One night it was arranged that she should speak in Dubuque, Iowa, that the people of that State might hear directly from their soldiers at the front.  When she arrived, instead of finding a few women as she had expected, a large church was packed with both men and women, eager to listen.  The governor of the State and other officials were present.  She had never spoken in a mixed assembly.  Her conservative training made her shrink from it, and, unfortunately, made her feel incapable of doing it.

“I cannot speak!” she said to the women who had asked her to come.

Disappointed and disheartened, they finally arranged with a prominent statesman to jot down the facts from her lips; and then, as best he could, tell to the audience the experiences of the woman who had been on battle-fields, amid the wounded and dying.  Just as they were about to go upon the platform, the gentleman said, “Mrs. Livermore, I have heard you say at the front, that you would give your all for the soldiers,—­a foot, a hand, or a voice.  Now is the time to give your voice, if you wish to do good.”

She meditated a moment, and then she said, “I will try.”

When she arose to speak, the sea of faces before her seemed blurred.  She was talking into blank darkness.  She could not even hear her own voice.  But as she went on, and the needs of the soldiers crowded upon her mind, she forgot all fear, and for two hours held the audience spell-bound.  Men and women wept, and patriotism filled every heart.  At eleven o’clock eight thousand dollars were pledged, and then, at the suggestion of the presiding officer, they remained until one o’clock to perfect plans for a fair, from which they cleared sixty thousand dollars.  After this, Mrs. Livermore spoke in hundreds of towns, helping to organize many of the more than twelve thousand five hundred aid societies formed during eighteen months.

As money became more and more needed, Mrs. Livermore decided to try a sanitary commission fair in Chicago.  The women said, “We will raise twenty-five thousand dollars,” but the men laughed at such an impossibility.  The farmers were visited, and solicited to give vegetables and grain, while the cities were not forgotten.  Fourteen of Chicago’s largest halls were hired.  The women had gone into debt ten thousand dollars, and the men of the city began to think they were crazy.  The Board of Trade called upon them and advised that the fair be given up; the debts should be paid, and the men would give the twenty-five thousand, when, in their judgment, it was needed!  The women thanked them courteously, but pushed forward in the work.