Clothing Department — Continued
As the work dropped from the weary hand of Mrs. Gardner, another, stronger, more fresh and new in the work, took it up. Mrs. Harriette L. Reed, of Boston, who, while never permanently with us, seldom allows a field to escape her. We regard it as a loss to any field where her genial presence, clear perception and sound judgment take no part. Mrs. Reed, like our beloved and brilliant countrywoman, Mrs. Logan, went to the civil war of 1861, a bride. Her gallant young husband, Captain J. Sewall Reed, took the first detachment of volunteer cavalry from California, known as the “California One Hundred.” He fell in an ambuscade, in the Army of the Potomac, 1864. His brave young wife was always with him at the front, and received his dead body when brought in. Thus early bereft, she took up the march of life alone, and faithfully and tirelessly has she made it, with a cheering word and an outstretched hand to every weary comrade in the tedious march of more than three decades, and still she serves, and still they call her blessed.
Her graceful report, which has lain in my portfolio since 1893, now comes to light with its waiting companions: