In the beginning of the war, when battles began to be fought, and the sick and wounded were brought to our hospitals to be treated and cared for, Mrs. Palmer with true patriotic devotion and womanly sympathy offered her services to this good cause, and after a variety of hospital work in the fall of 1863, she entered into the service of the Ladies' Union Aid Society of St. Louis as a regular visiter among the soldiers' families, many of whom needed aid and work, during the absence of their natural protectors in the army. It was a field of great labor and usefulness; for in so large a city there were thousands of poor women, whose husbands often went months without pay, or the means of sending it home to their families, who were obliged to appeal for assistance in taking care of themselves and children. To prevent imposition it was necessary that they should be visited, the requisite aid rendered, and sewing or other work provided by which they could earn a part of their own support, a proper discrimination being made between the worthy and unworthy, the really suffering, and those who would impose on the charity of the society under the plea of necessity.

In this work Mrs. Palmer was most faithful and constant, going from day to day through a period of nearly two years, in summer and winter, in sunshine and storm, to the abodes of these people, to find out their real necessities, to report to the society and to secure for them the needed relief.

Her labors also extended to many destitute families of refugees, who had found their way to St. Louis from the impoverished regions of Southern Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and who would have died of actual want, but for the charity of the Government and the ministering aid of the Western Sanitary Commission and the Ladies' Union Aid Society. In her visits and her dispensations of charity Mrs. Palmer was always wise, judicious, and humane, and 'enjoyed the fullest confidence of the society in whose service she was engaged. In the performance of her duties she was always thoroughly con

scientious, and actuated by a high sense of religious duty. From an early period of her life she had been a consistent member of the Baptist Church, and her Christian character was adorned by a thorough consecration to works of kindness and humanity which were performed in the spirit of Him, who, during his earthly ministry, "went about doing good."

By her arduous labors, which were greater than her physical constitution could permanently endure, Mrs. Palmer's health became undermined, and in the summer of 1865 she passed into a fatal decline, and on the 2d of August ended a life of usefulness on earth to enter upon the enjoyments of a beatified spirit in heaven.

LADIES' AID SOCIETY OF PHILA

DELPHIA.

NE of the first societies formed by ladies to aid and care for the sick and wounded soldiers, was the one whose name we have placed at the head of this sketch. The

Aid Society of Cleveland, and we believe one in Boston claim a date five or six days earlier, but no others. The ladies who composed it met on the 26th of April, 1861, and organized themselves as a society to labor for the welfare of the soldiers whether in sickness or health. They continued their labors with unabated zeal until the close of the war rendered them unnecessary. The officers of the society were Mrs. Joel Jones, President; Mrs. John Harris, Secretary; and Mrs. Stephen Colwell, Treasurer. Mrs. Jones is the widow of the late Hon. Joel Jones, a distinguished jurist of Philadelphia, and subsequently for several years President of Girard College. A quiet, self-possessed and dignified lady, she yet possessed an earnestly patriotic spirit, and decided business abilities. Of Mrs. Harris, one of the most faithful and persevering laborers for the soldiers in the field, throughout the war, we have spoken at length elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Colwell, the wife of Hon. Stephen Colwell, a man of rare philosophic mind and comprehensive views, who had acquired a reputation alike by his writings, and his earnest practical benevolence, was a woman every way worthy

of her husband.

It was early determined to allow Mrs. Harris to follow the

promptings of her benevolent heart and go to the field, while her colleagues should attend to the work of raising supplies and money at home, and furnishing her with the stores she required for her own distribution and that of the zealous workers who were associated with her. The members of the society were connected with twenty different churches of several denominations, and while all had reference to the spiritual as well as physical welfare of the soldier, yet there was nothing sectarian or denominational in its work. From the fact that its meetings were held and its goods packed in the basement and vestry of Dr. Boardman's Church, it was sometimes called the Presbyterian Ladies' Aid Society, but the name, if intended to imply that its character was denominational, was unjust. As early as October, 1861, the pastors of twelve churches in Philadelphia united in an appeal to all into whose hands the circular might fall, to contribute to this society and to form auxiliaries to it, on the ground of its efficiency, its economical management, and its unsectarian character.

The society, with but moderate receipts as compared with those of the great organizations, accomplished a great amount of good. Not a few of the most earnest and noble workers in the field were at one time or another the distributors of its supplies, and thus in some sense, its agents. Among these we may name besides Mrs. Harris, Mrs. M. M. Husband, Mrs. Mary W. Lee, Miss M. M. C. Hall, Miss Cornelia Hancock, Miss Anna M. Ross, Miss Nellie Chase, of Nashville, Miss Hetty K. Painter, Mrs. Z. Denham, Miss Pinkham, Miss Biddle, Mrs. Sampson, Mrs. Waterman, and others. The work intended by the society, and which its agents attempted to perform was a religious as well as a physical one; hospital supplies were to be dispensed, and the sick and dying soldier carefully nursed; but it was also a part of its duty to point the sinner to Christ, to warn and reprove the erring, and to bring religious consolation and support to the sick and dying; the Bible, the Testament, and the tract were as truly a part of its supplies as the clothing it distributed so liberally, or

the delicacies it provided to tempt the appetite of the sick. Mrs. Harris established prayer-meetings wherever it was possible in the camps or at the field hospitals, and several of the other ladies followed her example.

In her first report, Mrs. Harris said: "In addition to the dispensing of hospital supplies, the sick of two hundred and three regiments have been personally visited. Hundreds of letters, bearing last messages of love to dear ones at home, have been written for sick and dying soldiers. We have thrown something of home light and love around the rude couches of at least five hundred of our noble citizen soldiers, who sleep their last sleep along the Potomac.

"We have been permitted to take the place of mothers and sisters, wiping the chill dew of death from the noble brow, and breathing words of Jesus into the ear upon which all other sounds fell unheeded. The gentle pressure of the hand has carried the dying one to the old homestead, and, as it often happened, by a merciful illusion, the dying soldier has thought the face upon which his last look rested, was that of a precious mother, sister, or other cherished one. One, a German, in broken accents, whispered: 'How good you have come, Eliza; Jesus is always near me;' then, wrestling with that mysterious power, death, slept in Jesus. Again, a gentle lad of seventeen summers, wistfully then joyfully exclaimed: 'I knew she would come to her boy,' went down comforted into the dark valley. Others, many others still, have thrown a lifetime of trustful love into the last look, sighing out life with 'Mother, dear mother!'

"It has been our highest aim, whilst ministering to the temporal well-being of our loved and valued soldiers, to turn their thoughts and affections heavenward. We are permitted to hope that not a few have, through the blessed influence of religious tracts, soldiers' pocket books, soldiers' Bibles, and, above all, the Holy Scriptures distributed by us, been led 'to cast anchor upon