Early in the summer of 1861, Mrs. Margaret A. Jackson, widow of the late Rev. William Jackson, of Louisville, Kentucky, in connection with Mrs. Louisa M. Delafield and others, engaged in awakening an interest among the ladies of Milwaukee, in regard to the sanitary wants of the soldiers, which soon resulted in the formation of a "Milwaukee Ladies' Soldiers' Aid Society," composed of many of the benevolent ladies of this city. The society was very zealous in soliciting aid for the soldiers, and in making garments for their use in the service.

Very soon other Aid Societies in various parts of the State desired to become auxiliaries to this organization, and soon after the battle of Bull Run it became evident that their efficiency could be greatly promoted by the Milwaukee Society becoming a branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, and that relation was effected. The name of the society was at this time changed to "Wisconsin Soldiers' Aid Society." Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Delafield continued to be efficient as leaders in all the work of this society, but in its reorganization, Mrs. Henrietta L. Colt was chosen Corresponding Secretary, and commenced her work with great zeal and energy. She visited the Wisconsin soldiers in various localities at the front, and thus brought the wants of the brave men to the particular knowledge of the society, and in this way largely promoted the interest, zeal and efficiency of the ladies connected with it. She described the sufferings, fortitude and heroism of the soldiers with such simple pathos, that thousands of hearts were melted, and contributions poured into the treasury of the society in great abundance.

The number of auxiliaries in the State was two hundred and twenty-nine. The central organization at Milwaukee, beside forwarding supplies, had one bureau to assist soldiers' families in getting payments from the State, one to secure employment for soldiers' wives and mothers through contracts with the Government, under the charge of Mrs. Jackson, one to secure employment for the partially disabled soldiers, and one to provide for widows and orphans. The channels of benevolence through the State were various; the people generally sought the most direct route to the soldiers in the field; but the gifts to the army sent by the Wisconsin Soldiers' Aid Society (their report says without any "Fair"), alone amounted—the packages, to nearly six thousand in number, the value to nearly two hundred thousand dollars.

The Wisconsin Aid Society and its officers also rendered large and valuable aid to the two Sanitary Fairs held in Chicago in September, 1863, and June, 1865.

The Wisconsin Soldiers' Home, at Milwaukee, connected with the Wisconsin Aid Society, was an institution of great importance during the war. Its necessity has not passed away, and will not for many years. The ladies who originated and sustained it were indefatigable in their labors, and the benevolent public gave them their heartiest sanction. It gave thousands of soldiers a place of entertainment as they passed through the city to and from the army, and thus promoted their comfort and good morals. The sick and wounded were there tenderly nursed; the dying stranger there had friends.

During the year ending April 15, 1865, four thousand eight hundred and forty-two soldiers there received free entertainment, and the total number of meals served in the year was seventeen thousand four hundred and fifty-six, an average of forty-eight daily. These soldiers represented twenty different States, two thousand and ninety belonging in Wisconsin. A fair in 1865 realized upwards of one hundred thousand dollars, which is to be expended on a permanent Soldiers' Home, one of the three National Soldiers' Homes having been located at Milwaukee, and the Wisconsin Soldiers' Home being the nucleus of it.

Mrs. Colt was so efficient a worker for the soldiers, that a brief sketch of her labors, prepared by a personal friend, will be appropriate in this connection.

Mrs. Henrietta L. Colt, was born March 16th, 1812, in Rensselaerville, Albany County, New York. Her maiden name was Peckham. She was educated in a seminary at Albany, and was married in 1830, to Joseph S. Colt, Esq., a man well known throughout the State, as an accomplished Christian gentleman. Mr. Colt was a member of the Albany bar, and practiced his profession there until 1853, when he removed to Milwaukee. After three years' residence there he returned to New York, where he died, leaving an honored name and a precious memory among men.

