IOWA FAIR A GREAT SUCCESS.

611

church quickened the whole state into intense activity; and in the furor which followed, she outdid her sister states, which had been longer at work.

After making arrangements at home for my absence, I spent some months in Iowa, riding in "mud-spankers," in stages, "prairie schooners," on railroads, and in every conceivable way. I held meetings, and did whatever was necessary, in connection with the men and women who had organized for this purpose, to make their sanitary fair a great

success.

It opened in the last week of June, 1864. I had been kept informed of its steady growth, and was prepared for something creditable, but was surprised by its beauty and magnitude. It was a wonderful fair, when all that pertained to it was fully comprehended. It was held west of the Mississippi, where the refinements and luxuries of civilization were not supposed to exist in large measure. It was held in

a new state, where railroads were not numerous, and where prairie stage-coaches were still the principal conveniences for travelling.

At that time more than half the territory of the state was in the hands of Eastern speculators, who refused to open it to immigration. The male population had been so drained by the repeated calls of the country, that women were aiding in the outdoor work of the farms, all through the state, ploughing, reaping, mowing, and threshing. The fair was held in a state not rich, save in the great hearts of its loyal men and women, and its broad acres of virgin prairie, holding uncounted wealth in its bosom. There were no ladies and gentlemen of elegant leisure among her people. Few idlers or listless hangers-on

612

"IOWA EXCELLED THEM ALL."

were there, all being engaged in the earnest work of subduing nature,- in building highways and railroads, bridges and steam-boats, school-houses and warehouses, and in bringing the soil under cultivation.

As I entered the spacious City Hall building, three stories high, completely occupied by the fair, and went from one department to another, each filled with articles tasteful, beautiful, and useful, I was astonished at the great variety of wares displayed. This latest born of the great sisterhood of fairs seemed, at a coup d'œuil, equal in beauty and general effect to any of its predecessors.

It was intended to hold the fair for one week only. But, finding it impossible to carry out the purpose of the executive committee, it was decided to continue it a week longer. The gross receipts of the first week were sixty thousand dollars. It was a splendid result, and an unparalleled success, when all the circumstances were considered. At the end of the second week the managers of the fair were able to announce their net profits as nearly sixty thousand dollars. In estimating all the disadvantages under which this far-away state labored from the outset, and recalling her patriotism, loyalty, and generosity, one is forced to say, "Many states did excellently; but Iowa excelled them all!"

CHAPTER XXXIII.

REMINISCENCES OF THE WAR-TOUCHING STORY OF A RING -THE MAJOR WHO CRIED FOR MILK-CAPTURE OF GENERAL GRANT-"OLD ABE," THE WISCONSIN WAR EAGLE, AND HIS WONDERFUL CAREER.

Confronted by one of my own Letters - The widowed Mother tells her Story Puts her dead Daughter's Ring on my Finger- Officers' Hospital at Memphis - Its wretched Condition - Is made 'comfortable by the Commission-Incident at the Fabyan House, White Mountains-"Do you remember the Major who cried for Milk?". - Second Sanitary Fair in Chicago Held after the War ended — Regiments, Soldiers, and Officers received there- An Ovation to General Grant - Executes a flank Movement on the People - Is captured by young Ladies "This beats Vicksburg all out of Sight!"— "Old Abe," the Eagle of the Eighth Wisconsin - His military Behavior — Children sell his Pictures for the Soldiers' Fair-Make $16,308.93 by the Sales.

THE GIFT OF A SOLDIER'S WIDOW AND MOTHER.

OME few years ago I filled a lecture engagement in Albion, Mich. At the close of the lecture, I observed, standing outside the

little group of acquaintances who surrounded me, a white-haired, elderly woman, who approached me with the following inquiry: "Do you remember writing a letter for John of the Twelfth Michigan, when he lay dying in the Overton Hospital, at Memphis, in the spring of 1863? After he died, you completed the letter, writing to his mother and wife; do you remember it?"

I was obliged to tell the sad-faced woman that I performed so many offices of this kind during the

614

66

'YOUR LETTER SAVED US.”

war, when at the front or in the hospitals, that it was hardly possible for me to recall any individual case.

Drawing from her pocket a letter, that had been worn in pieces where it had been folded, and which was sewed together with fine cotton, she held it up

to me.

"Do you remember this letter?"

I recognized my penmanship, and, glancing over the contents of the letter, saw what it was. The first four pages I had written at the dictation of a young man who had been shot through the lungs, and was dying. The language was his, not mine, and I had not amended his phraseology. I had completed the letter after his death, by the addition of three pages, in which I sought to comfort the bereaved survivors.

"I thought John's wife and I would die when we heard he was dead," said the long-bereaved mother. "Your letter saved us. We were both comforted by it, and read it and re-read it, even when we had learned it word for word by much reading. When we heard of other women similarly bereaved, we loaned them the letter, until it was worn in pieces. Then we sewed it together; and then we made copies of it, and sent to our bereaved friends, and kept it in circulation until after the war ended.

He was

"John's death was a great loss to us. my only child, and was born after my husband's death, a blessing and a comfort from the day he saw the light. He had been engaged to be married for three years when the war came. He felt that he ought to enlist, but Anna and I could not listen to such a proposal, and we talked it down. At last he felt it was a duty for him to enter the service, and

"ANNA NEVER GOT OVER IT."

615

that he must go. We all three agreed to pray over it for a week, and to announce our decisions the next Sunday morning. When we came together at the end of a week, we had all decided that it was his duty to serve his country in the field. He enlisted in the Twelfth Michigan, under good officers, and the regiment was ordered South immediately.

"Anna insisted that their marriage should take place before he left, that she might go down and nurse him if he got sick or was wounded. She accompanied him as far as Louisville, when she could go no farther, and was sent homeward. At John's request we made one family, and she was a true, loving daughter to me. For eighteen months no ill tidings were received from my son. He was always well, never was wounded, and the February before his death he came home on fourteen days' furlough. We had received only three letters from him after his return, when your letter came, announcing his death.

"Anna never got over it. She worked and kept busy, went to church and taught her class in the Sunday-school, but all the life had gone out of her. She used to be very gay, and full of frolic and fun, but she dropped down to a kind of mild sadness, and I never heard her voice ringing with laughter as in the old days. She fell into delicate health, and grew thinner and feebler as the years went by. Eight years ago she had gastric fever. After the fever was subdued, she didn't rally, but failed every day, becoming whiter and weaker, until I saw she must die. I tried hard to persuade her to live, for she was all I had, and I loved her for her own sake as well as John's. "One day, when I was bathing her, her wedding ring rolled off her finger, which had wasted to the