Representative women of New England/Almeda H. Cobb

by Mary H. Graves

ALMEDA HALL COBB.—The life of Almeda Hall Cobb exemplifies Mary A. Livermore's saying that "fighting and war have been the main business of the world, in which women take no part, save to endure and suffer."

Born August 27, 1834, in the quaint, beautiful town of Marshfield, on Massachusetts Bay, she was the daughter of William and Sarah (Kent) Hall.- Her lineage was partly from the "Mayflower's" first company, Standish, White, and Brewster stock being among the blend in the ancestry of her mother, Sarah Kent. Her father, William Hall, of a line of South Shore ship-builders, was a man sterling in character.

Almeda's nature was, during her girlhood, sprightly and winsome to a degree that made her presence a perpetual delight. Brimful of music, it was her singing in the choir of the Rev. Sylvanus Cobb's church that stirred his son, George Winslow Cobb, to woo and win Almeda Hall for his wife. There was appropriateness in the mating, for her husband's line of ancestry was direct from Wader Henry Cobb, of Plymouth and Banistable, an immigrant of 1629.

To her wedded life Almeda brought all the innate Pilgrim reverence for holy marriage and for divinity, developing more and more with the sacred cares of maternity. The diary of her wifehood, dating from her wedding day. May 1, 1856, is like a sacred poem, a latter-day song of Ruth, in its spirit and diction.

Brought immediately, in the household and church of her husband's parents, Sylvanus and Eunice Cobb, into contact with noble men and women identified with the great temperance and anti-slavery reforms, her soul was quickened with desire to serve humankind as they were serving it. Yet her wifely and motherly devotion taxed her time, and only by the pages of her diary is the inmost secret of her real character revealed.

Three years after her marriage she writes: "How swiftly the time glides by, employed as I am at present with my two little ones and other domestic cares! for the happiest home has these cares if well conducted. Indeed, I can no more be happy if these little duties are neglected. I confess they sometimes press heavily upon me, and I feel that I would fain fly off from them a while and refresh my weary spirit by communion with the gifted spirits whose works lie thick around me; for, simple though our home is in its outward adornings, we have plenty of good books here. But I look forward to the time when these little ones will not require quite so close attention from me. There is so much I want to do, for myself, my family, and for everybody, all over this great and good world."

And again, later: "Thoughts I have that thrill my soul and make me better each hour I live, thoughts born of deep life experiences made blessed teachers by trust in God, thoughts that might shed light on the pathway of many a weary, sin-sick pilgrim; and yet must I keep them, for my time, if it cometh ever, is not yet come. Yet, if it be best so, then I know the Father will yet unseal these mute lips and give power to this dumb tongue. And, if it be better so, let me be yet as now. Only teach me thy will, O my Father, and I am content. Let my work be what and where it may: if I may only add to thy truth and power in the earth, I will be happy in doing it, and count myself, even though my sphere be limited, one of thy meek and lowly apostles, ever striving to lead others in the ’pleasant paths,' if I can in no other way, by a pure and spotless life. ALMEDA HALL COBB "But I humbly, earnestly pray for a wider sphere of usefulness. Darkness and error prevail on every hand. I would fain have power to clear away some of these clouds. And shall I pray in vain? We have the promise—if we seek, we shall find."

These words are the end of this written record of a woman *s love and trust; for in this "great and good world*' there were certain men at the South who about that time trained their cannon on the starred and striped flag of the government which "would not sufficiently let them eat their bread in the sweat of other men's faces*'; and so woman's love and trust, and joy of peaceful ministry everywhere, were whelmed in the crash and mauling and woe of a mighty Civil War — a war which taught the braggart tyrant forces of the world that the most terrible foemen on earth are the "woman-hearted" men who love their fair, free homes and simple fireside joys, but who will fight when fight they nmst, or see the truth crushed down forever.

Those who know the life history of Almeda Hall Cobb throughout that woeful season, know of her ceaseless ministries, her home toil for the hospitals and for the wounded brought back from the front; know of the birth of another daughter, replacing the baby girl whom death had taken; know of her continuous thought and labor for the cause of Union and liberty. Her husband's brothers had volunteered for the front; but him whom she loved so devotedly the conscription had not touched, and she was loath to let him go. Yet the time came when, after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Grant, the great chieftain whom the nation trusted, mighty in war yet with latent peace-yearnings in his heart, needed volunteers to re- pair the losses of his terrible campaign toward Richmond. Then Almeda yielded her final sacrifice, as her husband, George Winslow Cobb, of the Sixty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, set forth to join in the death-grapple around Petersburg and Richmond. While the bulletins brought news day by day of his regiment's engagment in the thick of the fight, his wife, at home with Albert and Margaret, their little boy and girl, encountered her daily trials, supporting her little ones, shielding and guarding them with anxious care against encompassing, unspeakable social demoralizations, which are always part of the price of war, and which brave Mary Liver- more has published and proclaimed with unwavering courage, as she arraigns the war-policies of nations.

Once at home by furlough with endorsement for bravery in battle, greeting his now invaUd wife and the children, then again to the front, Almeda's husband took her heart with him, in yearning that wore her vital force away. A few months after Grant's magic words, "Let us have peace," had dissolved and sent home a host of a million men at arms, Almeda Hall Cobb, representative of woman-martyrs as the sands of the sea for number, yielded her earth-life, worn and finished by war, and her body of this mortality was laid at rest in Woodlawn, September 20, 1865.

In many young people to whom "grand-mother's" face and memory are only a faraway tradition her traits of righteousness now live on, blessed by peace. In so far as her soul's desire to spread the light of truth can be fulfilled in trust by a son who lives after her, it shall be fulfilled, and thus her prayers be answered; while for herself and her kind in the mysterious life beyond death, there is a Scripture—

"What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

"And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me. These are they which have come up out of great tribulation."