L. P. Brockett, Women's work in the civil war: a record of heroism, patriotism and patience

The manuscript was submitted to the committee, accepted, and one hundred thousand copies ordered to be printed for gratuitous distribution in all the hospitals and camps. The “Soldiers' friend,” as it was called, was soon distributed in the different departments and posts of the army, and was even found in the Southern hospitals and prisons, while it was the pocket companion of men in the trenches, as well as of those in quarters and hospital. Many thousands were instructed by this little directory, where to find the lodges, homes and pension offices of the Commission, and were guarded against imposture and loss. So urgent was the demand for it, and so useful was it, that the committee ordered a second edition.

Perhaps no work published by the Sanitary Commission has been of more real and practical use than this little volume, or has had so large a circulation. It was the last public work performed for the Commission by Mrs. Parrish. At the close of the war her labors did not end; but transferring her efforts to the amelioration of the condition of the freedmen, she still found herself actively engaged in a work growing directly out of the war.