient, courageous, self-forgetting, steady of purpose and cheerful in spirit, she belonged by nature to the heroic order, while all the circumstances of her early life tended to mature and prepare her for her destined work. Had her lot been cast in the dark days of religious intolerance and persecution, her steadfast enthusiasm and holy zeal would have earned for her a martyr's cross and crown; but, born in this glorious nineteenth century, and reared in an atmosphere of liberal thought and active humanity, the first spark of patriotism that flashed across the startled North at the outbreak of the rebellion, set all her soul aglow, and made it henceforth an altar of living sacrifice, a burning and a shining light, to the end of her days. Dearer to her gentle spirit than any martyr's crown, must have been the consciousness that this Godgiven light had proved a guiding beacon to many a faltering soul feeling its way into the dim beyond, out of the drear loneliness of camp or hospital. With her slight form, her bright face, and her musical voice, she seemed a ministering angel to the sick and suffering soldiers, while her sweet womanly purity and her tender devotion to their wants made her almost an object of worship among them. "Ain't she an angel?" said a gray-headed soldier as he watched her one morning as she was busy getting breakfast for the boys on the steamer "City of Alton." "She never seems to tire, she is always smiling, and don't seem to walk-she flies, |