[280] war until the boom of the guns of Sumter, reverberating from the waves of the broad Atlantic, and waking the echoes all along its shores, burst upon their ears to tell in awful tones that it had indeed commenced. But there was one--a woman in humble life, yet of wonderful benevolence, of indomitable energy, unflagging perseverance, and unwavering purpose, who foresaw its inevitable coming and was prepared for it. Almira Fales was no longer young. She had spent a life in doing good, and was ready to commence another. Her husband had employment under the government in some department of the civil service, her sons entered the army, and she, too,--a soldier, in one sense, as truly as they-since she helped and cheered on the fight. From that December day that commenced the work, until long after the war closed, she gave herself to it, heart and soul-mind and body. No one, perhaps, can tell her story of work and hardship in detail, not even herself, for she acts rather than talks or writes. “Such women, always doing, never think of pausing to tell their own stories, which, indeed, can never be told; yet the hint of them can be given, to stir in the hearts of other women a purer emulation, and to prove to them that the surest way to happiness is to serve others and forget yourself.” In detail we have only this brief record of what she has done, yet what volumes it contains, what a history of labor and of self-sacrifice!
After a life spent in benevolence, it was in December, 1860, that Almira Fales began to prepare lint and hospital stores for the soldiers of the Union, not one of whom had then been called to take up arms. People laughed, of course; thought it a “freak;” said that none of these things would ever be needed. Just as the venerable Dr. Mott said, at the women's meeting in Cooper Institute, after Sumter had been fired: “Go on, ladies! Get your lint ready, if it will do your dear hearts any good, though I don't ”
