cultivated. We regret that we cannot give the names of the ladies who initiated and sustained this movement. Many of them were conspicuous in other works of patriotism and benevolence during the war, and some found scope for their earnest devotion to the cause in camp and hospital, and some gave vent to their patriotic emotion in battle hymns which will live through all coming time. Of these as of thousands of others in all the departments of philanthropy connected with the great struggle, it shall be said, "They have done what they could."

NORTHWESTERN SANITARY COM

MISSION.

W

HEN the United States Sanitary Commission was first organized, though its members and officers had but

little idea of the vast influence it was destined to exert

on the labors which were before it, they wisely resolved to make it a National affair, and accordingly selected some of their corporate members from the large cities of the West. The Honorable Mark Skinner, and subsequently E. B. McCagg, Esq., and E. W. Blatchford, were chosen as the associate members of the Commission for Chicago. The Commission expected much from the Northwest, both from its earnest patriotism, and its largehanded liberality. Its selection of associates was eminently judicious, and these very soon after their election, undertook the establishment of a branch Commission for collecting and forwarding supplies, and more effectively organizing the liberality of the Northwest, that its rills and streams of beneficence, concentrated in the great city of the Lakes, might flow thence in a mighty stream to the armies of the West. Public meetings were held, a branch of the United States Sanitary Commission with its rooms, its auxiliaries and its machinery of collection and distribution put in operation, and the office management at first entrusted to that devoted and faithful worker in the Sanitary cause, Mrs. Eliza Porter. The work grew in extent as active operations were undertaken in our armies, and early in 1862, the associates finding Mrs. Porter desirous of joining her husband in ministrations of

mercy at the front, entrusted the charge of the active labors of the Commission, its correspondence, the organization of auxiliary aid societies, the issuing of appeals for money and supplies, the forwarding of stores, the employment and location of women nurses, and the other multifarious duties of so extensive an institution, to two ladies of Chicago, ladies who had both given practical evidence of their patriotism and activity in the cause,—Mrs. A. H. Hoge and Mrs. M. A. Livermore. The selection was wisely made. No more earnest workers were found in any department of the Sanitary Commission's field, and their eloquence of pen and voice, the magnetism of their personal presence, their terse and vigorously written circulars appealing for general or special supplies, their projection and management of two great sanitary fairs, and their unwearied efforts to save the western armies from the fearful perils of scurvy, entitle them to especial prominence in our record of noble and patriotic women. The amount of money and supplies sent from this branch, collected from its thousand auxiliaries and its two great fairs, has not been up to this time, definitively estimated, but it is known to have exceeded one million of dollars.

This record of the labors of these ladies during the war would be incomplete without allusion to the fact that they were the prime movers in the establishment of a Soldiers' Home, in Chicago, and were, until after the war ended, actively identified with it. They early foresaw that this temporary resting-place, which became like "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" to tens of thousands of soldiers, going to and returning from the camp, and hospital, and battle-field, would eventually crystallize into a permanent home for the disabled and indigent of Illinois' brave men-and in all their calculations for it, they took its grand future into account. That future which they foresaw, has become a verity, and nowhere in the United States is there a pleasanter, or more convenient, or more generously supported Soldiers' Home than in Chicago, standing on the shores of Lake Michigan.

MRS. A. H. HOGE.

1

ERHAPS among all who have labored for the soldier, during the late war, among the women of our country, no name is better known that of Mrs. A. H. Hoge, the subject of this sketch. From the beginning until the successful close of the war, alike cheerful, ardent, and reliant, in its darkest, as in its brightest days, Mrs. Hoge dedicated to the service of her country and its defenders, all that she had to bestow, and became widely known all over the vast sphere of her operations, as one of the most faithful and tireless of workers; wise in council, strong in judgment, earnest in action.

Mrs. Hoge is a native of the city of Philadelphia, and was the daughter of George D. Blaikie, Esq., an East India shipping merchant—“a man of spotless character, and exalted reputation, whose name is held in reverence by many still living there."

Mrs. Hoge was educated at the celebrated seminary of John Brewer, A. M., (a graduate of Harvard University) who founded the first classical school for young ladies in Philadelphia, and which was distinguished from all others, by the name of the Young Ladies' College. She graduated with the first rank in her class, and afterward devoting much attention, with the advantage of the best instruction, to music, and other accomplishments, she soon excelled in the former. At an early age she became a member of the Old School Presbyterian Church, with which she still retains her connection, her husband being a ruling elder in the same church.

In her twentieth year she was married to Mr. A. H. Hoge, a merchant of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where she resided fourteen years. At the end of that period she removed to Chicago, Illinois, where she has since dwelt.

Mrs. Hoge has been the mother of thirteen children, five of whom have passed away before her. One of these, the Rev. Thomas Hoge, was a young man of rare endowments and promise.

As before stated, from the very beginning of the war, Mrs. Hoge identified herself with the interests of her country. Two of her sons immediately entered the army, and she at once commenced her unwearied personal services for the sick and wounded soldiers.

At first she entered only into that work of supply in which so large a portion of the loyal women of the North labored more or less continuously all through the war. But the first public act of her life as a Sanitary Agent, was to visit, at the request of the Chicago branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, the hospitals at Cairo, Mound City and St. Louis.

Of her visit to one of these hospitals she subsequently related the following incidents:

"The first great hospital I visited was Mound City, twelve miles from Cairo. It contained twelve hundred beds, furnished with dainty sheets, and pillows and shirts, from the Sanitary Commission, and ornamented with boughs of fresh apple blossoms, placed there by tender female nurses to refresh the languid frames of their mangled inmates. As I took my slow and solemn walk through this congregation of suffering humanity, I was arrested by the bright blue eyes, and pale but dimpled cheek, of a boy of nineteen summers. I perceived he was bandaged like a mummy, and could not move a limb; but still he smiled. The nurse who accompanied me said, 'We call this boy our miracle. Five weeks ago, he was shot down at Donelson; both legs and arms shattered. To-day, with great care, he has been turned for