Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/367

334

When the Civil War broke out she was Mrs. Van Pelt living at Coldwater, Mich., and entered the service with her husband who was one of the first of the volunteer soldiers. She was afterwards appointed matron of the war hospital in Nashville, Tenn., and remained there from September, 1862, until January, 1863. She was also at the hospital at Murfreesboro, Tenn., and at Huntsville, Alabama. In all she was in the hospitals only about a year. But the remainder of the time she was in camp or on the march with her husband. Although he had fallen in the battle of Chickamauga in September, 1863, she continued her work of nursing Union soldiers.

Mrs. Simonds was appointed a nurse by Mrs. Hoge and Mrs. Livermore under the authority of Miss Dix, on August 26, 1863, and was assigned to work at once in Memphis, Tenn. Miss Dix in speaking of her work has said, "She was one of the most excellent, most charitable and most truthful in all her expressions of any woman I have ever known." At the close of the war she returned to her home at Iowa Falls. In 1873 she moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where she resumed her practice as professional nurse. This work she continued until January, 1892. She died in May, 1893.

On the seventeenth day of February, 1863, Margaret Hayes left her home in Mendota, Illinois, for Chicago as a volunteer nurse. Arriving there she went to the Sanitary Commission rooms and was received by Mrs. Livermore, who, as she afterwards told the experience, gave her her commission, put up a lunch, gave her a pillow and a small comfortable, as there were no sleeping cars in those days, procured the transportations and started her that same evening for Memphis, Tennessee. She arrived safely and was immediately assigned to the Adams General Hospital, which had just been opened to receive the sick and wounded from Arkansas. A part of the time she had two wards to care for and when she was ordered from this hospital to another position she was given a gold watch by her "Boys," which she always held as one of her choicest treasures. She was Mrs. Maggie Meseroll then, but was called "Sister Maggie" by all the soldiers who loved her for the care and tenderness she had bestowed upon them.

Nancy M. Hill, daughter of William and Harriet Swan Hill, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her forefathers were in the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. She was educated in the public schools at West Cambridge, and at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, South Hadley, Massachusetts. There was a great call for educated women to go as nurses in the hospitals at Washington,