THE
UNITED  STATES
SANITARY  COMMISSION.
7
Reprinted from the North American Review, No. CCITJ.,
       for April, 1864.
        BOSTON:

CROSBY AND NICHOLS,
      117 Washington Street.

          1864. 
\
tx 
1
THE  SANITARY  COMMISSION.
  It  has  been well said  by Sir James M'Grigor, the distin-
guished physician-in-chief of Wellington's forces in the Penin-
sular campaign, that " the  efficiency of an  army  must ever
depend upon  the  state of health of the corps which compose
it."  In this light, military hygiene takes rank'with the tactics
and  strategy of good generalship, and war becomes scarcely
less a problem  of  sanitary science than of soldierly valor and
strategic skill.
  Every great  campaign  furnishes fresh testimony upon this
subject, and proves how true it is that " the history of war can
no longer be confined to bare details of the plans of battles and
the manoeuvres of armies,"  but  that " we must  refer to other
elements, and  principally to the sanitary condition of troops,
as the causes  of our victories or the  reasons for  our  disas-
ters." *  These are considerations of momentous  importance
in the present great war.
  Our hastily organized armies  for the suppression of the re-
bellion unquestionably present the largest and most important
field that the  history  of  the  world has yet afforded for the
practical elucidation of the  utility and  the varied applications
of sanitary science  as a life-saving and conservative power in
active military operations; and we may justly claim as one of
the important elements of our military success, and  as one of
the  most  Christian and impressive  features of our terrible

  * The British Army and Miss Nightingale. By Charles Shrimpton, M. D., late
Surgeon-Major in the French Army.  London: Bailliere Brothers.  1864. 
4
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
struggle, that this science,  in its broadest and most humane
applications, has been directly brought to  bear upon the Fed-
eral forces during the entire period of  the war.
  In a former paper an  outline of the plan and purposes of the
United  States Sanitary Commission was given, and some  of
the leading facts relating to its  origin, principles, and early
struggles were set forth.  In the following pages we propose
to unfold the scheme of its operations, and to examine into
the nature, methods, and results of its labors with reference to
their relations to the national cause and the people's concern
in it, and also with reference to  the influence of these  labors
upon sanitary science and its humane objects.
  The  special committee of  delegates that procured the  order-
ing and organization  of the Sanitary Commission was sent to
the national capital by volunteer associations that were engaged
in preparing the means  of succor and aid to victims of disease
and wounds, and it was plainly the purpose of those delegates
to make  the  consideration  of preventive  sanitary  measures
paramount to  all questions of relief.   This fact was illustrated
by the  official Order which  the committee secured from Gen-
eral Scott, at  their very first interview at Washington, requir-
ing a reinspection of the volunteer regiments for the purpose
of eliminating worthless elements that would only impede mili-
tary operations and crowd the hospitals.
  In what manner and to what extent the idea, purpose, and
plan of forecasting and  preventive concern and humane succor
for the  sick and wounded of 'the army were combined in the
counsels that gave  birth to the  Sanitary Commission, is well
illustrated in the following statement, which was presented to
the Secretary of War by the committee of  delegates in their
preliminary address on the  day of their first  assembling in
Washington.   This statement clearly foreshadows a scheme  of
preventive sanitary service and direct relief, which those dele-
gates designed should be commensurate with the  claims  of
humanity and the advanced civilization  and  science of  the
age.
  " The present is essentially a people's war.  The hearts and  minds,
the bodies and  souls, of the whole people, and of both sexes, thrpugh-
out the loyal States, are in it..... 
THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.
5
            " Convinced by inquiries made here of the practical difficulty of rec-
          onciling the aims of their own and numerous similar associations  in
          other cities  with  the regular workings of the Commissariat  and the
          Medical Bureau, and yet fully persuaded of the importance to the coun-
          try, and the success of the war, of bringing such an arrangement about,
          the undersigned respectfully ask that a  mixed commission of civilians,
          distinguished for their philanthropic experience and acquaintance with
          sanitary matters, of medical men, and of military officers, be appointed
          by the government, who shall be charged with the duty of investigat-
f         ing the best means of  methodizing and reducing to practical service
          the already active, but  undirected, benevolence of the people  towards
          the army ; who shall consider the general subject of the prevention of
          sickness and suffering among the troops, and suggest the wisest meth-
          ods which  the  people  at large can use  to  manifest their good-will
          towards the  comfort, security, and health of the army.
            " It must be well known to tbe Department of War that several such
          commissions followed the Crimean and  Indian wars.  The civilization
          and  humanity of the age, and of  the American people, demand that
          such  a commission should precede  our  second war of independence,—
          more sacred than the first.  We wish to prevent the evils that England
          and France could only investigate and deplore.  This war ought  to be
          waged in a spirit of the highest intelligence, humanity, and tenderness,
          for the health, comfort, and safety of our brave  troops;  and every
          measure of the  government that shows its sense of this will  be emi-
          nently popular, strengthen its hands, and redound to its glory at  home
          and abroad."

             Here we have the key to the whole theory of the organiza-
          tion and subsequent history of the Sanitary Commission.  The
          plan was conceived, and has been prosecuted  from the first in
          the  interest of humanity and  of the  national cause;   and  in
          the fifty published documents which the Commission sent forth
          during the first six months of its existence, we find abundant
          evidence of the  strength and clearness  of the convictions and
          purposes of its members in their humane and patriotic work.
          The men who organized the Commission were deeply impressed
          with  the fact that, " in times past, war has  been conducted in
          more or less  forgetfulness, sometimes in  total oblivion, of the
          fact that the soldier is a mortal man, subject to all the  ills fol-
          lowing on  wet and  cold,  want of shelter, bad food, excessive
          fatigue, bad water, intemperate habits, and foul air." 
6
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
  The commissioners infused into the plans of their service all
that earnestness and directness of purpose which deep convic-
tions and a definite knowledge of the importance and positive
power of sanitary works could inspire.  Like the British com-
mission for revising the army medical system, they found that
in our army regulations " no provision was made for syste-
matically caring for the soldier's health, but only for his sick-
ness."   And, not forgetting the great improvements  that the
hospital system itself required, it was manifestly the duty of
our army commission to take the view it did ; namely, that it
is the  highest  duty of the  government, and  of the  Sanitary
Commission as its voluntary aid and adviser, to employ all suit-
able means to preserve our  volunteer armies from the ravages
of preventible disease.  Florence Nightingale and the Crimean
commission found the British  army in the East  dying from
disease at  the rate of sixty per cent, or more than  half the
total force, per annum.   They secured the ordering and en-
forcement of needed sanitary measures in the camps, the hos-
pitals,  and the  administrative service of that shattered  army ;
diseases fled, and the death rate was, during the last five months
of the campaign, reduced to less than  12  per 1,000 (exactly
1.15 per cent), or more than fifty-two times less than before the
introduction of sanitary reform.   Fresh air, suitable food and
clothing, cleanliness of person and quarters, and well-regulated
habits, were the elements of that reform, and they are the fun-
damental elements of  health and soldierly  endurance  in our
own army.  The Commission knew that the  average annual
death rate in armies in our former wars had been exceedingly
high,  and that an army of volunteer forces is most  liable  to
fatal diseases.   In the Mexican war, our volunteer forces lost,
from disease alone, at the rate of 152 per 1,000 per annum,
and the regulars at the rate of 81, from the same cause.  In
Wellington's entire campaign in the Peninsula, his losses from
disease were 113  per 1,000 strength.   In times of peace, our
regular army lost annually at the rate of 26 per 1,000 strength;
and the British infantry, serving at home, annually lost about
18 per 1,000 from disease, until Lord Herbert's great reforms
were  instituted;  but by those reforms, which mainly  consist
in supplying fresh air and  an  improved diet, the annual loss 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.                7
is  reduced to about 81  per 1,000 strength ;  and the entire
loss  in  the  British army during the  past  four years, from all
diseases, is less than the annual loss previously from diseases
of the lungs only.
   The last official returns of sickness and mortality among the
British  forces present the best argument upon this subject.
In Jamaica, the death rate from disease has fallen, since the
recent reform was carried into effect, from 260 per 1,000 to 20;
in Trinidad, from 106 to 0 (in 1860) ;  in  Barbadoes, from 58
to 6 ; in St. Lucia, from 122 to 1;  in British Guiana, from 74
to 6 ; in Canada, from  16 to 10 ; in Nova Scotia, from 15 to
7 ; in Newfoundland, from 11 to 4;  in Bermuda, from 28 to
8 ; in Gibraltar, from 11 to 7 ; in Malta, from 15 to 10 ; in
Ionia, from  15 to 7.
   In our vast  armies of volunteers, the problems of sanitary
science  were to be wrought out as  a national and  patriotic
work.  The death  rates of the  Mexican campaign would im-
peril the national cause, and bring sorrow to every home in the
land.   Can the average sickness rate be kept at  a minimum
point ?   Can the average  death  rate from disease be reduced
to a fraction of that which was registered in the Mexican war ?
This result  the Commission believed possible.  It was to be
accomplished by prevention  and by succor.
   In the original scheme of organization of the United States
Sanitary Commission, as presented to  the Secretary of  War
on the  23d of May, 1861,  a few days after its originators had
presented their address  to  him, it was  proposed that the gen-
eral objects of the Commission  should be " inquiry and ad-
vice in respect  of  the sanitary interests of the United States
forces," with the design " to bring to bear upon the health,
comfort, and morale of our troops the fullest and  ripest teach-
ings  of sanitary science in its  application  to military life."
This scheme of inquiry and advice,  under the heads of, " 1.
Materiel of the Volunteers,  2. Prevention,  3. Relief," was to
be developed and  expanded as circumstances should require ;
and it  was wisely suggested  that the outlines  of the  plan
should  be so expansible as to conform to the exigencies of the
coming war and its vast armies.  Under the head of Preven-
tion, it  was stated : — 
8                 THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.
  " The Commission would inquire with scientific thoroughness into the
subject of  Diet, Cooking, Cooks,  Clothing, Tents, Camping-grounds,
Transports,  Transitory Depots, with their exposures,  Camp Police,
with reference to settling the question, how far the regulations of the
army proper are or can be practically carried out among the  volun-
teer regiments, and what changes or modifications are desirable from
their peculiar character and  circumstances.  Everything appertaining
to outfit, cleanliness, precautions against damp, cold, heat,  malaria, in-
fection, crude, unvaried, or ill-cooked food, and an irregular or care-
less regimental commissariat, would fall under this head."

