Mrs. Tyler, the subject of the following sketch, is a native of Massachusetts, and for many years was a resident of Boston, in which city from her social position and her piety and benevolence she was widely known. She is a devout member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, greatly trusted and respected both by clergy and laity.

In 1856, she removed from Boston to Baltimore, Maryland. It was the desire of Bishop Whittingham of that Diocese to institute there a Protestant Sisterhood, or Order of Deaconesses, similar to those already existing in Germany, England, and perhaps other parts of Europe. Mrs. Tyler, then a widow, was invited to assume the superintendence of this order—a band of noble and devout women who turning resolutely from the world and its allurements and pleasures, desired to devote their lives and talents to works of charity and mercy.

To care for the sick, to relieve all want and suffering so far as lay in their power, to administer spiritual comfort, to give of their own substance, and to be the almoners of those pious souls whose duties lay in other directions, and whose time necessarily absorbed in other cares, did not allow the same self-devotion—this was the mission which they undertook, and for years prosecuted with untiring energy, and undoubted success.

In addition to her general superintendence of the order, Mrs. Tyler administered the affairs of the Church Home, a charitable Institution conducted by the Sisterhood, and occupied herself in a variety of pious and benevolent duties, among which were visiting the sick, and comforting the afflicted and prisoners. Among other things she devoted one day in each week to visiting the jail of Baltimore, at that time a crowded and ill-conducted prison, and the abode of a great amount of crime and suffering.

Mrs., then known as Sister Tyler, had been five years in Baltimore, filling up the time with her varied duties and occupations, when the storm that had so long threatened the land, burst in all the thunderbolts of its fury. Secession had torn from the Union some of the fairest portions of its domain, and already stood in hostile attitude all along the borders of the free North. The President, on the 15th of April, 1861, issued his first proclamation, announcing the presence of rebellion, commanding the insurgents to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance within twenty days, and calling on the militia of the several loyal States to the number of seventy-five thousand, to assemble for the defense of their country.

This proclamation, not unexpected at the North, yet sent a thrill of mingled feeling all through its bounds. The order was promptly obeyed, and without delay the masses prepared for the struggle which lay before them, but of which, as yet, no prophetic visions foretold the progress or result. Immediately regiment after regiment was hurried forward for the protection of the Capitol, supposed to be the point most menaced. Among these, and of the very earliest, was the Sixth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, of which the nucleus was the Lowell City Guards.

On the memorable and now historical 19th of April, this regiment while hurrying to the defense of Washington was assailed by a fierce and angry mob in the streets of Baltimore, and several of its men were murdered; and this for marching to the defense of their country, to which the citizens of Baltimore, their assailants, were equally pledged.

This occurred on a Friday, the day as before stated, set apart by Mrs. Tyler for her weekly visit to the jail. The news of the riot reached her as she was about setting out upon this errand of mercy, and caused her to postpone her visit for several hours, as her way lay through some portion of the disturbed district.

When, at last, she did go, a degree of quiet prevailed, though she saw wounded men being conveyed to their homes, or to places where they might be cared for, and it was evident that the public excitement had not subsided with hostilities. Much troubled concerning the fate of the Northern men—men, it must be remembered, of her own State—who had been stricken down, she hastened to conclude as soon as possible her duties at the jail, and returning homeward despatched a note to a friend asking him to ascertain and inform her what had become of the wounded soldiers. The reply soon came, with the tidings that they had been conveyed to one of the Station Houses by the Police, and were said to have been cared for, though the writer had not been allowed to enter and satisfy himself that such was the case.

This roused the spirit of Mrs. Tyler. Here was truly a work of "charity and mercy," and it was clearly her duty, in pursuance of the objects to which she had devoted her life, to ensure the necessary care of these wounded and suffering men who had fallen into the hands of those so inimical to them.

It was now late in the afternoon. Mrs. Tyler sent for a carriage which she was in the habit of using whenever need required, and the driver of which was honest and personally friendly, though probably a secessionist, and proceeded to the Station House. By this time it was quite dark, and she was alone. Alighting she asked the driver to give her whatever aid she might need, and to come to her should he even see her beckon from a window, and he promised compliance.

She knocked at the door, but on telling her errand was denied admittance, with the assurance that the worst cases had been sent to the Infirmary, while those who were in the upper room of the Station House had been properly cared for, and were in bed for the night. She again asked to be allowed to see them, adding that the care of the suffering was her life work, and she would like to assure herself that they needed nothing. She was again denied more peremptorily than before.

"Very well," she replied, "I am myself a Massachusetts woman, seeking to do good to the citizens of my own state. If not allowed to do so, I shall immediately send a telegram to Governor Andrew, informing him that my request is denied."

This spirited reply produced the desired result, and after a little consultation among the officials, who probably found the Governor of a State a much more formidable antagonist than a woman, coming alone on an errand of mercy, the doors were opened and she was conducted to that upper room where the fallen patriots lay.

