The United States Sanitary Commission was soon organized, for working
in hospitals, looking after camps, and providing comforts for the
soldiers. Branch associations were formed in ten large cities.
The great Northwestern Branch was put under the leadership of Mrs.
Livermore and Mrs. A.H. Hoge. Useful things began to pour in from all
over the country,--fruits, clothing, bedding, and all needed comforts
for the army. Then Mrs. Livermore, now a woman of forty, with great
executive ability, warm heart, courage, and perseverance, with a few
others, went to Washington to talk with President Lincoln.

"Can no women go to the front?" they asked.

"No civilian, either man or woman, is permitted by _law_," said
Mr. Lincoln. But the great heart of the greatest man in America was
superior to the law, and he placed not a straw in their way. He was in
favor of anything which helped the men who fought and bled for their
country.

Mrs. Livermore's first broad experience in the war was after the
battle of Fort Donelson. There were no hospitals for the men, and the
wounded were hauled down the hillside in rough-board Tennessee wagons,
most of them dying before they reached St. Louis. Some poor fellows
lay with the frozen earth around them, chopped out after lying in the
mud from Saturday morning until Sunday evening.

One blue-eyed lad of nineteen, with both legs and both arms shattered,
when asked, "How did it happen that you were left so long?" said,
"Why, you see, they couldn't stop to bother with us, _because they had
to take the fort_. When they took it, we forgot our sufferings, and
all over the battle-field cheers went up from the wounded, and even