  Supplementary supplies and  aid, wherever  required by the
wants  of  sick or  disabled soldiers,  were to  constitute  the
branch of Relief in the Commission's  scheme.   Inquiries were
to be made concerning
" the organization of military hospitals, general and regimental;  .  . .  .
the nature and sufficiency of hospital supplies ; the method of obtaining
and regulating all other extra supplies contributing to the comfort of
the  sick; the question of ambulances and field service, and of extra
medical aid; and whatever else relates to the care, relief, or cure of the
sick and wounded."

  In short, the Commission's department  of  Relief was pro-
posed for
" the organizing,  methodizing,  and  reducing to serviceableness  the
vague,  disproportioned,  and haphazard benevolence of the public";
and " to secure  uniformity of plans, and  then proportion and harmony
of action; and, finally, abundance of  supplies in money and goods for
such purposes as the laws do not and cannot provide."

  Though  the committee that  originated  and  urged  this
scheme of humane and extra-official  service  had no thought
of personally undertaking its complete elaboration and execu-
tion, a work in which  they could  not  engage  without  great
sacrifices of personal interests, yet, while  urging  and  perfect-
ing the  plan,  they became so determined  and  so absorbed in
the work, that, when the Commission actually organized,  it not
onfy included  the men who projected it, but its  whole body at
once became inspired with their spirit and purpose.  Clothed
with no other power than that which might result from their
intelligence, faithfulness, and success in the discharge of their 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.               9
duties of inquiry and advice, great effort was made to unite in
the personnel of the Commission a suitable variety and excel-
lence of scientific  and administrative qualifications.  Momen-
tous duties pressed too closely to permit delay in the  thorough
organization  and  work of the Commission; so, after  proper
counsels and a  few  preliminary interviews,  the Board organ-
ized and entered upon its work with the following members:
Henry W. Bellows, President, New York; Prof. A. D. Bache,
Vice-President,  Washington; George  T.  Strong,  Treasurer,
New York; Fred.  Law Olmsted, General Secretary, Washing-
ton ;  George W. Cullum, U. S. Army;  Alexander E.  Shiras,
U.  S. Army ; Robert C.  Wood, M.D., U. S. Army ; William
H. Van Buren,  M.D., New York ; Wolcott  Gibbs, M.D., New
York; Elisha Harris, M.D., New York; Samuel G. Howe,
M.D., Boston; Cornelius  R.  Agnew, M.D., New York; J. S.
Newberry,  M.D., Cleveland, Ohio.   Subsequently, in the pro-
gress of the work,  the following names have been added: Rt.
Rev.  T. M.  Clarke, Providence, R.  I.; Hon. R. W. Burnett,
Cincinnati; Hon. Mark Skinner, Chicago; Hon. Joseph Holt,
Washington; Horace Binney, Jr., Philadelphia; Rev. J. H.
Heywood, Louisville, Ky.;  J.  Huntington  Wolcott, Boston ;
Prof. Fairman Rogers, Philadelphia;  C.  J. Stille',  Philadel-
phia.
  Immediately after its organization the Commission entered
upon a series of  protracted sessions, which continued,  with
brief interruptions,  until  late in the autumn  of  1861.  The
preventive  or strictly sanitary and scientific  work of  the Com-
mission was the first to receive attention, and here was brought
into full operation  the organizing genius of Mr. F. L.  Olmsted,
who  had fortunately been  selected  as the chief executive
officer of the Board.   Several members of the Commission
engaged  in  special fields of inspection or inquiry, and a corps
of sanitary inspectors of camps and hospitals was immediately
set  at work in a systematic manner, so that, at a session imme-
diately after the battle  of Bull  Run, the Board examined re-
ports of sanitary inspections that had been made in  most of
the regiments both  before and  subsequent  to  that  disaster.
The  whole scheme  of  the  Commission's preventive service
appears  to have received its final shape and  force at  that 
10               THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.

period.   Its inspectors were placed under special instructions,
and sent throughout  the  lines of the army, and  from them
were daily received full and classified  returns concerning the
results of their  observations and efforts in the camps and hos-
pitals; a statistical bureau was organized  and placed under
the care  of a  skilled actuary;  direct and  earnest correspond-
ence was opened with  the  chief military authorities, and with
Governors of  States;  the munificent and  homely gifts of the
people for the comfort of their soldier-sons in hospitals were
received, assorted,  and systematically disbursed by methods
approved by the Medical Department, and thus a system of
General  Relief  was established.  At the same  time,  the en-
deavors to mitigate by suitable  means the personal sufferings
and wants of sick,  needy, and ignorant volunteers, under
irregular circumstances, — circumstances sadly  frequent, and
a class of miserable and uncared-for sufferers  painfully nu-
merous in and  about  Washington and  other  great military
centres after the first battles, — led to the establishment of a
branch of Special Relief.   From the current records and pub-
lications  of the Commission it plainly appears that, early in the
autumn of 1861, these various methods of service had  become
fully organized,  and were  operating  harmoniously, and  that
various incidental works in the interest of the soldier and the
people had been set on foot, in addition to reformatory and
relief operations of a systematic and more permanent kind.
  Even  before the  smoke  of the first collision in  arms had
cleared from  the fields of sharp encounter in  Virginia and
Missouri, the  Sanitary   Commission was  confronted by  some
very stern duties.  By fearlessly accepting them, and express-
ing the convictions that had become impressed upon the minds
of its members,  it exerted no small influence in improving the
organization, discipline, and care of our armies, and in giving
tone and  direction to public sentiment in  favor of such im-
provements.   The faults and  short-comings of the administra-
tive service in the medical and  other departments of the army
were pointed  out, the  importance of rigid  discipline  insisted
upon, and the duty of more wisely directing the selection and
appointment of commanding officers was  very emphatically set
forth.  The remark of  an old campaigner, " that a  good com- 
THE  SANITARY  COMMISSION.
11
manding officer  will  generally have  a healthy and  effective
regiment," and that " no regiment will ever be found Jiealthy
when the internal economy is bad," * was abundantly confirmed
by the observations  of the Commission's sanitary inspectors of
camps.
  So important was it considered, in its sanitary bearings, that
the highest degree  of military competence  should be secured
in the command of the volunteer  forces, that the Commission
reported, through a special committee of its members, consist-
ing  of General Cullum  and Professor Bache, the names and
addresses of all loyal graduates of  West Point who were at the
time in civil life, and believed to be available for military com-
mands in  active  service ;  and  in the  proceedings of the Com-
mission, a week after the battle  of Bull  Run, the following
Resolutions were passed: —

  " Resolved, That the Sanitary Commission, in their endeavors to pro-
mote temperance, cleanliness, and comfort  among the troops, have  be-
come convinced that the  first sanitary law in camp and among soldiers
is military discipline;  and  that unless  this is vigorously asserted and
enforced, it is useless to attempt and impossible to effect, by any second-
ary means,  the great end they propose, — which is the health and hap-
piness of the army."
  " Resolved, That, looking only to  the health and comfort of the troops,
it is  our profound conviction that any special relaxation of military dis-
cipline in favor of  volunteer troops, based  either upon their supposed
unwillingness or inability to endure it, or upon the alleged expectation
of the public, is a fallacious policy, and fraught with peril to the fives
of the  men and the success of the national cause; and that, speaking
in the name of the families and the communities from which the volun-
teers come, and in the name of humanity and religion, we implore  that
the most thorough system of military discipline be carried out with  the
officers and men of the volunteer force, as the first and essential condi-
tion  of their health, comfort, and morality."
  " Resolved, That the health arid comfort and efficiency of the men  are
mainly dependent on the uninterrupted  presence, the personal watchful-
ness, and the rigid authority of the regimental  and company officers;
and  that all the great defects, whether in  the commissariat or in  the
police of camps, are radically due to the absence of officers from their
* Sir James M'Grigor, in Medico-Chirurg. Trans., Vol. VI. p. 471. 
12               THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
posts, and to the laxity of the discipline to which they are themselves
accustomed."
  To ascertain the prevailing causes of sickness and mortality
in the army, and to endeavor to remove the sources of prevent-
ive disease, every available  agency  was brought  to bear for
the immediate and methodical application of sanitary knowl-
edge in the camps and hospitals.  At the same  time, appro-
priate methods of relief, and a system for accumulating and
dispensing the means  of succor, were devised and put  into
operation.
  The various labors in which the Commission engaged were
grouped, as we have  said, in  two separate but co-ordinate de-
partments,—that of preventive service and that of supplement-
ary supply and relief, — both of which were equally inspired
with the  ideas of  health, humanity, and patriotism.  The pre-
ventive service required all the best medical talent the Com-
mission could  command, and the aid  of the military members
and the administrative  officers of the Board; while the relief
department called into its service not only the powers and pe-
culiar experience of  all the members of the Commission, but
has commanded the friendly aid of the leading philanthropists
of our country.  In all branches, and at every stage of the
work, individual  members  of the Commission have engaged,
according to their particular qualifications,  in active services
and counsels, and some, by agreement, withdrew from all other
occupations, and  devoted themselves  exclusively to the Com-
mission's work.
  Mr. Frederic Law Olmsted was placed in charge of the cen-
tral office, as General Secretary of the Commission, and  gave
himself wholly to its executive  duties, and to the work of or-
ganizing  the  methods  of service ; in this  work his  peculiar
genius and powers of mind found an inviting but laborious field
of labor, and proved themselves equal to the largest demand
that the country could make  upon them.  So to organize the
various branches  of this life-saving work as to impart to  each
branch and to the entire  system the greatest efficiency and
completeness   for  the time, and yet  to  give to  the several
branches  such separate  and  easily limited  range  that  their
operation should  be  only supplemental to regular provisions 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
13
          made by government, was a leading point in the problem which
          the Sanitary Commission and its General Secretary must prac-
          tically solve during the first months of the service.  That this
          early policy of the Commission has been faithfully maintained,
          and that the great problems which engrossed its  attention the
          first year of the war have been satisfactorily solved, the  daily
          operations both of the preventive and the relief departments of
          the work abundantly testify.
,           It  is due alike to the Sanitary Commission and to the people
          who  support  its operations  to  say, that this purpose to make
          the country's voluntary offerings of science and succor merely
          supplementary, had infit nothing of feebleness and sycophancy.
          Its ruling motive has always  been that of manly and zealous
          defence  and care of the soldier.  That motive was thus stated
          in the Commission's report to the Secretary of War, in Decem-
          ber, 1861: —
            " The one point which controls the Commission is just this: a simple
          desire and resolute determination to secure for the men who  have en-
          listed in  this war that care which it is  the will and the duty of the
          nation to give them.   That care is their right, and, in the government
          or out of it, it must be given them, let who will stand in the way."

