e had ceaselessly toiled on; and all along her path
were strewed the blessings of thousands of grateful hearts.

The increasing heats of summer warned her that she could not withstand
the influences of another season of hard work in a warm climate, and on
the day of the assassination of President Lincoln, she left Washington
for Boston.

Mrs. Barker had been at home about six weeks when a new call for effort
came, on the return of the Army of the Potomac encamped around
Washington previous to its final march for home. To it was presently
added the Veterans of Sherman's grand march, and all were in a state of
destitution. The following extract from the _Report of the Field Relief
Service of the United States Sanitary Commission with the Armies of the
Potomac, Georgia, and Tennessee, in the Department of Washington, May
and June, 1865_, gives a much better idea of the work required than
could otherwise be presented.

"Armies, the aggregate strength of which must have exceeded two hundred
thousand men, were rapidly assembling around this city, previous, to the
grand review and their disbandment. These men were the travel-worn
veterans of Sherman, and the battle-stained heroes of the glorious old
Army of the Potomac, men of whom the nation is already proud, and whom
history will teach our children to venerate. Alas! that veterans require
more than 'field rations;' that heroes will wear out or throw away their
clothes, or become diseased with scurvy or chronic diarrhoea.

"The Army of the West had marched almost two thousand miles, subsisting
from Atlanta to the ocean almost wholly upon the country through which
it passed. When it entered the destitute regions of North Carolina and
Virginia it became affected with scorbutic diseases. A return to the
ordinary marching rations gave the men plenty to eat, but no vegetables.
Nor had foraging put them in a condition to bear renewed privation.

"The Commissary Department issued vegetables in such small quantities
that they did not affect the condition of the troops in any appreciable
degree. Surgeons immediately sought the Sanitary Commission. The demand
soon became greater than the supply. At first they wanted nothing but
vegetables, for having these, they said, all other discomforts would
become as nothing.

"After we had secured an organization through the return of agents and
the arrival of transportation, a division of labor was made, resulting
ultimately in three depar