m she was brought in
contact, she chose to resign rather than allow sex-prejudice to
obstruct the carrying on of the great work originated by her. The
Sanitary, with its Auxiliary Aid Societies, at once presented a method
of help to the loyal[16] women of the country, and every city,
village, and hamlet soon poured its resources into the Commission.
Through it $92,000,000 were raised in aid of the sick and wounded of
the army. Nothing connected with the war so astonished foreign nations
as the work of the Sanitary Commission.

Dr. Henry Bellows, its President at the close of the war, declared in
his farewell address, that the army of women at home had been as
patriotic and as self-sacrificing as the army of men in the field, and
had it not been for their aid the war could not have been brought to a
successful termination.[17]

At every important period in the nation's history, woman has stood by
the side of man in duties. Husband, father, son, or brother have not
suffered or sacrificed alone.

"The old Continentals
In their ragged regimentals
Faltered not,"

because back of them stood the patriotic women of the thirteen
Colonies; those of the north-eastern pine-woods, who aided in the
first naval battle of the Revolution; those of Massachusetts,
Daughters of Liberty, who formed anti-tea leagues, proclaimed inherent
rights, and demanded an independency in advance of the men; those of
New York, who tilled the fields, and, removing their hearth-stones,
manufactured saltpetre from the earth beneath, to make powder for the
army; those of New Jersey, who rebuked traitors; those of
Pennsylvania, who saved the army; those of Virginia, who protested
against taxation without representation; those of South Carolina, who
at Charleston established a paper in opposition to the Stamp Act;
those of North Carolina, whose fiery patriotism secured for the
counties of Rowan and Mecklenberg the derisive name of "The Hornet's
Nest of America." The women of the whole thirteen Colonies everywhere
showed their devotion to freedom and their choice of liberty with
privation, rather than oppression with luxury and ease.

The civil war in our own generation was but an added proof of woman's
love for freedom and her worthiness of its possession. The grandest
war poem, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," was the echo of a woman's
voice,[18] while woman's prescience and power were everywhere
manifested. She saw, before President, Ca