            The experience of other wars  and other nations  could not
          with any certainty guide the Sanitary Commission in  its esti-
          mates of the  amount of  supplementary aid  that would be re-
          quired,  nor was there any example or light to  guide to the
          successful preparation and adoption of the needed methods of
          succor and assistance.   The murderous waste of life and loss
          of armies  in the Crimea, as well as the example there  present-
          ed of the positive power and certainty of sanitary measures, as
          the means of salvation from such calamities,  served as  beacon-
          lights, and as such they were constantly in  view.  The Com-
          mission was strongly impressed with the facts that the  destroy-
          ing angel who follows in the trail of armies " exacts from every
          man  to  the full whatever  penalties follow on the  infraction of
          natural law "  ; that " the waste of human life and the  destruc-
          tion of human health and happiness [in time of war] have been
          in all ages  many times greater from disease  than from actual
          encounter in the field, and that the faithful records of all wars 
14
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
are records of preventible suffering, disease, and death." *   In
view of these facts, and considering also  that the sick and
wounded must sometimes be sacrificed to unavoidable military
necessity, the Commission  claimed that  " all the more  should
they be supplied with whatever mitigation of suffering military
necessities leave possible.  And these  should be furnished them,
not as if a hard master were driving a bargain with them, — as
in the  commutation of a board contract, — but as if the love
and pity of mothers, wives, sweethearts,  and sisters were exer-
cised with the far-seeing providence, boldness, ingenuity, tact,
and industry  of  true  military generalship."  Such were  the
considerations that guided, and such the spirit that inspired,
the Commission in devising and  working its methods of pre-
vention from disease and relief from suffering.   The preventive
or strictly sanitary and scientific department of  the work, from
the first, has  comprised, — 1st,  a corps of sanitary  inspec-
tors ; 2d, a bureau of sanitary and vital statistics ;  3d,  the  di-
rectorship of distribution of the Commission's supplementary
supplies or " sanitary stores " ; 4th, the  preparation and publi-
cation, for free distribution among medical  and other officers,
of compendious monographs upon the  most practical subjects
in army hygiene, surgery, and medicine.  The  department  of
relief is co-ordinate with that of sanitary  inspection, and, so
far as  its ministrations relate directly to life  and health, it is
under  the direction of the inspectors or  medical officers of the
preventive  or sanitary department of the  service ; while the
various branches  of relief  not thus related  to the sanitary
service constitute the system which  is  designated as that  of
special relief.  All these branches of the Commission's work,
as previously remarked, sprang into operation under the origi-
nal scheme of organization,  and  from  the pressure of events
during the early months of the war.
   With a scheme of operations so expansible, so tentative, and
yet  so  determined, it was the more difficult, as well  as  the
more desirable, to methodize all branches of the work.   And,
notwithstanding  the expectation  and hope that some of  the
branches would  soon become needless, because of increasing

  * Army Sanitary Administration and its Reform under Lord Herbert.   By Flo-
rence Nightingale. 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
15
improvements in army organization, and that, from  the  same
cause, the  necessity and  range of even the more permanent
labors of the Commission would  be rendered  less and less
essential to the welfare of the army, the Commission adopted
the  policy  of  ordering and  executing all the  departments
and  details of its work  in a  most thorough and permanent
manner.
  The system  of sanitary inspection was  designed to  accom-
plish two leading objects of  nearly equal importance, viz.: —
1st, to impart information and suggestions to, and also to  stim-
ulate the exertions of, military officers in matters affecting the
health of the troops;  2d, to make faithful observations  upon
the sanitary condition and wants of the soldiers in camp and in
hospital, and immediately to report upon the same to the cen-
tral  office  of the Commission.  These reports present the sys-
tematic and comparable results of such inspectorial labors, and
have furnished the basis of those suggestions and reforms which
the  Commission has, from time to time, urged  upon the gov-
ernment and upon military  authorities.
  The duties of the  Sanitary  Inspectors were  accurately de-
fined in a letter of special instructions from the General Secre-
tary, and the range and leading points of inquiry were indicated
in a  carefully  studied  schedule of questions, some  two  hun-
dred in number.  This branch of  service was put into opera-
tion  as  early as the  month  of July, 1861,  and  has  been con-
tinued until the present time.  It has recently been reinforced
by valuable accessions to its corps, and it is not likely that the
need of this department will cease while  the war continues;
for although, with the progress of events and the improvement
of our armies, the functions of  the inspectors have been greatly
varied, they have perhaps become of still greater importance
than at first.
  The general  plan of  service  marked out for the Sanitary In-
spectors, during the  first two  years of the war, is  thus laid
down in the Secretary's letter of instructions : *—

  " I. Introduction, Etiquette, and Discipline. — In the performance of

  * General Instructions for Camp Inspectors.  By the General Secretary of the
Sanitary Commission. Document 51. 
16
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
 your  duty as an  Inspector  of  the  Sanitary Commission, it is  of the
 highest  importance that you should, under  all circumstances, be care-
 ful  to show your respect  for the regulations  of discipline, order, and
 rank in the army.   To this end, in the first place, take pains to ap-
 proach the inferior by  way  of  the superior officer, and  only  with  a
 formal or implied approval and indorsement  of your purpose by the
 latter.
   " Unquestionably, the first  of  all conditions  of health in the army is
 strict  discipline.   Do all,  therefore, in your power to encourage and
 strengthen a good purpose  in this respect; do all in your power to sus-
 tain it.   Honor  in your  own conduct the  strictest  rules of military
 etiquette, and let it be seen that you expect them to be stringently en-
 forced.  Let it be known that you consider no disease so destructive to
 an army as laxity of discipline.   Demand, wherever you properly can
 do so, that the  standard of the  volunteers  shall be at least as high as
 that of the regulars in this  respect, and reprove any intimation that this
 is not  to be attempted.....
   " II. Relation  with Regimental and Company Commanders. — On
 arriving at the camp of a regiment, ask for the  officer of the day, and,
 stating your business, request him to present you to the colonel or com-
 manding  officer.   Exhibit  your  credentials  to  the latter, and,  if the
 opportunity is favorable, endeavor at once to obtain his confidence and          f
 co-operation in your business.....
   " III.  Duty of Commanders of Companies. — ....  In our military
 organization the company is the unit of the army, and the commanding
 officers of companies are the principal agents of all the administrative
 duties  of the organization.   If a  major or a  lieutenant (not acting as a
 commander) neglects his duties, the body to which he  is attached be-
 comes  simply in  a certain degree less effective.  If a company com-
 mander neglects his duty, the men may starve for all that any one else
 is to do.   The captain should be, as has often been  said, ' the  father
 of his  company.'   Nothing, however small, which affects the comfort,
 health, strength,  and efficiency of his men  is  beneath his attention.
 He is the official  registrar,  and agent of all necessary communication
 between  them and the  source of their supplies, as well  as with the
 superior  command.....Upon  the  thoroughness with  which the
 captains  attend to  their duty, both in regard to their companies, and,
 each in his turn, as the officer of the day, superintending the police of
 the regiment, its health mainly depends.  You are, therefore, instructed
to make yourself acquainted with the captains, and to cultivate such
relations  with them as will  command  a hearty reception for such in-
struction as you may see occasion to give them." 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.                17
   Thus, the Sanitary Inspectors were instructed to proceed
 with their duties until they should become fully possessed of
 all the  facts bearing upon the sanitary condition and welfare
 of each company, each regiment, and the entire corps d'armee.
 The  " importance of sanitary regulations was to be illustrated
 by statistical facts," as the  inspector continued his interviews
 with the regimental officers;  the " inspection of camp and
 quarters "  was  a leading point also, and  in  another section
 of the instructions the Inspector was specially advised to set
 forth  the fact that the "prevention of disease is possible," and
 its " suppression difficult and uncertain."

