Besides those whose names have been published in books there were many more—school teachers—who spent their vacations in the hospitals, and women who were content to be the angels of mercy to the suffering soldiers, but whose names have not been scattered far and wide, though their labors were appreciated. As someone has said: "The recording angel, thank Heaven, knows them all," and, "their labor was not in vain in the Lord." Surely the women of that portion of the last century given over to the war are women of whom the nation may well be proud, and whose memories should be cherished.
When the war was over there was still work for the women to do in training the freedmen, and especially their children; and the noble women who had been nurses, and many who had not, enlisted in this philanthropic and trying enterprise with the same zeal and self-sacrifice that had been shown by the women in the hospitals. They wrought also among the families of the soldiers and among the refugees who were homeless and destitute while war devastated the land. The niece of the poet Whittier was among them, bearing a name sacred to all lovers of freedom, because John G. Whittier's lyrics had so earnestly pleaded for the freedom of the slaves. Anna Gardner was a teacher of colored children on her native island of Nantucket when the Abolitionists were ostracized. She taught one of the first normal schools ever established for colored girls, and doubtless gave invaluable service in training the negroes of the South to become teachers for their own race.
After long years of silence, the American Tract Society at last gave the meed of praise to Christian effort without regard to race or color, when it published its sketch of Mary S. Peake, a free colorecl woman, who was the first teacher of her race at Fortress Monroe.
Mrs. Frances D. Gage, a woman of Ohio birth, but of