Two were already dead. Two or three were in bed, the rest lay in their misery upon stretchers, helpless objects of the tongue abuse of the profane wretches who, "dressed in a little brief authority," walked up and down, thus pouring out their wrath. All the wounded had been drugged, and were either partially or entirely insensible to their miseries. Some eight or ten hours had elapsed since the wounds were received, but no attention had been paid to them, further than to staunch the blood by thrusting into them large pieces of cotton cloth. Even their clothes had not been removed. One of them (Coburn) had been shot in the hip, another (Sergeant Ames) was wounded in the back of the neck, just at the base of the brain, apparently by a heavy glass bottle, for pieces of the glass yet remained in the wound, and lay in bed, still in his soldier's overcoat, the rough collar of which irritated the ghastly wound. These two were the most dangerously hurt.

Mrs. Tyler with some difficulty obtained these men, and procuring, by the aid of her driver, a furniture van, had them laid upon it and conveyed to her house, the Deaconesses' Home. Here a surgeon was called, their wounds dressed, and she extended to them the care and kindness of a mother, until they were so nearly well as to be able to proceed to their own homes. She during this time refused protection from the police, and declared that she felt no fears for her own safety while thus strictly in the line of the duties to which her life was pledged.

This was by no means the last work of this kind performed by Sister Tyler. Other wounded men were received and cared for by her—one a German, member of a Pennsylvania Regiment, (who was accidentally shot by one of his own comrades) whom she nursed to health in her own house.

For her efforts in behalf of the Massachusetts men she received the personal acknowledgments of the Governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House of Representatives of that State, and afterwards resolutions of thanks were passed by the Legislature, or General Court, which, beautifully engrossed upon parchment, and sealed with the seal of the Commonwealth, were presented to her.

In all that she did, Mrs. Tyler had the full approval of her Bishop, as well as of her own conscience, while soon after at the suggestion of Bishop Whittingham, the Surgeon-General offered, and indeed urged upon her, the superintendency of the Camden Street Hospital, in the city of Baltimore. Her experience in the management of the large institution she had so long superintended, her familiarity with all forms of suffering, as well as her natural tact and genius, and her high character, eminently fitted her for this position.

Her duties were of course fulfilled in the most admirable manner, and save that she sometimes came in contact with the members of some of the volunteer associations of ladies who, in their commendable anxiety to minister to the suffering soldiers, occasionally allowed their zeal to get the better of their discretion, gave satisfaction to all concerned. She did not live in the Hospital, but spent the greater part of the time there during the year of her connection with it. Circumstances at last decided her to leave. Her charge she turned over to Miss Williams, of Boston, whom she had herself brought thither, and then went northward to visit her friends.

She had not long been in the city of New York before she was urgently desired by the Surgeon-General to take charge of a large hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania, just established and greatly needing the ministering aid of women. She accepted the appointment, and proceeding to Boston selected from among her friends, and those who had previously offered their services, a corps of excellent nurses, who accompanied her to Chester.

In this hospital there was often from five hundred to one thousand sick and wounded men, and Mrs. Tyler had use enough for the ample stores of comforts which, by the kindness of her friends in the east, were continually arriving. Indeed there was never a time when she was not amply supplied with these, and with money for the use of her patients.

She remained at Chester a year, and was then transferred to Annapolis, where she was placed in charge of the Naval School Hospital, remaining there until the latter part of May, 1864.

This was a part of her service which perhaps drew more heavily than any other upon the sympathies and heart of Mrs. Tyler. Here, during the period of her superintendency, the poor wrecks of humanity from the prison pens of Andersonville and Belle Isle were brought, an assemblage of such utter misery, such dreadful suffering, that words fail in the description of it. Here indeed was a "work of charity and mercy," such as had never before been presented to this devoted woman; such, indeed, as the world had never seen.

Most careful, tender, and kindly were the ministrations of Mrs. Tyler and her associates—a noble band of women—to these wretched men. Filth, disease, and starvation had done their work upon them. Emaciated, till only the parchment-like skin covered the protruding bones, many of them too feeble for the least exertion, and their minds scarcely stronger than their bodies, they were indeed a spectacle to inspire, as they did, the keenest sympathy, and to call for every effort of kindness.

Mrs. Tyler procured a number of photographs of these wretched men, representing them in all their squalor and emaciation. These were the first which were taken, though the Government afterwards caused some to be made which were widely distributed. With these Mrs. Tyler did much good. She had a large number of copies printed in Boston, after her return there, and both in this country and in Europe, which she afterwards visited, often had occasion to bring them forward as unimpeachable witnesses of the truth of her own statements. Sun pictures cannot lie, and the sun's testimony in these brought many a heart shudderingly to a belief which it had before scouted. In Europe, particularly, both in England and upon the Continent, these pictures compelled credence of those tales of the horrors and atrocities of rebel prison pens, which it had long been the fashion to hold as mere sensation stories, and libels upon the chivalrous South.