The death of Mr. Colt brought to his widow a sad experience. In a letter to the writer, she expresses the deep sense of her loss, and the effect it had in preparing her for that devotion to the cause of her country, which, during the late rebellion, has led her to leave the comforts and refinements of her home to minister to the soldiers of the Union, in hospitals, to labor in the work of the Wisconsin Soldiers' Aid Society, to go on hospital steamers as far as Vicksburg to care for the sick and wounded, as they were brought up the river, where they could be better provided for, to visit the camps and regimental hospitals around the beleaguered city, and to return with renewed devotion to the work of sending sanitary supplies to the sick and wounded of the Union army, until the close of the war. After portraying the character of her lamented husband, his chivalric tenderness, his thoughtful affection, his nobility of soul, his high sense of justice, which had made him a representative of the best type of humanity, she goes on to say: "The sun seemed to me to go out in darkness when he went to the skies. Shielding me from every want, from all care, causing me to breathe a continual atmosphere of refinement, and love, and happiness, when he went, life lost its beauty and its charm. In this state of things it was to me as a divine gift—a real godsend—to have a chance for earnest absorbing work. The very first opportunity was seized to throw myself into the work for my country, which had called its stalwart sons to arms to defend its integrity, its liberty, its very existence, from the most gigantic and wicked rebellion known in history."

It is among the grateful memories of the writer of this sketch, that during the winter of 1863, while stationed at Helena, he went on board a steamer passing towards Vicksburg, and met there Mrs. Colt, in company with Mrs. Livermore, and Mrs. Hoge, of Chicago, on their way to carry sanitary stores, and minister to the sick and wounded, then being brought up the river from the first fatal attack on Vicksburg, in which our army was repulsed, and from the battle of Arkansas Post, on the Arkansas river, in which we were successful, and from an expedition up the White river, under General Gorman. He was greatly impressed with her intelligence, her purity of character, the beautiful blending of her religious and patriotic tendencies, the gentleness and tenderness with which she ministered encouragement and sympathy to the sick soldier, and the spirit of humanity and womanly dignity that marked her manners and conversation. The same qualities were characteristic of her companions from Chicago, in varied combination, each having her own individuality, and it was beautiful to see with what judgment and discretion, and union of purpose they went on their mission of love.

On their first visit, she and Mrs. Hoge, improvised a hospital of the steamer on which they went, which came up from Vicksburg loaded with wounded men, under the care of the surgeons. The dressing of their wounds and the amputation of limbs going on during the passage, made the air exceedingly impure, and yet these noble women did not flinch from their duty, nor neglect their gentle ministrations, which were as balm to the wounded heroes who lay stretched on the cabin floors from one end of the boat to the other.

On the renewal of the siege of Vicksburg, by General Grant, and while our army lay encamped for miles around, Mrs. Colt made a second visit to the scene of so much suffering and conflict, and visited the camps and regimental hospitals, where the very air seemed loaded with disease. Men with every variety of complaint were brought to the steamer, where it was known there were ladies on board, from the Sanitary Commissions, in the hope of kinder care and better sustenance. It was amidst dying soldiers, helpless refugees, manacled slaves, and even five hundred worn out and rejected mules, that their path up the Mississippi had to be pursued with patience, and fortitude, and hope.

In a note recently received from Mrs. Colt, she thus speaks of her visits to the hospitals, and of the brave and noble bearing of the wounded soldiers:

"I visited the Southwestern hospitals, in order to see the benefits really conferred by the Sanitary Commission, in order to stimulate supplies at home. Such was my story or the effect of it, that Wisconsin became the most powerful Auxiliary of the Northwestern Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission. I have visited seventy-two hospitals, and would find it difficult to choose the most remarkable among the many heroisms I every day witnessed.

"I was more impressed by the gentleness and refinement that seemed to grow up and in, the men when suffering from horrible wounds than from anything else. It seemed always to me that the sacredness of the cause for which they offered up their lives gave to them a heroism almost super-human—and the sufferings caused an almost womanly refinement among the coarsest men. I have never heard a word nor seen a look that was not respectful and grateful.

"At one time, when in the Adams' Hospital in Memphis, filled with six hundred wounded men with gaping, horrible, head and hip gunshot wounds, I could have imagined myself among men gathered on cots for some joyous occasion, and except one man, utterly disabled for life, not a regret—and even he thanked God devoutly that if his life must be given up then, it should be given for his country.

