L. P. Brockett, Women's work in the civil war: a record of heroism, patriotism and patience

[386] their intelligence, and religious and moral worth. The circumstances of her early life and education are unknown to the writer of this sketch, but must have been such as to develop that purity of mind and manners, that sweetness and amiability of temper, that ready sympathy and disinterestedness of purpose and conduct, which, together with rare conversational and musical powers, she possessed in so high a degree.

Having an uncle and his family resident in St. Louis, the first year of the war found her in that city, engaged in the work of ministering to the soldiers in the hospitals with her whole heart and soul. During the first winter of the great rebellion (1862) St. Louis was filled with troops, and there were thirteen hospitals thronged with the sick and wounded from the early battle-fields of the war. On the 30th of January of that year she thus wrote to the Boston Transcript, over her own initials, some account of her labors and observations at that time. Speaking of the hospitals she said, “It is here that the evils and horrors of the war become very apparent. Here stout hearts are broken. You see great numbers of the brave young men of the Western States, who have left their homes to fight for their country. They were willing to be wounded, shot, to die, if need be, but after months of inaction they find themselves conquered by dysentery or fever. Some fifty or sixty each week are borne to their long home. This may have been unavoidable, but it is hard to bear. ... Last night I returned home in the evening. It was dark, rainy, cold and muddy. I passed an ambulance in the street. The two horses had each a leader walking beside them, which indicated that a very sick soldier was within. It was a sad sight; and yet this poor man could not be moved, when he arrived at the hospital-door, until his papers were examined to see if they conformed to ‘Army Regulations.’ I protest against the coldness with which the Regulations treat the sick and wounded soldiers.”

No doubt her sympathetic heart protested against all delays and all seeming indifference to the welfare of the poor fellows on