Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/23

2 of what American life stands for with all other interest ruthlessly swept aside, can be gained than that which comes in looking through the biographies of American women. But to make these lives of value as a national interpretation—not a mere unilluminated statistical array—the task must rest in the hands of an American woman with the sympathy and understanding which can come only from having touched at first hand and at various points the typical life of American womanhood. And this is Mrs. John A. Logan's pre-eminent qualification as the author of this volume. With no attempt at eulogy except such expressions as sincere admiration and deepest personal affection must inspire, I shall present such leading phases of Mrs. Logan's bravely wrought, richly-spent career that they may illustrate how, apart from the prominence which the reflected glory of her illustrious husband gives her name, this American woman's mind, vitality, private tragedies, and the strange and varied forces shaping her magnificent character, all bear testimony to a life given to high causes and to her ability unselfishly to appreciate and to portray so that it may survive the inexorable years, the work—brave, influential, patriotic, and imaginative—of other American women in which our national pride exalts.

First then, Mrs. Logan even at an early age played her heroic part as the child of pioneers in Southern Illinois. Her father was often called from the hearthstone to meet the hostile Indians in the northern part of the state, and when the Mexican War broke out this spirited patriot, Captain John M. Cunningham, again gave his good right arm to his country's cause. Mrs. Logan, then Mary S. Cunningham, was the eldest of thirteen children, sheltered and loved in that pioneer homestead, and during the long absences of her father at the front she shared with her mother all the hardships and dangers of frontier life, relieving her parent of every task which was