Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/392

Rh Cope, a Quaker who came to America with William Penn in 1662. After their marriage her parents immigrated to the then "Far West" or eastern Ohio, and Miss Cope became one of the teachers in the public schools of Cincinnati. It was during the spring of 1862, after the battle of Shiloh, when the wounded soldiers were sent up the Ohio River to Cincinnati, and the call was made for volunteers to help take care of them that she, with her mother, responded and did whatever was possible to minister to the needs of the sick and afflicted soldiers, providing such things as were needed in the improvised hospital. Many of the convalescent soldiers were taken into Miss Cope's home, until finally the old orphan asylum was secured and fitted up as comfortably as possible and called the Washington Park Military Hospital. After her marriage to Mr. Silas W. Plimpton, and removal to Iowa, she took an active part in temperance work serving as treasurer and secretary in various societies. At the institution of John A. Logan Corps, No. 56, in March, 1885, with Mrs. McHenry as its president, Mrs. Plimpton became her secretary. The following year Mrs. McHenry was elected as department president, and Mrs. Plimpton as department secretary. In December, 1889, Mrs. McHenry was elected conductor of the John A. Logan Corps and Mrs. Plimpton was her assistant. They both served in that capacity until the national convention held in Boston, in August, 1890, when Mrs. Plimpton was appointed national secretary of the Woman's Relief Corps. And for years she has continued to work for the interests of this patriotic order.

Out of the throes of battle was born a heroism which fired the breasts of those who proudly wear a badge upon which are the mystic letters "N. A. A. N." and to which every veteran of the Civil War lifts his hat as to something high and sacred. The National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War is an organization which is held in great esteem, and the badge is worn only by those who left home when "wan waged her wide desolation," and braved the dangers of hospital, camp and battlefield, to minister to the wants, and relieve the sufferings of the boys who left home at their country's call and fell victims to the deadly fever, the terrible shot and shell, or some malady of the camp. Eternity alone will reveal how many lives were