HONOURING A FAMOUS WAR HEROINE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8169, 27 June 1906, Page 3

HONOURING A FAMOUS WAR HEROINE.

The first monument ereoted in tbe United'Statea to a heroine of the Civil War—though many brave women rendered. great service to both sides during '. the dark and fierce days' pf .the; rebellion—is being raised by the veterans of Illinois at Galesburg to Mrs x Mary A. Biokerdjke, better ,bn6wn a 9 "Mother" Bicketclyke. "Mother" Biokerdyke endeared herself to the soldiers of both North and the South during the civil confliot by the work on the battlefields, and in the hospitals. When the grand review of the victorious armies of the North took place at Washington she was one of the most conspicuous figures in in the ranks of the grizzled heroes. She rode on horsebacK, «ith the soldiers, and was cheered equally with the great generals and < the thttered battle flags. The plain calico dress and sun bonnet which she wore were purchased the next day for ; £2s. Th«» monument to this heroic figure has, appropriately enough, just been executed by another woman— Mrs Theodore A. Boggles Kitson, of Boston. The design shows a woundfcd soldier on tbe battlefield tenderly lifted to a half-sitting poatare by the army nurse, who holds a cooling drink to his parched lips. The group is cast in . bronze, and rests upon a granite pedestal, without ornament, and, haying only the word "Mary A. Bikerdyke—Mother."