opened, the same fact was observed. In the midst of all their dreadful suffering and misery, the prisoners there made no large demands. They asked for but little-the smallest possible amount, and were always fearful lest they might absorb the bounty to which others had a better claim.

After this communication was opened, Mrs. Marsh found a delightful task in preparing the boxes which in great numbers were constantly being sent forward to the prisons. It was a part of her duty, also, to inspect the letters which went and came between the prisons and the outside world.

The pathos of many of these was far beyond description. Touching appeals constantly came to her from distant Northern homes for some tidings of the sons, brothers, fathers of whose captivity they had heard, but whose further existence had been a blank. Where are they? and how are they? were constantly recurring questions, which alas! it was far too often her sad duty to answer in a way to destroy all hope.

And the letters of the prisoners, filled to the uttermost, not with complaints, but with the pervading sadness that could not for one moment be banished from their horrible lives! No words can describe them, they were simply heart-breaking! Just as the horror of the prison-pens is beyond the power of words to fitly tell, so are the griefs which grew out of them.

Mrs. Marsh continued busily employed in this work of mercy until it was suddenly suspended. Some formality had not been complied with, and the privilege of communication was discontinued; and all their friends disappointed and disheartened. This we can easily imagine, but not what the suspension was to the suffering prisoners who had for a short season enjoyed this one gleam of light from the outer world, and were now plunged into a rayless hopeless night. When the time of deliverance came, as we all know, many of them were past the power of rejoicing in it.

Dr. Marsh was for a long time detained at Folly and Morris

Islands. The force at Beaufort was quite inadequate, and exceedingly onerous and absorbing duties fell to the share of Mrs. Marsh. Communication was difficult. Dr. Marsh at times could not reach his home. Vessels which had been running between New York and Port Royal and Hilton Head were detained at the North. The receipt and transmission of sanitary stores, and the immense correspondence growing out of it; the general oversight of the needs of the hospitals, and the monthly reports of the same all fell heavily upon one brain and one pair of hands.

It was at just such an emergency that the army of Sherman, the "Great March" to the sea nearly completed, arrived upon the scene. The sick and disabled arrived by hundreds, the hospitals were filled up directly, and even thronged; while so numerous were the cases of small-pox, which had appeared in the army, that a large separate hospital had to be provided for them.

We may perhaps imagine how busy was the brave woman, left with such an immense responsibility on her hands.

Early in 1865, Dr. Marsh received notice that it had been determined to send him to Newbern, North Carolina, but he never went, being attacked soon after by a long and dangerous illness which for a time rendered it improbable that he would ever see his Northern home again.

It was at this time that a cargo of sanitary supplies arrived from New York. A part of these were a contribution from Montreal. Montreal had before sent goods to the Commission, but these were forwarded to Mrs. Marsh herself. A letter of hers written not long previous to a friend in New York, had been forwarded to Montreal, and had aroused a strong desire there to help her in her peculiar work. A large portion of this gift was from an M. P., who, though he might, like others, lift his voice against the American war, had yet enough of the milk of

human kindness in his heart to lead him to desire to do something for her suffering soldiers and prisoners.

This gift Mrs. Marsh never saw, it being sent with the rest of the unbroken cargo back to Newbern in view of the expected arrival of her family there.

one.

The surrender of Lee virtually closed the war, and the necessity of Dr. Marsh's stay in the South was no longer an important Besides this, his health would not permit it, and he returned to New York where he had long been wanted to take charge of the "Lincoln Home" in Grove Street, a hospital opened by the Sanitary Commission for lingering cases of wounds and sickness among homeless and destitute soldiers.

Of this hospital and home Dr. Marsh was surgeon, and Mrs. Marsh matron. Dr. Hoadly who had been with Dr. Marsh at the South, still retained the position of assistant. The health of Dr. Marsh improved, but he has never entirely recovered.

admitted, and of

They entered the Lincoln Home on the 1st of May, 1865, and the house was immediately filled with patients. They remained there until June of the following year, 1866. During their stay between three and four hundred patients were those who were regular patients none died. One soldier, a Swede, was found in the street in the last stages of exhaustion and suffering, and died before the morning following his admission. He bore about him evidences of education and gentle birth, but he could not speak English, and carried with him into another world the secret of his name and identity. He had no disease, but the foundations of his life had been sapped by the irritation caused by filth and vermin.

ness.

As at the South, in the services of Mrs. Marsh here, there was a great disproportion between their showiness and their usefulShe pursued her quiet round of labors, the results of which will be seen and felt for years, as much as in the present. Her kind voice, and pleasant smile will be an ever living and delightful memory in the hearts of all to whom she ministered during

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,