Whenever referring to her work at Annapolis for the returned prisoners, Mrs. Tyler takes great pleasure in expressing her appreciation of the valuable and indefatigable services of the late Dr. Vanderkieft, Surgeon in charge of the Naval School Hospital. In his efforts to resuscitate the poor victims of starvation and cruelty, he was indefatigable, never sparing himself, but bestowing upon them his unwearied personal attention and sympathy. In this he was aided by his wife, herself a true Sister of Charity.

Mrs. Tyler also gives the highest testimony to the services and personal worth of her co-workers, Miss Titcomb, Miss Hall, and others, who gave themselves with earnest zeal to the cause, and feels how inadequate would have been her utmost efforts amid the multitude of demands, but for their aid. It is to them chiefly due that so many healthy recreations, seasons of amusement and religious instruction were given to the men.

During and subsequent to the superintendency of Mrs. Tyler at Annapolis a little paper was published weekly at the hospital, under the title of "The Crutch." This was well supplied with articles, many of them of real merit, both by officials and patients. Whenever an important movement took place, or a battle, it was the custom to issue a small extra giving the telegraphic account; when, if it were a victory, the feeble sufferers who had sacrificed so much for their country, would spend the last remnants of their strength, and make the very welkin ring, with their shouts of gladness.

Exhausted by her labors, and the various calls upon her efforts, Mrs. Tyler, in the spring of 1864, was at length obliged to send in her resignation. Her health seemed utterly broken down, and her physicians and friends saw in an entire change of air and scene the best hope of her recovery. She had for some time been often indisposed, and her illness at last terminated in fever and chills. Though well accustomed during her long residence to the climate of Maryland, she no longer possessed her youthful powers of restoration and reinvigoration. Her physicians advised a sea voyage as essential to her recovery, and a tour to Europe was therefore determined upon.

She left the Naval School Hospital on the 27th of May, 1864, and set sail from New York on the 15th of June.

The disease did not succumb at once, as was hoped. She endured extreme illness and lassitude during her voyage, and was completely prostrated on her arrival in Paris where she lay three weeks ill, before being able to proceed by railroad to Lucerne, Switzerland, and rejoin her sister who had been some months in Europe, and who, with her family, were to be the traveling companions of Mrs. Tyler. Arrived at Lucerne, she was again prostrated by chills and fever, and only recovered after removal to the dryer climate of Berlin. The next year she was again ill with the same disease after a sojourn among the dykes and canals of Holland.

Mrs. Tyler spent about eighteen months in Europe, traveling over various parts of the Continent, and England, where she remained four or five months, returning to her native land in November, 1865, to find the desolating war which had raged here at the time of her departure at an end. Her health had been by this time entirely re-established, and she is happy in the belief that long years of usefulness yet remain to her.

Ardent and fearless in her loyalty to her Government, Mrs. Tyler had ample opportunities, never neglected, to impress the truth in regard to our country and its great struggle for true liberty, upon the minds of persons of all classes in Europe. Her letters of introduction from her friends, from Bishop Whittingham and others, brought her into frequent contact with people of cultivation and refinement who, like the masses, yet held the popular belief in regard to the oppression and abuse of the South by the North, a belief which Mrs. Tyler even at the risk of offending numerous Southern friends by her championship, was sure to combat. Like other intelligent loyal Americans she was thus the means of spreading right views, and accomplishing great good, even while in feeble health and far from her own country. For her services in this regard she might well have been named a Missionary of Truth and Liberty.

One instance of her experience in contact with Southern sympathizers with the Rebellion, we take the liberty to present to the readers of this sketch. Mrs. Tyler was in London when the terrible tidings of that last and blackest crime of the Rebellion—the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was received. She was paying a morning visit to an American friend, a Southerner and a Christian, when the door was suddenly thrust open and a fiendish-looking man rushed in, vociferating, "Have you heard the news? Old Abe is assassinated! Seward too! Johnson escaped. Now if God will send an earthquake and swallow up the whole North—men, women, and children, I will say His name be praised!"

All this was uttered as in one breath, and then the restless form, and fierce inflamed visage as suddenly disappeared, leaving horrid imprecations upon the ears of the listeners, who never supposed the fearful tale could be true. Mrs. Tyler's friend offered the only extenuation possible—the man had "been on board the Alabama and was very bitter." But in Mrs. Tyler's memory that fearful deed is ever mingled with that fiendish face and speech.

The next day the Rebel Commissioner Mason, replying to some remarks of the American Minister, Mr. Adams, in the Times, took occasion most emphatically to deprecate the insinuation that the South had any knowledge of, or complicity in this crime.