"After a little, as the thought of his wife and babies came to him, I saw a terrible struggle; the great beads of sweat and the furrowed brow were more painful than the bodily suffering. But when he saw the look of pity, and heard the passage, 'He doeth all things well,' whispered to him, he became calm, and said, 'He knows best, my wife and children will be His care, and I am content.'

"Among the beardless boys, it was all heroism. 'They gained the victory, they lost a leg there, they lost an arm, and Arkansas Post was taken; they were proud to have helped on the cause.' It enabled them apparently with little effort to remember the great, the holy cause, and give leg, arm, or even life cheerfully for its defense.

"I know now that love of country is the strongest love, next to the love of God, given to man."

Besides the good done to the sick and wounded of our army by these visits, an equal benefit resulted in their effect upon the people at home, in inspiring them to new zeal and energy, and increasing generosity on behalf of the country and its brave defenders.

Another service of great value to the soldiers, was rendered by Mrs. Colt, under an appointment from the Governor of Wisconsin, to visit the Army of the Cumberland, and see personally all sick Wisconsin men. She went under the escort of Rev. J. P. T. Ingraham, and saw every sick soldier of the Wisconsin troops in hospital. Their heroic endurance and its recital after her return, stimulated immensely the generosity of the people.

In such services as these Mrs. Colt passed the four years of the war, and by her self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause, in which her heart and mind were warmly enlisted, by the courage and fortitude with which she braved danger and death, in visiting distant battle-fields, and camps and hospitals, and ministering at the couch of sickness, and pain, and death, that she might revive the spirit, and save the lives of those who were battling for Union and Liberty, she has won the gratitude of her country, and deserves the place accorded to her among the heroines of the age.

Mrs. Eliza Salomon, the accomplished and philanthropic wife of Governor Salomon, of Wisconsin, was at the outbreak of the war living quietly at Milwaukee, and amid the patriotic fervor which then reigned in Wisconsin, she sought no prominence or official position, but like the other ladies of the circle in which she moved, contented herself with working diligently for the soldiers, and contributing for the supply of their needs. In the autumn of 1861, her husband was elected Lieutenant Governor of the State, on the same ticket which bore the name of the lamented Louis Harvey, for Governor. On the death of Governor Harvey, in April, 1862, at Pittsburg Landing, Lieutenant Governor Salomon was at once advanced by the Constitution of Wisconsin, to his place for the remainder of his term, about twenty-one months. Both Governor and Mrs. Salomon, were of German extraction, and it was natural that the German soldiers, sick, wounded or suffering from privation, should look to the Governor's wife as their State-mother, and should expect sympathy and aid from her. She resolved not to disappoint their expectation, but to prove as far as lay in her power a mother not only to them, but to all the brave Wisconsin boys of whatever nationality, who needed aid and assistance.

At home and abroad, her time was almost entirely occupied with this noble and charitable work. She accompanied her husband wherever his duty and his heart called him to look after the soldiers. She visited the hospitals East and West, in Indiana, Illinois, St. Louis, and the interior of Missouri, and all along the Mississippi, as far South as Vicksburg, stopping at every place where Wisconsin troops were stationed.

Her voyage to Vicksburg in May, 1863, was one of considerable peril, from the swarms of guerrillas all along the river, who on several occasions fired at the boat, but fortunately did no harm.

She found at Vicksburg, a vast amount of suffering to be relieved, and abundant work to do, and possessing firm health and a vigorous constitution, she was able to accomplish much without impairing her health. At the first Sanitary Fair at Chicago, Mrs. Salomon organized a German Department, in which she sold needle and handiwork contributed by German ladies of Wisconsin and Chicago, to the amount of six thousand dollars. When, in January 1864, Governor Salomon returned to private life, Mrs. Salomon did not intermit her efforts for the good of the soldiers; her duty had become a privilege, and she continued her efforts for their relief and assistance, according to her opportunity till the end of the war.