oing to school nor to play, but imprisoned for
years in the deadly air of a sick room, and made to feel, every moment,
that a brother's life depended on her vigilance. Then followed a still
longer period of sickness and feebleness on her own part; and from that
time to the present, sickness, danger and death have been always near
her, till they have grown familiar as playmates, and she has come to
understand all the wants and ways and waywardness of the sick; has
learned to anticipate their wishes and cheat them of their fears. Those
who have been under her immediate care, will understand me when I say
there is healing in the touch of her hand, and anodyne in the low melody
of her voice. In the first year of Mr. Buchanan's administration she was
hustled out of the Patent Office on a suspicion of anti-slavery
sentiments. She returned to New England, and devoted her time to study
and works of benevolence. In the winter following the election of Mr.
Lincoln, she returned to Washington at the solicitation of her friends
there, and would doubtless have been reinstated if peace had been
maintained. I happened to see her a day or two after the news came that
Fort Sumter had been fired on. She was confident, even enthusiastic. She
had feared that the Southern aristocracy, by their close combination and
superior political training, might succeed in gradually subjugating the
whole country; but of that there was no longer any danger. The war
might be long and bloody, but the rebels had voluntarily abandoned a
policy in which the chances were in favor of their ultimate success, for
one in which they had no chance at all. For herself, she had saved a
little in time of peace, and she intended to devote it and herself to
the service of her country and of humanity. If war must be, she neither
expected nor desired to come out of it with a dollar. If she survived,
she could no doubt earn a living; and if she did not, it was no matter.
This is actually the substance of what she said, and pretty nearly the
words--without appearing to suspect that it was remarkable."

Three days after Major Anderson had lowered his flag in Charleston
Harbor, the Sixth Massachusetts Militia started for Washington. Their
passage through Baltimore, on the 19th of April, 1861, is a remarkable
point in our national history. The next day about thirty of the sick and
wounded were placed in the Washington Infirmary, where the Judiciary
Square Hospital now stands. Mi