n one occasion, as an instance, a telegraphic message
from Washington brought at night an urgent call for a supply of
bed-sacks. Early in the morning all the material in Newport was bought
up, as many sewing-machines as possible obtained, and seventy-five
bed-sacks finished and sent off that day, and as many more the following
day.

Miss Wormeley was just closing up her contract when, in April, 1862, the
"Hospital Transport Service" was organized, principally by the efforts
of Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, the General Secretary of the Sanitary
Commission. The sudden transfer of the scene of active war from the high
grounds bordering the Potomac to a low and swampy region intersected by
a network of creeks and rivers, made necessary appliances for the care
of the sick and wounded, which the Government was not at that time
prepared to furnish. Hence arose the arrangement by which certain large
steamers, chartered, but then unemployed by the Government, were
transferred to the Sanitary Commission to be fitted up as Hospital
Transports for the reception and conveyance of the sick and wounded. To
the superintendence of this work, care of the sick, and other duties of
this special service, a number of agents of the Commission, with
volunteers of both sexes, were appointed, and after protracted and
vexatious delays in procuring the first transports assembled at
Alexandria, Virginia, on the 25th of April, and embarked on the Daniel
Webster for York River, which they reached on the 30th of April.

Miss Wormeley was one of the first to become connected with this branch
of the service, and proceeded at once to her field of duty. She remained
in this employment until August of the same year, and passed through all
the horrors of the Peninsula campaign. By this, of course, is not
understood the _battles_ of the campaign, nor the army movements, but
the reception, washing, feeding, and ministering to the sick and the
wounded--scenes which are too full of horror for tongue to tell, or pen
to describe, but which must always remain indelibly impressed upon the
minds and hearts of those who were actors in them.

The ladies, it may be observed, who were attached to the Hospital
Transport Corps at the headquarters of the Commission, were all from the
higher walks of society, women of the greatest culture and refinement,
and unaccustomed to toil or exhausting care. Yet not one of them shrank
from hardship, or revolted at any labor or exerti