Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/397

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362
Part Taken by Women in American History


She was mustered out in Leighton House Hospital, Keokuk, Iowa, with an honorable discharge. Mrs. Chapman is 80 years of age. Her home is in East St. Louis, Ill.

Mrs. Addie L. Ballou, past national president of the Army Nurses, is a woman well known on the Pacific coast, as author, artist, lawyer and club woman. She is a woman of many talents and indomitable will, for when the earthquake and fire in San Francisco swept away her all, she heroically set to work with the spirit of a young woman to regain her home. At the beginning of the Civil War she offered her services to the Governor of Wisconsin, in which state she was living, and then began work as a nurse in camp of the 32nd Wisconsin regiment, where there were many sick. Later, Surgeon General Wolcott at Milwaukee, commissioned her, and she went with the regiment to Memphis, from there being sent with 255 sick soldiers to Keokuk, Iowa. Again in Memphis she nursed hundreds through a terrible epidemic. She is beloved by every member of the 32nd Wisconsin, and is affectionately referred to as "The Little Mother." She has written a book of poems, "Driftwood." Mrs. Ballou now resides in San Francisco, California.

Mrs. Margaret Hamilton, past president of the Army Nurses, was born in Rochester, New York, October 19, 1840. Her mother dying when the daughter was seventeen, she obtained her father's consent and became a sister of charity, and after due preparation was sent to teach in an orphan asylum in Albany. When the war broke out she wanted to nurse, but the lot did not fall to her until in the spring of 1862 when, with three other sisters, she was sent to Satterlea United States Hospital in Philadelphia, where she cared for the wounded sent up from Chickamauga. She served three years, during which time she fell in love with one of the wounded soldiers, a member of the igth Maine Volunteers, and left the sisterhood to marry him. Her home life was ideal, and as wife and mother she was a model. Mrs. Hamilton is now a widow and resides in Wakefield, Massachusetts.

Mrs. Fanny Titus Hazen, past president of the Army Nurses, the grand-daughter of a soldier of the Revolutionary Army, was born in Vershire, Vermont, May 2, 1840. As was the case with a number of others, when she applied to Miss Dix for an appointment, she was told that she was too young, but because she had two brothers, one seventeen and the other eighteen, in the service, she begged to be allowed to stay and was finally accepted and sent to Columbia Hospital, Washington, where she stayed until it closed, June 27, 1865. From the battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, her youngest brother was brought to her wounded, and she nursed him until he recovered. Mrs. Hazen lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mrs. Clarissa F. Dye, past president of the Army Nurses, in 1862, was teaching, but devoted her vacation to field and hospital work in company with Miss Marie McClellan of Germantown, Pa. She was first sent on the steamer