"But I humbly, earnestly pray for a wider sphere of usefulness. Darkness and error prevail on every hand. I would fain have power to clear away some of these clouds. And shall I pray in vain? We have the promise—if we seek, we shall find."
These words are the end of this written record of a woman *s love and trust; for in this "great and good world*' there were certain men at the South who about that time trained their cannon on the starred and striped flag of the government which "would not sufficiently let them eat their bread in the sweat of other men's faces*'; and so woman's love and trust, and joy of peaceful ministry everywhere, were whelmed in the crash and mauling and woe of a mighty Civil War — a war which taught the braggart tyrant forces of the world that the most terrible foemen on earth are the "woman-hearted" men who love their fair, free homes and simple fireside joys, but who will fight when fight they nmst, or see the truth crushed down forever.
Those who know the life history of Almeda Hall Cobb throughout that woeful season, know of her ceaseless ministries, her home toil for the hospitals and for the wounded brought back from the front; know of the birth of another daughter, replacing the baby girl whom death had taken; know of her continuous thought and labor for the cause of Union and liberty. Her husband's brothers had volunteered for the front; but him whom she loved so devotedly the conscription had not touched, and she was loath to let him go. Yet the time came when, after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Grant, the great chieftain whom the nation trusted, mighty in war yet with latent peace-yearnings in his heart, needed volunteers to re- pair the losses of his terrible campaign toward Richmond. Then Almeda yielded her final sacrifice, as her husband, George Winslow Cobb, of the Sixty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, set forth to join in the death-grapple around Petersburg and Richmond. While the bulletins brought news day by day of his regiment's engagment in the thick of the fight, his wife, at home with Albert and Margaret, their little boy and girl, encountered her daily trials, supporting her little ones, shielding and guarding them with anxious care against encompassing, unspeakable social demoralizations, which are always part of the price of war, and which brave Mary Liver- more has published and proclaimed with unwavering courage, as she arraigns the war-policies of nations.
Once at home by furlough with endorsement for bravery in battle, greeting his now invaUd wife and the children, then again to the front, Almeda's husband took her heart with him, in yearning that wore her vital force away. A few months after Grant's magic words, "Let us have peace," had dissolved and sent home a host of a million men at arms, Almeda Hall Cobb, representative of woman-martyrs as the sands of the sea for number, yielded her earth-life, worn and finished by war, and her body of this mortality was laid at rest in Woodlawn, September 20, 1865.
In many young people to whom "grand-mother's" face and memory are only a faraway tradition her traits of righteousness now live on, blessed by peace. In so far as her soul's desire to spread the light of truth can be fulfilled in trust by a son who lives after her, it shall be fulfilled, and thus her prayers be answered; while for herself and her kind in the mysterious life beyond death, there is a Scripture—
"What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
"And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me. These are they which have come up out of great tribulation."
MARY CAFFREY LOW CARVER was born at Waterville, Kennebec County, Me., March 22, 1850, being the second daughter of Ira Hobbs Low and Ellen Mandana Caffrey Low. Her paternal grandparents were Ivory and Fanny (Colcord) Low, of Fairfield, Me., Ivory being the son of Obadiah Low, a native of Sanford,
Me. Her mother was a grand-daughter of John Pullen, who came from Attleboro, Mass., and settled in Winthrop, Me., where he married Amy Bishop, daughter of Squier Bishop and his wife, Patience Titus Bishop. John Pullen
