It had been arranged that the farmers should come on the opening day, in a procession, with their gifts of vegetables.  Of this plan the newspapers made great sport, calling it the “potato procession.”  The day came.  The school children had a holiday, the bells were rung, one hundred guns were fired, and the whole city gathered to see the “potato procession.”  Finally it arrived,—­great loads of cabbages, onions, and over four thousand bushels of potatoes.  The wagons each bore a motto, draped in black, with the words, “We buried a son at Donelson,” “Our father lies at Stone River,” and other similar ones.  The flags on the horses’ heads were bound with black; the women who rode beside a husband or son, were dressed in deep mourning.  When the procession stopped before Mrs. Livermore’s house, the jeers were over, and the dense crowd wept like children.

Six of the public halls were filled with beautiful things for sale, while eight were closed so that no other attractions might compete with the fair.  Instead of twenty-five thousand, the women cleared one hundred thousand dollars.

Then Cincinnati followed with a fair, making two hundred and twenty-five thousand; Boston, three hundred and eighty thousand; New York, one million; and Philadelphia, two hundred thousand more than New York.  The women had found that there was work enough for them to do.

Mrs. Livermore was finally ordered to make a tour of the hospitals and military posts on the Mississippi River, and here her aid was invaluable.  It required a remarkable woman to undertake such a work.  At one point she found twenty-three men, sick and wounded, whose regiments had left them, and who could not be discharged because they had no descriptive lists.  She went at once to General Grant, and said, “General, if you will give me authority to do so, I will agree to take these twenty-three wounded men home.”

The officials respected the noble woman, and the red tape of army life was broken for her sake.

When the desolate company arrived in Chicago, on Saturday, the last train had left which could have taken a Wisconsin soldier home.  She took him to the hotel, had a fire made for him, and called a doctor.

“Pull him through till Monday, Doctor,” she said, “and I’ll get him home.”  Then, to the lad, “You shall have a nurse, and Monday morning I will go with you to your mother.”

“Oh! don’t go away,” he pleaded; “I never shall see you again.”

“Well, then, I’ll go home and see my family, and come back in two hours.  The door shall be left open, and I’ll put this bell beside you, so that the chambermaid will come when you ring.”

He consented, and Mrs. Livermore came back in two hours.  The soldier’s face was turned toward the door, as though waiting for her, but he was dead.  He had gone home, but not to Wisconsin.