PAGE, CHARLES G. 



607 



brief period of rest, she was again upon the field 

 with Mr. Fay and his party, and through the 

 campaign around Washington, at Antietam. and 

 Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, was ever 

 active and welcome. Another brief period of 

 rest passed, and she then went to Gettysburg, 

 where her gentle attentions, her sweet voice, 

 and her great executive power, endeared her 

 to the men, who almost worshipped her, and 

 enabled her to bring order out of chaos, and 

 subdue even the most turbulent spirits with a 

 word or look. Though thoroughly self-con- 

 trolled she was naturally diffident and retiring 

 in her manner ; but her heart was so full of the 

 sufferings and heroism of the soldiers, that, 

 whenever she was away from the battle-field, 

 Bhe could not refrain from pleading their cause 

 and extolling their endurance and sacrifices; 

 and she did this so simply and naturally that 

 she always won the tears, the sympathy, and 

 the liberal contributions of those who lis- 

 tened. 



But her greatest work was accomplished dur- 

 ing the last year of the war, that year of ter- 

 rible slaughter and suffering. She went to the 

 front with Mr. Fay and other friends in May, 

 1864, and at Belle Plain, at Fredericksburg, at 

 White House, and at City Point, she was in- 

 defatigable in her labors, so systematizing her 

 work, even amid those scenes, as to be able 

 without distraction to administer comfort, re- 

 lief, ease, and solace to thousands of the se- 

 verely wounded and dying. Her cheering 

 words, her sweet songs and hymns, sung as 

 she only could sing them, and the benediction 

 of her presence, exerted a powerful influence 

 in sustaining the courage and supporting the 

 strength of the wounded soldiers, and in all 

 the ministrations of love and tenderness none 



were more gentle or more skilful than she. 

 When this work slackened, she set herself the 

 task of creating a model hospital for the sick 

 and wounded colored soldiers of the army of 

 the Potomac, who had previously been much 

 neglected. From the most unpromising mate- 

 rials, from inefficient help, and but limited 

 means, she succeeded by her executive skill in 

 organizing and conducting, for many months, a 

 hospital for 900 to 1,000 patients, which had no 

 superior in the numerous army hospitals clus- 

 tered in that vicinity. Every thing done in 

 that large hospital was under her personal 

 direction, and not only was every patient well 

 cared for, and pains taken in their restoration, 

 and their religious and intellectual interests 

 carefully watched, but she found time amid all 

 her other duties to provide for the comfort 

 and improvement of the poor negro washer- 

 women attached to the camp. She remain- 

 ed with the army, and at the hospitals in 

 Richmond and its vicinity, till July, 1865 ; 

 spent the remainder of the summer in a 

 quiet retreat on Long Island, and in the 

 autumn returned with partially recovered 

 health to Chelsea, Massachusetts. She so far 

 regained her strength, and apparently her 

 health, as to be married the following year to 

 Mr. Osgood, who had formed one of the party 

 of Mr. Fay in the sanitary work in the army 

 of the Potomac. For a time her new life and 

 its happiness sustained her spirits and gave 

 promise of future usefulness and peace ; but 

 soon the overtasked powers of nature began 

 to fail, and she died a martyr to her patriot- 

 ism and philanthropy. The Third Army Corps, 

 to which she had so faithfully ministered, 

 have taken measures to erect a monument to 

 her memory. 



PAGE, CHAELES GEAFTON, M. D., an emi- 

 nent physicist, professor, and author, born in 

 Salem, Mass., January 25, 1812 ; died in Wash- 

 ington, D. 0., May 5, 1868. He was early 

 distinguished for his intellectual and and philo- 

 sophical tendencies; when only, ten years of 

 age he constructed an electrical machine. He 

 was prepared for college, in Salem, by General 

 H. K. Oliver, entered Harvard College in 1828, 

 and graduated with distinction in 1832. After 

 leaving college he studied at the medical school 

 in Boston. He made himself thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with the science and practice of med- 

 .icine, and in 1838 went to Virginia, where he 

 pursued the practice of his profession for a 

 period of two years. He was appointed Pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry in Columbia College, Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, in 1839. In 1840 he was 

 called to a position of trust and responsibility 

 in the capacity of Examiner in the Patent 

 Office, under the Government of the United 

 States, at a time when there were but two 



examiners, instead of twenty, of whom the 

 corps is now composed, and this position since 

 that date he occupied with some brief excep- 

 tions until the day of his decease. From a 

 very early day he was a contributor to the 

 various literary and scientific periodicals, and 

 particularly to the American Journal of Science, 

 or, as it is more frequently called, Sillimari's 

 Journal. Within the last four or six months 

 of his life he wrote and caused to be published 

 one of the most concise, full, and elaborate 

 treatises upon the subject of electrical science 

 and discovery which has yet appeared. It is 

 now proved and admitted that to him, as much, 

 if not more than to any other man, either on this 

 or the other side of the Atlantic, are due the 

 suggestions of that electric cable which, in the 

 hands of others, at last spanned the broad 

 ocean and made one great whispering gallery 

 of all the continents of the world. He had 

 been for years engaged in perfecting machinery 

 for the effective and economical use of electro- 