   " Endeavor by every means in your power to remind the officers of
 these orders, and of the necessity of their  strict obedience to them, to
 the safety and credit of the regiment.   Explain to them that they are
 based upon a universal military experience, that disastrous consequences
 inevitably follow the neglect  of such precautions as they are intended
 to secure. Let them know that, although the outbreak of malignant or
 epidemic disease  in camps and  quarters can be almost certainly pre-
 vented, it can seldom be suppressed, after having once broken out, by
 any  measure, however energetic, and never  without great destruction
 of life.  Point out to them the various sources of mischief that are to be
 anticipated, and explain in what way defects in camp police, ventila-
 tion, drainage, cooking, &c. are sure to operate injuriously, especially
 in the destruction of the esprit du corps and morale of the soldier."
   Then with the regimental surgeon the sanitary missionary
 must  cultivate  such professional fraternity  and emulation as
 " will lead  him  to  magnify his office," and, if necessary, he
 must  " remind  the surgeon that he becomes responsible for the
 existence and continuance of any  unjustifiable sanitary condi-
 tion pertaining  to the camp, or to the management of the regi-
 ment, against which  he does not  perseveringly  expostulate."
 The condition and wants of the regimental hospitals are to be
 inquired into,  and, when  desirable, the more  important defi-
 ciencies and urgent wants are  to  be immediately supplied by
 requisitions  upon the  Commission's  supplementary stores;
 " ambulances and  ambulance  stores" are  to be examined,
 and the  regimental surgeon urged to be fully equipped  and
ready for battle duty.  And thus, in various ways, the faithful
and hard-worked surgeon  in the field has found the Sanitary 
18
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
Commission  his ever-present friend,  defender, and helper;
while the negligent  and reckless medical officer has learned
to fear the expostulations and the merited rebukes of the faith-
ful Inspector.
   These instructions to  the Inspectors comprise  thirty-two
sections, and include the leading subjects  affecting the sani-
tary condition of soldiers in camp,—"Camp Sites," "Drain-
age," "Ventilation," "Sinks  and  Offal,"  "Disinfectants,"
" Water,"  " Sutlers," " The Commissariat  and  the  Quar-
termaster,"  " Rations and  Cooking," " Bedding," " Tents,"
" Clothing,"  " Frauds  in  Food  and   Clothing," etc., etc.
And, lastly,  to give  force and execution to all  this labor of
inquiry and  inspection, the Inspector  is to  enter into  frank
" conference with  the commanding  officer," and urge such
improvements as appear to be practicable.   In case of persist-
ent  " necessity  of sanitary  precautions,"  the  following  in-
structions are to be  pursued: —
  " Address the proper officer  on the subject in writing, stating the
grounds of your advice.  Take pains to do this  in  such a manner as
not to cause irritation or give  offence, and, at  the end of the week, send
a copy of your letter to  this office, together with any answer which may
have been given you.
  " In visits subsequent to the first, all important changes which have
occurred since previous reports should be noticed; and especially it
should be stated whether and how far advice previously given has been
followed, and with what results.
  " Whenever you see occasion, advise action which you think desira-
ble to be taken by the Commission, or to be initiated at Washington."
   From ten to fifteen Sanitary Inspectors have been constantly
engaged in this branch of  the Commission's work, since the
summer of 1861;  as far as  possible, this has been  a  corps of
specially qualified experts, and  many of its present  members
formerly held commissions in the military medical service.   It
has been difficult, indeed,  to obtain a sufficient number of suit-
ably qualified meuical men for the peculiar duties of this corps,
and several of the best Inspectors that have entered the service
have  been physically broken down by arduous labor and  ex-
posures.
   In  the first report which the Commission made to the  Secre- 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.                19
tary of War,* in the autumn of 1861, the following statement
is made respecting the Sanitary Inspectors and  their labors  at
that early period of the war.
  " It  was indispensable that they should possess, not only scientific
education and a special acquaintance with sanitary laws, but sufficient
tact  to  enable  them,  though holding  no official position or military
rank, to perform their duties as  agents of an organization unknown
to the  regulations of  the  army, without awakening jealousy of their
interference as  officious and  intrusive.  It was also necessary,  in
view of the fact that the Commission could afford to pay but moderate
compensation to its employees, that they should be men actuated by a
strong  and disinterested desire  to  be of service to the country.....
Very few camps have been visited in which important improvements
have not been ordered,  at the suggestion and  in presence of the In-
spector.
  " The influence, however, which officers unconsciously receive through
the mere direction of their attention to  neglected duties, by the in-
quiries which the Inspectors have  need to address to them, constitutes
the chief part of the value of the services of the Commission.   This,
of course, cannot be specified and recorded. .... The example of one
regiment in reforming abuses and enforcing sanitary laws is very gen-
erally followed by others near it, and an emulation is excited  among
company and regimental officers,  the beneficial effects of which have
been noticed in many cases where an ill-regulated regiment has been
transferred to the neighborhood of a  cleanly, well-policed, thoroughly
drained, and salubrious camp."

  In the  Report  from which we  have here quoted it is  stated
that the Sanitary Inspectors  had made full returns from more
than two hundred regiments, and that the total  number of sep-
arate reports of such regimental inspections amounted then,  at
the  end of  the first four months of the  work, to more than
twice that number.   The Report further says : —

  " The results [of these reports] are carefully tabulated, and suitable
digests prepared by an accomplished actuary.   The Commission  is not
without hope, if it should be enabled to continue its operations, eventu-
ally to lay before the country a body of military medical statistics more
complete, searching, and trustworthy than any now in  existence."

  *  Sanitary Commission Document, No. 40.  A Report to the Secretary  of War
of the Operations of the Sanitary Commission.  8vo.  pp. 107. 
20
THE  SANITARY  COMMISSION.
  How the Commission's Bureau of Statistics was organized,
and what practical problems it solved, we will presently notice;
but, that the reader may judge of the nature of the " returns "
that were daily sent in to the central office by the  Sanitary In-
spectors, which constituted the basis not only of statistical in-
quiry, but of the requests and suggestions that were continually
being  made  to the  government,  the following questions, as
given  in the  Manual for Inspectors,* are here copied.   These
questions,  as their number  show, are extracted from different
sections.
  " 83. Are the rations found sufficient in quantity ?
  " 84. Are they generally considered good in quality, each of its kind ?
If not, mention what is alleged to be poor.
  " 86. About how often is fresh meat served ?
          Fresh vegetables ?
          Desiccated vegetables ?

  " 145. Is  the regimental hospital in a house, temporary structure,
or tent ?
  " 146. If in a house  or temporary structure, is it fairry adapted to
its purpose?
  " 147. Is it fairly well ventilated ?
  "147*. How is it heated?
  " 147 la.  Is it kept clean ?
  " 148. If in a tent, is it well drained?

  " 166". "What was the sickness and morality as  per last  monthly
report?
  "166s31.  What was the strength of regiment at that time ?
  " 167. Is the  general  health of the regiment improving or deterio-
rating ? "
  The Inspectors engage in direct personal efforts for the im-
mediate reform of abuses and the improvement of camp  and
hospital hygiene, wherever they go.  And  it  is in such efforts
that  they  are  really most useful.  Wherever wants are  dis-
covered, they are in duty bound to find out  means to relieve

  * Sanitary Commission's Document, No. 19.  Form C.
  The Inspectors' returns, as  given opposite the questions, become available in the
Actuary's Bureau of Statistics, as well as in guiding the secretaries in their official
duty. 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
21
them.  For the sick  and enfeebled, they promptly order for-
ward such supplies as the surgeons require ; to the camp's that
are exposed to malaria, they advise, and, when necessary, they
offer supplies of the needed prophylactics; while, throughout
the long lines of our forces that occupy the scathed and  desti-
tute borders of the rebellion, far from planted fields,  these
faithful inquisitors against disease are unceasingly  on the
watch for the  Protean  outbreaks of  scurvy.  In  their cru-
sade against this scourge of camps and protracted campaigns,
the Sanitary Commission  has successfully laid  the  gardens
of the great Northwest under contribution.  With the strate-
gic foresight of a veteran campaigner, — as he is, — Dr.  New-
berry, the Western Secretary, wisely gained possession of im-
mense and fertile  fields about Murfreesboro'  and Nashville,
just in the rear of the forces, and there planted in  hospital gar-
dens his strongly defensive batteries to guard against this most
insidious  enemy that has yet  threatened our brave  soldiers.
During all  the past year the Federal forces down the  Atlantic
coast have been menaced by that enemy, and,  but for  the con-
tinual watchfulness and  promptitude of the Sanitary Inspec-
tors, and  the bountiful supplies  of fresh  vegetables which,
upon their requisition and the  request  of  army surgeons, the
Commission has sent forward by every steamer to the  army of
the South, it may reasonably be doubted if our  forces could
have continued the siege of Charleston, or to-day  have been in
condition to prosecute an active campaign.
  We shall again recur to this homely but life-saving warfare
of the Sanitary Commission against  the evil bred of  the un-
varied camp-kettle and " hard-tack," and it is mentioned here
as an  imperative  function of one branch  of the Preventive
service.  But it must be borne in mind, that the good which
the Sanitary Commission has  accomplished by its direct and
immediate interpositions and  supplementary  work has  been
continually  exceeded  by the beneficent results of the power
exerted by its example and influence upon the regular agen-
cies or methods of  supply and care  for the soldier.   To the
honor  of the generals in command, and the  medical officers
in the field, this fact is frankly, thankfully  confessed by them,
for they know too well that it is a chronic habit of commissa- 
22               THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
ries and  quartermasters  to find lions of difficulty in the way
when unusual requisitions and extra demands are made upon
their departments, and that the regular methods of meeting
special wants  are  generally, and probably necessarily,  slower
than the  immediate and expansible  methods of supplementany
supply that the  Commission  has adopted.  It is due  to  the
regular administrative service of our army, that it should have
the praise of  far surpassing in efficiency and promptitude the
corresponding British service in  the Crimean campaign.  But
that there is  much in  our army administration that cries for
reform, is painfully evident from the single fact that its defi-
ciencies have rendered vigilant and active efforts of the San-
itary Commission necessary to  prevent scurvy from crippling
our  best corps  oVarmees while  occupying vitally  important
points in the  line of our military operations.
  The Commission has steadily kept in view the duty  of dis-
covering and suggesting the proper  remedies for  these  defects
in the military  system;  and that  its suggestions  have been
pressed with earnestness,  and in  the right directions, may be
inferred  from  the fact that the fearless and faithful discharge
of this duty is known to be the  cause  of whatever opposition
the Commission  has encountered in official circles.
  The improvement  of   military hospitals has naturally re-
ceived the continued and earnest attention of  the Sanitary
Commission, and no subject could more legitimately claim the
services  of  sanitary science and preventive  skill.   Only  the
privilege of visiting and  inspecting the hospitals was granted
to the Commission ; yet as the Sanitary Inspectors came  to  the
hospital wards, not  only with offerings of the material aid and
special supplies which the sick  and wounded might need,  but
also with the sentiments and suggestions of most fraternal and
professional friendship towards the faithful medical officers, as
well as with humane concern  for  the patients in  their care,
the opportunity for practical efforts by the  Commission  to  im-
prove the character and administration of the  army hospitals,
general, regimental, and temporary, has been very great; and
from time to time the Commission has assumed such responsi-
bilities in aiding the administration of the hospitals, as have
placed the government and the  people under lasting  obliga-
tions. 
THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.
23
  Discreditable and unnecessary as it seems, it still is true, that
military hospitals, in great campaigns, have proved to be sources
of pestilent disease.   Miss Nightingale has  remarked, that, in
hospital construction and administration, it is all-important that
special  care be taken that  the patients are not killed by the
hospital and its management.   It was the  overwhelming expe-
rience in this respect of the British army in the Crimea, that
gave  rise to the  great  reforms which are now in progress in
hospital construction and management, and in all departments
of army administration, in Europe.  The influence of that grand
illustration of the wasting and consuming power of disease in
armies, and of the redeeming and triumphant power of sani-
tary works, was already, before our war, producing some excel-
lent results in our civil hospitals and in the sanitary police of
towns; but neither the military system nor the army surgeons
of our country had become in any degree permeated by those
marvellously practical teachings  which  Lord  Herbert  of Lea
and Florence Nightingale had labored  to present for  the  in-
struction and benefit of the civilized world.   What the wants
of the army hospitals were, and what the Sanitary Commission
said of them and did  for them, during the first summer of the
war, will appear from the following abstract of a Report, by a
special  committee, adopted on the 29th of  July,  1861: —
  " But the principal want experienced by the sick was found by your
committee to be clean and appropriate hospital clothing.  But for the
liberal forethought of the benevolent women of  the nation, our soldiers
would have been compelled to lie sick and wounded in the clothes in
which they entered the  hospital wards, and which, in many cases, had
not been changed or even washed for weeks  before.  Many had been
already supplied, and your committee had the  satisfaction of seeing that
every sick man  in  hospital was fully  provided with a proper suit of
clothing, by the authority of the Commission.
  " No available  provision being made by government for the wash-
ing of the clothing worn  by volunteers on their entering the hospital, the
committee secured the authority of the Commission for employment of
laundresses for this purpose ; so that, when the soldier is ready to leave
the hospital  and resume his duties, his clothing wiU be clean  and fit
for  use.
  " The services of a barber were also procured for the sick, and your
committee  can bear witness  that he contributed  not a little  to their 
24
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
cleanliness and comfort.  Wire frames  for the protection of wounded
limbs from pressure of bedclothes were  found to be wanted, and they
were  supplied.

