Dennis was with us in the final review when we marched down Pennsylvania avenue in the grandest and most impressive pageant that ever took place in this country.
We marched back to our Virginia camp that night, and as the men were unbuckling their equipments Dennis looked up and said: “’Twas a bloody shame that James wasn’t with us to-day.”
Down the picket-guarded lane Rolled the comfort-laden wain, Cheered by shouts that shook the plain, Soldier-like and merry; Phrases such as camps may teach, Sabre cuts of Saxon speech, Such as ‘Bully!’ “Them’s the peach!” ‘Wade in Sanitary!’ --Harte.
The names of women do not figure in the official reports of the war. They were not gazetted for gallant deeds; thousands were unknown beyond the neighborhood where they worked zealously to organize “Soldiers’ Aid Societies,” for no town was too remote from the scene of action not to have its relief committee who were constantly collecting comforts and necessities to be forwarded to the front.
What each family first started out to do for their own fathers, brothers, husbands and lovers soon became general, and many prompted by love and patriotism left home and its comforts and went down into the very edge of the great battles to help rescue the wounded. They endured hardships and proved themselves angels of mercy as only women can.
Tens of thousands of maimed veterans will remember with tenderness the noble women who ministered to them on the battlefield, on transports and in hospitals.
I am sure that none of Hancock’s old corps will ever cease to remember the motherly Mrs. Husband, Miss Clara Barton, Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Anna Holstein, Miss Cornelia Hancock, a relative of the general; Miss Willetts, or Mrs. Barlow, wife of Gen. Francis C. Barlow of the 1st division.
The story of the army life of the last named woman is full of interest and romance. She was a true friend of the men in the ranks, and her purse was frequently opened to give money to some wounded soldier who was being sent to some northern hospital without a cent in his pocket.
She followed her husband’s troops through the unequaled and appalling scenes of blood and hardship in Grant’s campaign of ’64, using her strength so that she finally sickened and went home to die in a few months. If ever there was a pure noble woman it was Mrs. Barlow.