Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts in the Army and Navy during the war of 1861-1865, vol. 2

Another well-known author, Mrs. Helen Hunt (H. H.), a native of Amherst, Mass., performed similar service in a hospital in Rhode Island.

Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomroy of Chelsea, Mass., was another of the heroic women who gave themselves to hospital work. Bereft by death of her husband and a son and daughter, almost at one stroke, she sought comfort in ministering to those who were more heavily weighted with sorrow and suffering than herself. She offered her services as a nurse to Miss Dix, was accepted, and installed in the Georgetown, D. C., hospital. She proved herself so unusual and efficient as to attract the attention of surgeons and of visiting members of Congress. And when sickness invaded the White House, and Mrs. Lincoln and Willie, the second and favorite son of the President, were sick unto death, and a good nurse was unattainable anywhere in the District of Columbia, Mrs. Pomroy was sent by Miss Dix to the stricken household. Willie died, Mrs. Pomroy remaining in charge of the other invalid till she was fully restored, comforting the bereaved President by her sympathy and kindness, and calming and managing the distracted household. She then returned to her work for the soldiers, sometimes in hospitals, sometimes on hospital transports and sometimes in the rear of the battlefield, where the wounded were brought to her for care and protection. After the surrender at Appomattox she came home to rest. Not long, however, for her practical ability was sought for the management of the ‘Newton, Mass., Home for Orphan and Destitute Girls,’ where she remained in charge until her recent death.

Miss Emily E. Parsons of Cambridge, Mass., was the daughter of Prof. Theophilus Parsons of the Cambridge Law School, and grand-daughter of the late Chief Justice Parsons of Massachusetts. She obtained admission into the Massachusetts General Hospital as a student, to learn how to care for the sick, to dress wounds, to prepare diet for invalids, and to acquire a knowledge of what pertains to a well-regulated hospital. At the suggestion of Mrs. John C. Fremont, the St. Louis branch commission telegraphed her to come at once to that city, where she was greatly needed. At that time every available building in St. Louis was converted into a hospital, and was crowded with patients. The same was true of Mound City (near Cairo), Memphis, Quincy, Ill., and all the cities on the Ohio River. Miss Parsons was assigned to the hospital steamer City of Alton, which plied between Vicksburg and St. Louis, bringing the sick and wounded from the various military posts to whatever hospitals on the river could receive them. After a time she was transferred to Benton Barracks Hospital, St. Louis, where were two thousand patients. She was made superintendent of all the nurses employed there, men and women. She reduced the work to a perfect system, trained the nurses to perform the work allotted them, co-operated with the surgeons in carrying out humane and enlightened plans, and Benton Barracks Hospital became famous for its excellence and the rapid recovery of its patients. At the close of the war she gave her services for some time to the freedmen in the south-west, where her adherence to systematic work, her unfailing cheerfulness and kindness and her power of persistence in carrying out her plans, made her as eminent and as useful as she had been in the hospitals.