What could women do to help in the dreadful struggle?  A meeting of New York ladies was called, which resulted in the formation of an Aid Society, pledging loyalty to the Government, and promising assistance to soldiers and their families.  Two gentlemen were sent to Washington to ask what work could be done, but word came back that there was no place for women at the front, nor no need for them in the hospitals.  Such words were worse than wasted on American women.  Since the day when men and women together breasted the storms of New England in the Mayflower, and together planted a new civilization, together they have worked side by side in all great matters.  They were untiring in the Revolutionary War; they worked faithfully in the dark days of anti-slavery agitation, taking their very lives in their hands.  And now their husbands and sons and brothers had gone from their homes.  They would die on battle-fields, and in lonely camps untended, and the women simply said, “Some of us must follow our best-beloved.”

The United States Sanitary Commission was soon organized, for working in hospitals, looking after camps, and providing comforts for the soldiers.  Branch associations were formed in ten large cities.  The great Northwestern Branch was put under the leadership of Mrs. Livermore and Mrs. A.H.  Hoge.  Useful things began to pour in from all over the country,—­fruits, clothing, bedding, and all needed comforts for the army.  Then Mrs. Livermore, now a woman of forty, with great executive ability, warm heart, courage, and perseverance, with a few others, went to Washington to talk with President Lincoln.

“Can no women go to the front?” they asked.

“No civilian, either man or woman, is permitted by law,” said Mr. Lincoln.  But the great heart of the greatest man in America was superior to the law, and he placed not a straw in their way.  He was in favor of anything which helped the men who fought and bled for their country.

Mrs. Livermore’s first broad experience in the war was after the battle of Fort Donelson.  There were no hospitals for the men, and the wounded were hauled down the hillside in rough-board Tennessee wagons, most of them dying before they reached St. Louis.  Some poor fellows lay with the frozen earth around them, chopped out after lying in the mud from Saturday morning until Sunday evening.

One blue-eyed lad of nineteen, with both legs and both arms shattered, when asked, “How did it happen that you were left so long?” said, “Why, you see, they couldn’t stop to bother with us, because they had to take the fort.  When they took it, we forgot our sufferings, and all over the battle-field cheers went up from the wounded, and even from the dying.”