  " Another subject was  recognized by your committee as possessing
much interest and importance; namely, the provision of systematic and
reliable means of identifying the remains of soldiers dying in the gen-
eral  hospitals, and of properly marking  the graves in which they are
interred, so that the reasonable inquiries of friends and relations may
be properly answered.  This matter was brought before the Commis-
sion, and referred to a special committee for immediate action.
  " Your committee venture to embody their conclusions in the form of
suggestions, and would submit to the Commission, secondly, the pro-
priety of recommending to government that hereafter, instead of  hiring
old buildings for general hospitals, they should order the erection of a
sufficient number of wooden shanties or pavilions of appropriate con-
struction, and fully provided  with water for  bathing, washing, and water-
closets, and ample arrangements for ventilation and for securing warmth
in winter, to accommodate from thirty to sixty each, and to be sufficiently
distant not to  poison each other.  This suggestion embodies the latest
and best views as  to  the construction  of hospitals, and  its adoption
would save both lives and  money.                .                          j
  " If the present hospitals  are to be occupied during the fall and win-
ter months, some plan should be at once  adopted and applied, by the
competent authorities, to correct their architectural defects, to provide
facilities for bathing and water-closets, to introduce water on each floor,
and to separate the dead-houses from the  wards occupied by the sick.
Measures should also be taken to improve their ventilation, and for
their  thorough warming in winter."
  It  is to the deserved  and lasting credit of General M. 0.
Meigs, the Quartermaster-General of  the army, that from the
first  he favored and aided the  development  of  the improved
system of military hospitals originally proposed by the Sanitary          ^
Commission.  After the construction of two pavilion hospitals,
during the first year of  the war, from plans prepared in the
Commission, the work of  hospital  reform was fairly  inaugu-
rated, and it is to the intelligent and prompt official action of
General Meigs, and to  the  efficient  administration of Surgeon-
General Hammond, that the  army  now  owes a  system of pa-
vilion hospitals  that exceeds  in extent and excellence any
hospital system ever before seen. 
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.               25
  During the year of battles that followed the capture of Fort
Donelson, in February, 1862, there probably passed through
the general hospitals not less than from 350,000 to 400,000 sick
and wounded men, besides the much larger number who were
treated in regimental hospitals or in the field.  Hence, we can
hardly overestimate the vital importance and the lasting benefit
of this new and vastly improved system of hospital care for the
brave men who, in ceaseless processions from camps and battle-
fields, have passed through the wards of the hundreds of health-
ful pavilions.  During the autumn and winter of the second
year of the war,  when the bloody fields of  Northern  Mary-
land and Virginia, and the long and  stoutly contested line of
malarious outposts along  the Western river-borders of the re-
bellion,  had crowded all  the permanent hospitals, and  popu-
lated hundreds  of churches and  other edifices,  perilous for
temporary  use as hospitals, it was deemed expedient by the
Commission to undertake a special  inspection of all these hos-
pitals permanent and temporary, with  the aid of the ablest med-
ical talent and experience which our large cities could afford.
   This  special inspection was begun early in the autumn of
1862, and continued until the summer of 1863, and in its per-
formance the Commission had the services of more than sixty
eminent physicians and surgeons from  the principal  civil hos-
pitals of the country.
   The magnitude and importance of this work in the general
hospitals may be  judged from the fact, that  the wards in-
spected  contained upwards of seventy thousand beds, and the
number  of patients visited  during that half-year's inspection
amounted to nearly two  hundred thousand.  The reports of
the Inspectors  during that  period  comprise more than four
thqusand written pages, and they contain the results of most
careful  observations and  scientific  study, the fruits  of  which
will  continue  to benefit  the sick and wounded of our armies
until the war is ended.
   After the passage of the  new Medical  Act, and the instal-
lation of the new Surgeon-General, in the beginning of the
summer of 1862, the Sanitary Commission hoped  to be able to
withdraw from the field  some of its  more extraordinary and
expensive agencies connected with the Preventive  service, and 
26
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.
likewise to diminish its increasing responsibilities in the matter
of Relief or supplementary supplies.   But before the Surgeon-
General and his corps of  medical inspectors, under  the new
medical act, had been confirmed by the Senate, the  great
campaigns that  had opened  at  Donelson and  Shiloh, in the
West,—at the mouth of the Mississippi, on the Gulf,—at Roa-
noke Island, Newbern, and the Sea Islands, on the coast,—and
under General McClellan on the Peninsula, in Virginia, —while
they promised triumphant  success to  our arms, had already
threatened to overwhelm our Northern  homes with unspeak-
able sorrow, and had roused irrepressible sympathies for the
brave men who, by tens of thousands, in the early marches and
battles  of those  campaigns, had fallen, to suffer unutterable
woes from want of timely succor.
  Between the 1st of March  and the 1st of July of that year
of battles, the demands upon the  Medical Department of the
army had been  more  than quadrupled.   The  new Surgeon-
General, fortunately, was found equal to the occasion, but the
multiplied exigencies  of the five grand  campaigns of our
armies, all pressing at the  same time, inevitably exceeded the
largest resources and  powers of  the  Medical Department, as
constituted under existing  laws, and also rendered it impos-
sible for  the  Quartermaster's  Department to respond with
promptness  and efficiency  to the  requisitions  made  upon it
for the material care and necessary transportation of the sick
and wounded.   Upon the  Cumberland,  the  Tennessee, and
the Mississippi, the Sanitary  Commission urged the prepara-
tion of, and furnished supplies for, hospital transports ; and
mainly through  the agency of the Commission a  system  of
floating-hospital  transportation, most humane and munificent
in its provisions, was put into  operation, and became the means
of saving a multitude of lives.
  The  medical history  of the Peninsular campaign, and the
story of the Sanitary Commission's " Hospital  Transports," *
will furnish pages of deep  interest in the history of the war ;
and the record is at every point  interwoven with that of the
other labors and achievements of the Commission.   An army

