She served as principal in a Massachusetts high school for the next three years, and resigned to marry Doctor Livermore, a young minister whose church was near the school. She assisted in his parish work; she started benevolent and literary and temperance societies among the church-members; and she helped her husband edit a religious paper, after they moved to Chicago. She frequently wrote stories and sketches for eastern magazines, and she sat at the press table in the “Wigwam” when Lincoln was nominated for the presidency in 1860. With her writing, her three children, and a quiet, happy home life, doing the common duties of every day, it seemed impossible that Mary Livermore would ever be helping to make American history. But Lincoln was elected, Sumter was fired on, the nation plunged into civil war, the president called for volunteers. Summoned to Boston by her father’s illness, Mrs. Livermore was in the station when the Massachusetts troops started south. The streets were crowded, the bells rang, the bands played. Women smiled and said good-by when their hearts were breaking. After the train had pulled out several women fainted and Mrs. Livermore stayed to help them. “He has only gone for three months, you know,” she said to one little mother. “If my country needs him for three months or three years, I’m not the woman to hinder him,” was the brave reply. “When he told me at noon to-day he’d enlisted I gave him my blessing and told him to go, for if we lose our country, what is there to live for?” Seeing such partings Mary Livermore could not rest. She had no sons to send. What could women do to help? “Nothing,” was the answer from Washington when they offered their services; “there is no place for women at the front, no need for them in the hospitals.” The outbreak of the war found the North wholly unprepared. Hospitals were few and poorly equipped, nurses scarce and not well trained; there were no diet kitchens, no organized ways to supply medicines to the sick, to care for the wounded. Taxed to the utmost in every direction, the government could not meet all the urgent demands for hospital supplies. Relief societies sprang up everywhere, working individually, sending boxes to the troops from their special localities. But what a waste in that haphazard method! Perishable freight accumulated till it was a serious problem. Baggage cars were flooded with fermenting sweetmeats and broken jars of jelly. Decaying fruit and demoralized cakes were found packed in with clothing and blankets. The soldiers were constantly moving about and many packages failed of delivery. The lavish outpouring of the generous people of the North meant for a time a lavish waste. If the men’s answer to Lincoln’s call was unparalleled, no less remarkable was the response of the women; but it needed to be systematized and organized like a great business. That was Mary A. Livermore’s contribution to saving the Union.