an
the most illustrious name won by the most splendid services. Women there
were in this war, who without a single relative in the army, denied
themselves for the whole four years, the comforts to which they had
been always accustomed; went thinly clad, took the extra blanket from
their bed, never tasted tea, or sugar, or flesh, that they might wind
another bandage round some unknown soldier's wound, or give some parched
lips in the hospital another sip of wine. Others never let one leisure
moment, saved from lives of pledged labor which barely earned their
bread, go unemployed in the service of the soldiers. God Himself keeps
this record! It is too sacred to be trusted to men.

But it is not such humble, yet exalted souls that will complain of the
praise which to their neglect, is allotted to any of their sisters. The
ranks always contain some heroes braver and better than the most
fortunate and conspicuous officers of staff or line--but they feel
themselves best praised when their regiment, their corps, or their
general is gazetted. And the true-hearted workers for the soldiers among
the women of this country will gladly accept the recognition given to
the noble band of their sisters whom peculiar circumstances lifted into
distinct view, as a tribute offered to the whole company. Indeed, if the
lives set forth in this work, were regarded as exceptional in their
temper and spirit, as they certainly were in their incidents and
largeness of sphere, the whole lesson of the Record would be misread.
These women in their sacrifices, their patriotism, and their
persistency, are only fair representatives of the spirit of their whole
sex. As a rule, American women exhibited not only an intense feeling for
the soldiers in their exposures and their sufferings, but an intelligent
sympathy with the national cause, equal to that which furnished among
the men, two million and three hundred thousand volunteers.

It is not unusual for women of all countries to weep and to work for
those who encounter the perils of war. But the American women, after
giving up, with a principled alacrity, to the ranks of the gathering and
advancing army, their husbands and sons, their brothers and lovers,
proceeded to organize relief for them; and they did it, not in the
spasmodic and sentimental way, which has been common elsewhere, but with
a self-controlled and rational consideration of the wisest and best
means of accomplishing their purpose, which