  * Hospital Transports.  A Memoir of the Embarkation of the Sick  and
Wounded from the Peninsula, etc., etc.  Boston :  Ticknor and Fields.  1863. 
THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.
27
            of 130,000 men had been plunged into the mud-fields between
            the  York and  James  Rivers, and  as  they pressed forward
            towards the rebel capital, — fighting and trenching,  continu-
            ally exposed to  malaria, and suffering most excessive fatigue
            and want, — the Sanitary Commission endeavored to prepare
            for  the constantly increasing  crowds  of  sick  and  disabled
            that were daily turned back  to  the rear  upon  the Pamun-
            key, the York, and James  Rivers.   Though only supplement-
t           ing  the deficiencies of  medical and administrative service, the
            supplies, appliances, and working  corps it there provided made
            and  entitled  it to be  considered  one of  the most efficient
            departments of  medical and administrative  service  in that
            disastrous, but heroic campaign.   Every  witness  of  what the
            Commission effected  during that  period bears testimony to
            the  good judgment with which  its work was planned, and the
            success with which it was prosecuted, as well  as  to the terri-
            ble  necessity that  demanded its interposition.   The  following
            passage from  a speech of  Hon.  Moses  F. Odell, a member
            of Congress from Brooklyn, N. Y., sets forth the  class of facts
t            which impressed every visitor to the army upon the Peninsula.
             " Before  I  had  been  long at the White House there came  down
            from Fair  Oaks some five or six hundred wounded  soldiers on a
            train of cars, and then I discovered the vast resources and usefulness of
            this  Commission.  I found on board those steamboats numbers of ladies
            and  gentlemen, ready to go to work with willing hearts and able hands
            to administer to  the wants  of those wounded and dying men.   Now the
            government, I have no hesitation in saying, from the  beginning of the
            war, have had a proper appreciation  of the needs of the soldier, and
            have done all in their power; but under such circumstances as  these
            the Commission  was  ahead of them, — hours and days ahead of the
            government in  the supply of what was  needed  on  that occasion.  I
            joined them at once, enrolled myself as a working and active member,
            and remained there four days and nights, during which time there were
            3,465 wounded  men received, their  immediate  wants  supplied, and
            necessary medical  assistance furnished by the  Commission, and they
            were then sent  from there to the Washington  and other  hospitals.
            And had not  these vessels been there with their bountiful supplies to
            make the soldier comfortable in his wants and sickness, the suffering
            would have been unspeakable."
             During a period so eventful, so  terrible, as that  of  the sum 
28               THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
mer  of 1862, it was  manifestly impossible  for  the  Sanitary
Commission to  do otherwise than  enlarge, rather  than re-
trench, its operations.  To cease or diminish its humane min-
istrations would have been both cruel and criminal.   Its work
went on ;  every loyal  home at  the  North demanded it; the
Surgeon-General and  all faithful and hard-worked army sur-
geons  desired  it to go on.  The fact that its methods  and
measures had been studiously adapted to render  such supple-
mentary aid as it  offered in  an acceptable and most effectual
manner, was appreciated by every general in  command, and
every right-minded medical director in the field.
  The Preventive and inspectorial department of the  Commis-
sion's  work necessarily became  completely  interwoven with
that  of the Relief  department during the  campaigns of 1862.
Relief became  an  agency of greatest sanative power and im-
portance, and the supplies which the people furnished through
the Commission's  channels,  or  that were purchased with
money by wholesale, became, by a most  natural metonymy,
" sanitary stores."  During that period, as  soon as the medical
corps and  sanitary inspectors,  under the new Medical Act,
had commenced service, the Commission's inspectors devoted
themselves more particularly to  the systematic and proper
application of these " sanitary stores," and to such duties of a
general nature  as would leave  the work of systematic inspec-
tion of camps and hospitals wholly to the new corps of regularly
commissioned inspectors.  But, as we have already mentioned,
the Commission's work of systematic inspection  of  hospitals
was  resumed  under  new  auspices  during the succeeding
autumn, and at the same time the " field work  "  of inspection
assumed unprecedented importance as  a crusade against the
scurvy that was threatening  all our armies.   Thus, by force
of circumstances, as well as by predetermined  purpose, the
strictly hygienic branch  of service never  had  opportunity  to
degenerate into inefficient routine, but has been  continued  as
a truly sanative, scientific, and practical department of army
service.
  Recently the  Commission has enlarged and more thoroughly
systematized this Preventive  department,  and, in view of the
sad embarrassments that now  afflict the  medical bureau, it 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
29
would be impossible to conceive of a more vitally important
service to our  rapidly augmenting  forces in the field, and to
the national  cause, than that which the Sanitary Commission
may now render by perfecting and  giving greatest possible
efficiency to this department of its own most legitimate work.
It is  said that there has existed at  the War Department  a
strange spirit of opposition to the Commission ; but this must
not, need  not, prevent the  Commission  from  fulfilling its
bounden duty  to the soldiers who  are gathering for the great
campaigns which are to crush the  rebellion.  The people de-
mand this from  the Sanitary Commission;  and, unless  Con-
gress sees fit to enlarge and defend the  Medical Department,
the Commission must, so far as it is able, boldly fill the place
of the regular service.  In the army of the South, under Gen-
eral Gillmore,  or in  that of the Great Valley, under General
Grant, the  Sanitary Commission's inspectors, circulars, and
advice possess  indeed a moral power that scarcely needs mili-
tary authority  to enforce it.
   During the last year and a half the Commission and the army
have witnessed  such  excellent and positive results from the sup-
plies of fresh vegetables that have been furnished upon the ad-
vice of the  sanitary inspectors, — mostly at the  Commission's
expense, — that during the ensuing season the  preparations
for insuring timely supplies will exceed all precedent.  Scurvy
must be kept far from the lines of our armies, as they press
forward into the insurgent States, away from the present bases
of supply ; and it may be doubted if the Sanitary Commission
can in any other way prevent so much sickness,  save so much
life and strength, as by resorting to measures that shall insure
a  sufficient supply of  antiscorbutic vegetables  and  antiscor-
butic care for the forces in front during the present year.
   In the " Sanitary Reporter," a well-edited, eight-page quarto,
published semi-monthly, under  the auspices of the  Commis-
sion,  by  its Western Secretary, at Louisville, the vital impor-
tance of the warfare against scurvy has been continually set
forth, and the inspectors,  in their correspondence,  ring the
changes  upon  onions and potatoes, occasionally  varying  with
cabbage  or  dried fruit.   The  supplies of fresh vegetables
which the Commission provided for the army  of the  Cum- 
30
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
berland, and to  the forces before Vicksburg, had no  small
influence upon the grand results  that have crowned the cam-
paigns of those armies.  In an official report upon  the subject
of vegetable supplies, Dr. Frank H. Hamilton, a distinguished
medical inspector in General  Rosecrans's army, occurs the fol-
lowing statement: —
  " We find in the absence of vegetable diet the cause for a great part
of the mortality of our troops, both  after the receipt of  wounds and
from disease.....We fully believe that one  barrel of potatoes per an-         %
num is to the government equal to one man.....In  all the regimental
hospitals, as well as the general  hospitals, I found the Sanitary Com-
mission had already furnished them with the vegetables they had called
for, and which were needed for the sick, so that in  the hospitals none
were dying from scurvy."
   During the spring and summer of 1862 the Sanitary Com-
mission  found it necessary to provide and send forward vast
supplies of  fresh vegetables to the armies under General Grant
and General Rosecrans; to the former, even when closely in-
vesting Vicksburg during  the month of  June, and with trans-
portation badly obstructed, the Commission's agents managed         f
to get forward and distribute nearly six thousand  bushels of
potatoes, eight tons of  dried  fruits, thirteen  thousand lemons,
and large quantities of  pickled vegetables and other  antiscorbu-
tics.  At an earlier period in the spring, the sanitary inspectors
anticipated the approaches of scurvy in  the  forces  at Young's
Point, Milliken's Bend, and  elsewhere  along the  Mississippi,
and, as  Inspector Warriner emphatically remarks, the vegetables
which the Commission  there supplied modified history!   In like
manner the army of the Cumberland was supplied  even more
abundantly, though insufficiently, in the spring and summer.
The following passage from  the " Sanitary  Reporter " shows
why and how this was  done : —
   " Recently, when scurvy threatened our army, a commissary adver-
tised for an adequate quantity of potatoes and onions, and no response
was made.  Nobody either had, or chose to become responsible for, the
delivery of 50,000 bushels of potatoes, and a corresponding quantity of
other vegetables; but there were few families in the great West which
could not spare from its store a  peck, a bushel, or a barrel of vegeta-
bles, and so, within a month, some six thousand barrels were donated, and 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.                31
an impending disaster was averted, the Commission furnishing a me-
dium of communication between the people at home and their defend-
ers in the field."
  Besides the succulent vegetables  and fruits of the seasons,
that the hospital gardens in the vicinity of  Nashville and Mur-
freesboro' supplied to the numerous hospitals in their neighbor-
hood, there was an immense harvest of onions and potatoes,—
of the latter more than 12,000 bushels, — so that when the
battles of Chattanooga occurred, and our forces had been com-
pelled for months to  abstain from vegetables, the Commission
was sending its surplus products from Murfreesboro' and Nash-
ville to the hospital depots up the Tennessee; and, as soon as
the railway connection was completed to the head-quarters of
Grant's army, the eagerly longed-for antiscorbutics were again
furnished in camps as well as hospitals  from the  Commission's
depots.
  During the past six  months,  the vast assemblage of hospitals
within the defences of Washington, the field-hospitals at Get-
tysburg, and  the  entire sick population of General Gillmore's
command, have  been provided  by the Sanitary Commission
with full supplies of vegetables, and all other fresh provisions
that could best be obtained from the markets of Philadelphia
and  New York.  This is accomplished by means of the  same
system of credit  as that  by which  general hospitals provide
" extra diet," etc. for their  patients  in  anticipation of a " hos-
pital fund," to be accumulated in lieu of undrawn rations.
The  Commission's  relief department furnishes the fresh sup-
plies by the car-load  daily, or  by the  regular steamships, and
is wholly or  partially  reimbursed at the  end of each month
from the constantly accruing hospital funds of the several hos-
pitals.   The  total expenditures of the  Commission for  such
supplies, during  the last  three months of 1863, amounted to
nearly $ 120,000, a considerable part of which has been already
reimbursed.
  Such are the  methods  and means by  which the  Sanitary
Commission conducts its preventive service, and  subsidizes the
principles and  teachings of hygiene to the work of life-saving
in war; and  they show how these strictly sanitary works are
aided by the supplementary supplies that have been continually 
32               THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
                                             f
flowing from the people and their aid societies,  through the
well-ordered  channels which the Commission has  thus pre
pared.  In those channels, and under such intelligent guidance,
the home gifts of dainty viands, warm clothing of mothers' and
sisters' handiwork, and whatever need be procured with money
in the markets, become " sanitary stores " which  directly and
powerfully contribute to the maintenance of life and health
in battle-worn  and wounded men in  the camps  and in hos-
pitals.  But it is upon battle-fields and in the hospitals that
the conjunction of the two  departments of the Commission's
work is most  strikingly illustrated,  and we must here notice
the methods  of battle-field relief which the Commission has
adopted.
  The insufficiency of means of succor that characterized all
the earlier battles of the war made  it the imperative duty of
the Sanitary Commission to  devise some practicable measures
for rendering effectual relief to  the wounded, and  aid to the
medical staff, upon occasions of  great  conflicts.   This work
was earnestly undertaken immediately after the great battles
that gave us the Cumberland and  the  Tennessee  Rivers,  in
the  spring of  1862;  but the horrors of those sanguinary
combats, the woes that were  witnessed in the Peninsular cam-
paign, and the outcry for aid that marked the second tragedy
upon the plains of  Manassas, unfolded to the Sanitary Com-
mission a class of duties which it must assume at any hazard
and at any  cost.   Its  " sanitary  stores" and  agencies of
relief must be moved forward with the  moving  columns of
our forces  to the  very field of  combat.   This plan  was ap-
proved by commanding generals, and was at once  carried into
operation.
  Upon the Western rivers the officers of the Commission had
from the first endeavored to  be promptly and well in advance,
by  means of the hospital transports, freighted with hospital
supplies and with  working corps of voluntary attendants for
the care of the wounded, as was  also done by the Commission
in the Peninsular  campaign ;  but when our armies had fairly
gotten up with the enemy, and the smoke of battle had cleared
away, the Commissioners and their agents, as they counted the
wounded and looked at their means of succor, could but ex- 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
33
claim, " What are these among so many!"  Yet in the working
of the very cautious, insufficient,  and tentative methods that
had been adopted by the Commission previous  to  the opening
of McClellan's campaign in Northern Maryland, the bottom of
the sanitary treasury had become painfully visible to the execu-
tive  committee, and the immense  stock of " sanitary stores "
was  nearly exhausted.
  The dark days  of the national struggle had come, and in the
faith  that has continually given certainty to the future of our
cause, the Commission gave its utmost resources, and resolved
to extend its aid and multiply its means of succor as the armies
were  nerving themselves for their  most desperate conflicts.
With the broken  and worn ranks of the forces that rallied and
moved forward in pursuit of  General Lee, in September,  1862,
the Sanitary Commission — then in  session at  Washington —
sent all the supplies and means of succor it could command.
It purchased wagons and horses, and obtained details for inde-
pendent transportation to accompany the moving columns with
supplies  for  relief, at the same time methodizing a suitable
scheme for the administration of needed succor to the am-
bulances and the men who should fall by the  way, while all
the storehouses and reserve  stock of the  Commission's  sup-
plies  were emptied by the larger relief trains and car-loads
that were  sent forward to convenient depots  along the ex-
tended flank of the army as it came  into battle.
  This, briefly, is now the established method of Battle-field
Relief, which was  fully inaugurated  during  the memorable
campaign in Northern Maryland.  'It  is now in operation, as
far  as practicable, in all our armies.  What it has achieved
for the relief of suffering, for the aid of the medical and surgi-
cal service, and for the mitigation of that wide-spread sorrow
that  follows the noise of our battles, surpasses the power of
language to  express.   It will live in thousands  of grateful
hearts while the thrilling records of Antietam, Fredericksburg,
Gettysburg, Stone River, Perry^ille, Corinth, Vicksburg, and
Chattanooga are narrated by the brave men who fought, and by
friends who lost their sons and brothers, in those battles.   The
following passage, which we quote  from a graphic report by Dr.
Newberry, presents some idea of the comprehensive plan, and 
34
THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.
the vigilant, effective, and  merciful  operation, of the present
method of " Battle-field Relief."  Dr. Newberry, as director of
the Commission's operations in  the Western field, was at Chat-
tanooga, and, with supplies and trusty assistants well in hand
and awaiting the  combat,  he  was stationed  where  he  could
quickly ascertain the movements of forces and the wants of the
wounded.

