 Cheney made several visits to the South in the years directly following the close of the Civil War for the Union, the first time going with Abby May as a delegate to a convention in Baltimore.Unexpectedly called upon there to address a meeting composed largely of African Americans, she had her first experience in public speaking.During her absence on one of these Southern trips, a society was formed in Boston in 1867, of which she was appointed a director, and later Honorary President, and in which she continued to work — the Free Religious Association, "the freedom and inspiration of whose first meetings" she finds it "impossible to report."