en more for their country than she, few could feel a sorrow
she had not known or with which she could not sympathize, out of
something in her own experience. In the army, in camps and hospitals,
who so fit to speak in the place of wife or mother to the sick and dying
soldier, as she, in whom the tenderest feelings of the heart had been
touched by the hand of Death?

With the intention of devoting herself to this work, she asked of the
Governor permission to visit hospitals in the Western Department, as
agent for the State, which was cordially granted, and early in the
autumn of 1862, set out for St. Louis to commence her new work.

To a lady who had seen nothing of military life, of course, all was
strange. The experiment she was making was one in which very many
kind-hearted women have utterly failed--rushing to hospitals from the
impulse of a tender sympathy, only to make themselves obnoxious to the
surgeons by their impertinent zeal, and, by their inexperience and
indiscretion, useless, and sometimes detrimental, to the patients. With
the wisdom that has marked her course throughout, she at once
comprehended the delicacy of the situation, and was not long in
perceiving what she could best do, and wherein she could accomplish the
most good. The facility with which she brought, not only her own best
powers, but the influence universally accorded to her position, to bear
for the benefit of the suffering soldiers, is subject of remark and
wonder among all who have witnessed her labors.

At that time St. Louis was the theater of active military operations,
and the hospitals were crowded with sick and wounded from the camps and
battle-fields of Missouri and Tennessee. The army was not then composed
of the hardy veterans whose prowess has since carried victory into every
rebellious State, but of boys and young men unused to hardship, who, in
the flush of enthusiasm, had entered the army. Time had not then brought
to its present perfection the work of the Medical Department, and but
for the spontaneous generosity of the people in sending forward
assistance and supplies for the sick and wounded, the army could
scarcely have existed. Such was the condition of things when Mrs. Harvey
commenced her work of mercy in visiting the hospitals of that city,
filled with the victims of battle and disease. How from morning till
night for many a weary week she waited by the cots of these poor
fellows, attending to their little wants, an