  " Wednesday morning our flag floated from the summit of Lookout,
and our forces advanced on the Rebel stronghold of Mission Ridge, from
our right, left, and front.  After much severe fighting on our left, in
which  Sherman's forces suffered very  heavy loss, the Rebel intrench-
ments along the base  of Mission Ridge were stormed by our advancing
lines, and then began that perilous but glorious ascent of its slope of
one thousand feet, at six different points, which so surprised and appalled
the Rebel  garrison, and has  covered with glory  the brave  men  who
dared attempt it.   After an hour of suspense, inexpressibly painful  to
the thousands who were merely powerless  spectators, the summit was
gained and held,  the roar of the forty pieces of artillery which crowned
it was  suddenly silenced, and we knew that a  great victory had been
won.       *
  " Two wagons  had been secured beforehand, with which to transport
stores to any point where they might be required; but no part of the
battle-field being  more than three miles distant from head-quarters, and
ample  provision having been made  by  the medical director for the im-
mediate removal of the wounded to hospital, they were held in readi-
ness to use, if needed, while Mr. C. Read  and myself, with a small
supply of stores,  went over to  the battle-field along the middle line of
Mission Ridge, and Mr. Loomis went toward the northern end, to see
if any help were required by "the wounded  of  Sherman's corps.  By
midnight all the Union wounded men on that part  of the field which we
visited had been transferred to hospital, and such of the Rebels as re-
mained in the houses to which they  had been carried had received all
the aid we could give them, and so at one o'clock we returned to the
town.  Just as we arived, Mr. Loomis came in  and reported that the
wounded of the  15 th Army  Corps had  all been  gathered into the
Division hospitals, but that their  expected supplies had not arrived,
and they were greatly in need of our assistance.   A wagon-load of
milk,  beef, crackers,  tea, sugar, stimulants, dressings, &c. was  imme-
diately despatched to them, and was, as may be imagined, of priceless
value.
  " Early the next  morning, Thanksgiving day, Mr. Read and myself 
THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.
35
visited the hospitals of the 2d, 3d, and 4th Divisions of the 15 th Army
Corps, situated three miles up the river.  The 4th,  containing the
largest number of wounded (399), we found pretty well  supplied, for
the time being, with  the stores we  had sent up the n ight before ;  but
these were  rapidly disappearing, and, at our suggestion, another load
was sent for and received during  the day.  The 2d and 3d Division
hospitals, situated on the bank of the river, containing respectively 75
and 230 patients, had received up to this time no other supplies than
such as had been carried  in their  medicine wagons, sufficient to meet
the first  wants of the wounded, and by this time almost entirely ex-
hausted.  Just as I was offering to Dr. Rogers, the surgeon  in charge
of the 3d Division hospital, the resources of the  Sanitary Commission,
one of the assistant  surgeons approached and said to  him: ' Doctor,
what  shall we do ?  Our  supplies have not arrived, our men are lying
on the ground, with not blankets enough to make  them  comfortable.
We 've no stimulants, or dressings, or proper food.  Now, if the Sani-
tary Commission only had an agent here, we should be  all right.'   I
was happy to inform him that the spirit he  invoked  had  come at his
call, and when  I promised that in  an hour's time he should have con-
centrated beef, milk, stimulants,  dressings, fruit, vegetables, clothing,
bedding, and some ticks stuffed with cotton, his satisfaction shone from
every feature, and both he and  the surgeon  in  charge spontaneously
ejaculated, ' Bless the Sanitary Commission !' — an institution of which
they had abundant experience on the Mississippi, where  the kind and
efficient ministrations of Dr.  Warriner were remembered with pleasure
and gratitude."

   The statistics of the  Relief department of the Commission,
the invoices  of goods received  from the  branches, the  bills of
supplies purchased, the records of supplies distributed  to  the
hospitals,  and  the  account  of reserved and battle-field stock,
present a complete  and constantly revised  record of the business
details of this supplementary service.  The footings of these
statistics show how vast the work has become ; and  when stud-
ied in connection with the casualty returns of battles and  the
sick reports  of the camps and  hospitals, the true significance
of such figures can be quickly  appreciated.   We find that,
within ten days after the  battle  of Chattanooga, four  thousand
boxes and  packages were sent  forward to that field  from  the
Commission's nearest depots; that at the same time  two thou-
sand  more had been sent  down the Mississippi; and that there 
36
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.
had previously been forwarded to the wounded of Chickamauga
five thousand packages.  To every recent battle-field the Com-
mission has  sent forward supplies for  succor in the same way,
and to  the  extent  of its  resources at  the  time ; and  as  we
count  up the battles and  sieges of  the war,  in  which the
wounded have depended largely upon this supplementary aid,
we  find an immediate answer  to the question,  What  be-
comes  of the " sanitary stores,"  and  how is so much money
used ?
  It is  stated, upon good  authority, that more than a hundred
thousand Federal  soldiers have been  wounded in  battle since
the war began, and that disease has already brought into the
military hospitals,  general  and regimental, upwards  of two
millions of  cases.   That the Commission's share in the work
of providing for the wants of all  these sick and wounded men
has been both large and necessary, is  acknowledged by all our
best medical officers.  And had the Commission extended their
relief-work  only to the  general and regimental hospitals, the
record  of that service would still be  a worthy and  instructive
one ; but when we add  the  statistics  of the battle-field relief-
work, that record  becomes  clothed with the memories of the
conflicts themselves.  The  President of  the Commission has
stated  that  " $ 50,000 would not cover the cost of our whole
service " (of supplementary supplies) " in the first two weeks
after  any one of  our  great  battles;  at Gettysburg  it  was
$75,000."  Much of  that  expenditure was  for  supplies of
various kinds purchased  with money in the cities, and for-
warded by  express-cars and independent wagon-trains," sixty
tons being  fresh and perishable  provisions that were  sent in
refrigerating cars ; but it is not this estimate of the net money
value  of  the  invoices of supplies that best  conveys  to  the
mind  an adequate idea of the  nature and magnitude of
this work  of succor to  the wounded.  The  long catalogue
of  the articles  tells  what  wants exist and  what  relief was
brought.   One  example in this work will justly  apply to all
the battle-fields.  From the published  records  of relief-work
at  Gettysburg we  quote a list of some leading articles which
the  Commission supplied to the field-hospitals  there. 
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.                 37
Drawers (woollen), 5,310 pairs.
   "    (cotton), 1,833 pairs.
Shirts (woollen), 7,158.
  "   (cotton), 3,266.
Pillows, 2,114.
Pillow-cases, 264.
Bed-sacks, 1,630.
Blankets, 1,007.
Sheets, 274.
Wrappers, 508.
Handkerchiefs, 2,659.
Stockings (woollen), 3,560 pairs.
    "    (cotton), 2,258 pairs.
Bed Utensils, 728.
Towels and Napkins, 10,000.
Sponges, 2,300.
Combs, 1,500.
Buckets, 200.
Soap (Castile), 250 pounds.
Oil Silk, 300 yards.
Tin Basins, Cups, etc., 7,000.
Old Linen, Bandages, etc., 110 bar-
  rels.
Water-Tanks, 7.
Water-Coolers, 46.
Fans, 3,500.
Chloride of Lime, 11 barrels.
Shoes and Slippers, 4,000 pairs.
Crutches, 1,200.
Lanterns, 180.
Candles, 350 pounds.
Canvas,  300 square yards.
Mosquito Netting, 648 pieces.
Fresh Butter, 6,430 pounds.
   "  Eggs (chiefly collected for the
   occasion  at farm-houses in Penn-
   sylvania  and  New  Jersey),  8,500
   dozen.
Fresh Berries, 675 bushels.
   "   Bread, 12,900 loaves.
Ice, 20,000  pounds.
Concentrated Beef Soup, 3,800 pounds.
     "      Milk, 12,500 pounds.
Prepared  Farinaceous Food,  7,000
   pounds.
Dried Fruit, 3,500 pounds.
Jellies and  Conserves, 2,000 jars.
Tamarinds,  750 gallons.
Lemons, 116 boxes.
Oranges, 46  «
Coffee, 850  pounds.
Chocolate, 831 pounds.
Tea, 426 pounds.
White Sugar, 6,800 pounds.
Brandy, 1,250 bottles.
Whiskey, 1,168 bottles.
Wine, 1,148 bottles.
Ale, 600 gallons.
Pickles, 400 gallons.
Indian Meal, 1,621 pounds.
Starch, 1,071 pounds.
Codfish, 3,848 pounds.
Preserved Fish, 3,600 pounds.
Biscuit, Crackers, and Busk, 134 bar-
  rels.
Preserved Meats, 500 pounds.
Fresh Poultry and Mutton, 11,000 pounds.

   Methods for rendering temporary and  special relief to  sick
and wounded  at wayside depots in the vicinity of battle-fields,
and to the patients in transitu in ambulances or upon the rail-
ways, have been  improvised by  .the  Commission to meet  exi-
gencies as they  have  arisen.   Thus,  on  various occasions,
temporary lodges  have been established  at  convenient points
for giving rest and succor to the wounded of ambulance trains,
&c, as was  recently done at  Stevenson and in  the mountain-
passes  approaching Chattanooga;  and upon  the more impor-
tant routes of hospital transportation by railway, hospital cars 
38               THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.

have been  prepared and  systematically attended.   Upon the
railway routes  of Tennessee these railway ambulances have,
from their  first employment after the  battle of Stone River,
been wholly in  charge of  the Commission, and have done the
entire work of hospital transportation in that  important depart-
ment.  Recently, owing to the  great demands upon the rolling
stock of those railways, the military authorities authorized the
purchase of three new and first-class passenger-cars, which the
Commission has fitted with elastic beds and hospital appliances
for the railway  ambulance service ; and, for the  sake of avoid-
ing delays from lack of locomotives, the  Western Secretary has,
for the Commission, become the owner of a locomotive for the
use of  the hospital train.
  Details of the various operations which  conjoin the depart-
ment of Sanitary  service  with  that of Relief cannot be given
within  the limits of these pages,  but the reader cannot fail to no-
tice that, in a great variety of labors upon which the Commission
has entered, these two grand divisions of its work and purposes
are necessarily and happily conjoined and co-ordinate.  It would
be difficult to say whether the one or the other element, in this
theoretical  division of the work, predominates in such labors
as we  have been  describing.   And when, for nearly seventy-
two hours  previous to the terrific assault  upon Fort Wagner,
upon the night of July 18th, the Commission's Inspector, Dr.
Marsh, with the cordial approval of  the leader of the  assault,
held his brave  detail  of aids unflinchingly to the duty of  sup-
plying  the  storming party in front with nourishing food and
beverages until they reached the fatal moat,  and then  himself
led his heroic  helpers in  the  humane  and  perilous work of
rescuing the wounded, and at the same time supplying almost
all  the means of succor and comfort which those mangled sol-
diers received until they were brought to the  general hospitals,
sixty miles away, that  succor and relief was the best, the only,
sanative care those brave men could receive.  By such beau-
tiful illustrations, which  have  continually marked the  war-
work of our army, often  upon  a grand  scale, yet ever regard-
ing the individual wants of the sufferers as well as the general
results to be reached, has the Sanitary  Commission's first pos-
tulate  been proved both true and practicable, — namely, that 
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.               39
" this war ought to  be waged in the spirit of highest intelli-
gence, humanity, and  tenderness for the health, comfort, and
safety  of our  brave  troops."
  But in order that the  nature of the Sanitary Commission's
department of Relief may be fully understood, it remains for
us now to notice still more in detail  its organization, methods,
and practical working.
  The fact  that the Commission's branch  of  General Relief
service is  strictly a scheme of supplementary supplies, and
mainly under  the direction and  advice of the Sanitary In-
spectors, has  been  illustrated  in the  preceding pages.  Its
methods are  simple, direct, and  responsible,  and its records
exhibit all the  exactness, verification, and care that would  be
looked for  in  an extensive and  well-managed shipping and
commission establishment.   Its central  depots are  located at
Washington, New York, Louisville,  Philadelphia,  and Boston,
with important sub-depots  in Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati,
Pittsburg,  New Orleans,  and  other cities;  while in every
department of the  army,  and at  every important  military
rendezvous, there  are disbursing depots,  and  with moving
columns of the forces,  and accompanying  military  expedi-
tions,  " flying depots " are maintained, and kept well forward
with  the troops.
   These depots are in the  immediate care of Relief Agents,
who have  been selected for the service  with  much care, and
who are under the  immediate  direction of the Associate Sec-
retaries and the sanitary staff of the Commission.   Disburse-
ments are made upon requisitions from medical officers of the
army, or  by  special  instructions from  Sanitary Inspectors ;
and the day-book, ledger, vouchers, and balance-sheets of each
depot exhibit the evidences of that faithfulness which should
characterize the administration  of such munificent bounties as
the people  have poured into the well-worn  and ready channels
of the Commission.  And that  this vast  system  of supple-
mentary supplies, with all  its cost of gathering, warehousing,
invoicing,  repacking,  transportation, and the  disbursement in
 detail, is economically conducted, appears evident from the fact
which we find stated in the " Sanitary Reporter " respecting the
 Commission's relief-work in the West during the two  years 
40
THE  SANITARY COMMISSION.
ending September 1, 1863.   After enumerating  a long cata-
logue of leading supplies, — among which we notice the items
of 49,141  bushels of potatoes, 46,807 pounds of  concentrated
milk, 497,365 pounds of dried fruit, 201,603 shirts, 113,329
pairs of drawers,  &c, &c, — the report concludes with the fol-
lowing remark: —
  " A careful estimate of the cash value of stores known to have been
distributed by our agents in the Western Department during the past
two years, fixes it at  TWO MILLION TWO HUNDRED AND
FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS.   The expenses attending their
distribution have been thirty-five thousand dollars, or one and
one half per cent upon their valuation."

  The total value of the hospital supplies that have been con-
tributed by  the people  through  the Relief department  of the
Sanitary Commission previous to the  1st  of November last, is
officially reported to be  upwards of seven millions  of dollars,
estimating the articles at wholesale market prices.  Large ex-
penditures of money are also  required from  time to time, for
the purchase of certain staple articles of supply in this service.
And, in addition to expenditures  thus made by the  central
treasury,  the local branches  and auxiliaries often  make large
purchases, which, without delay or  reshipment, are forwarded,
under instructions  from the Commission,  directly to the points
required.   The facts relating to this subject are thus stated in
a recently published document: —
  " The branches also purchase supplies on a large scale, especially in
cases of emergency, as after a great battle.  They have thus expended
several  hundred thousand  dollars, the proceeds of which  have gone
directly to the relief  of the army.  The cargoes of ice, for example,
sent to the hospitals of Morris Island and Hilton Head, by the  Boston
branch, at the expense of the central treasury, have been of inestima-
ble value, not merely  to the  individual soldier, whose suffering they
have alleviated, but to the country in expediting his convalescence and
return to duty.
  " The general fund is used for like purposes.  Up to December 1,
1863, the central treasury at New York  has  expended more than a
quarter of a  million in the purchase of hospital clothing,  chloroform,
medicines, stimulants, beef stock, farinaceous food, and  other material
for army relief." 
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.
41
  Here we discover, both how the golden gifts of California are
expended, and how the munificent proceeds of the great sani-
tary fairs  and the accumulations of the numerous branches of
aid are employed.  All these contributions are directly applied
to the relief and succor of the brave men who are fighting our
battles and pressing back the rebellion, and we think it must
be regarded as one of the most admirable features of this whole
system of relief, that it has induced such thorough  organiza-
tion, harmoniousness of purpose and plan, and promptitude of
action, in the spontaneous sympathies and benevolence of the
people.   This entire scheme of relief and supplementary aid
is " benevolence organized," and its operations are the inter-
mingled works of patriotism, sympathy, and tenderest affection
guided by sound wisdom.  This great system of relief is con-
tinually furnishing the most direct and convincing testimony
to the truth of the  great  principle  first  established by the
labors  of  Lord Herbert  and Florence Nightingale, that " the
cause of humanity has become identified with the strength of
armies."
  Co-ordinated with  the work of general relief, the  Commis-
sion's methods  of  special relief give to this scheme of benevo-
lence a remarkable completeness, and in these methods we see
manifested the  delicate  and brotherly concern for individual
cases of suffering  which peculiarly characterizes this branch
of the  Commission's service as one of Christian philanthropy.
Though it deals mainly with the wants of men whom sickness,
wounds, or paroles of the enemy have withdrawn from active
duty, it is necessarily the main source of aid, advice, and pro-
tection  that can be found by thousands of most  needy and
friendless soldiers  out of the army lines.  It steps in with the
needed advice and means of relief just where, under the rigid
regulations of  military  rule, the  army authorities  leave the
broken-down, furloughed, discharged, or invalided   soldiers;
and the  effectual methods  by which the Commission does this
service have become so well understood and appreciated by the
government, that the military authorities everywhere regard it
as a means of great advantage  to  the  army, and they express
their cordial approbation  and interest by acts of official recog-
nition and aid to the work.   The  methods of this branch of 
42
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.
aid and succor are  thus defined in the last report  upon the
subject: —

  " The work of the Special Relief Department is too various for com-
plete classification.   Every day brings out some new case for its inter-
vention, differing from all that have preceded it.   But its chief objects
are as follows :—.
  " First.  To supply the sick of newly arrived regiments such medi-
cines, food,  and  care  as  their officers  are,  under the  circumstances,
unable to give them.  The men thus aided  are  chiefly  those  not  sick          ^
enough to  have  a  claim  on a general  hospital, but who nevertheless
need immediate care to prevent serious illness.
  " Second.  To furnish  suitable food, lodging,  care,  and assistance
to men who are honorably discharged as  unfit for further service,
but who are often  obliged to wait for several days before they ob-
tain their  papers and  pay, or to sell their claims to speculators at a
sacrifice.
  " Third.  To communicate with distant  regiments in behalf of men
whose certificates of disability or descriptive fists on which  to  draw
their  pay prove to  be defective, — the invalid soldiers meantime being
cared for, and not exposed to the fatigue and risk  of going in person to
their regiments to have their papers corrected.                                  I
  " Fourth.  To act as the unpaid agent  or attorney of soldiers who
are too feeble or too utterly disabled to present their own  claim at the
Paymaster's office.
  " Fifth.   To look into  the  condition of discharged and furloughed
men who  seem without means  to pay the expense of  going to  their
homes, and  to furnish the necessary means where the man is found to
be true and the need real.
  " Sixth.   To  secure to soldiers going home on sick-leave  railroad
tickets at reduced rates, and, through an agent at the railroad station, to
see that they are not robbed or imposed upon.
  " Seventh.   To see  that all men who are  discharged and paid off do
at once leave the city at which they receive their discharge, for  their
homes, or, in cases where they have been induced by evil companions
to remain behind, to endeavor  to rescue them, and see  them started
homeward with through tickets.
  " Eighth.  To make men  going home discharged, or on sick leave,
reasonably clean and comfortable before their departure.
  " Ninth.  To be  prepared to  meet, at once, with food or other aid,
such immediate necessities as arise when sick men arrive in large num-
bers from battle-fields  or distant hospitals. 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
43
  " Tenth.  To keep a watchful eye upon all soldiers who are out of
hospitals, yet not in service ; and give information to the proper author-
ities of such soldiers as  seem endeavoring to avoid duty, or to desert
from the ranks.
  " In all these arrangements the Commission and its branches receive
practical support and aid  from the Quartermaster's Department, which
makes its beneficial work tenfold more effective."

  That such  beneficent work has deeply impressed the hearts
of the tens of thousands who have directly received its benefits,
and that it has a decided influence upon the patriotism and
zeal of  the  country, is a  fact most impressively illustrated in
thousands of our Northern homes, whose invalid, anxious, and
crippled sons have  participated  in the friendly and paternal
aid and succor which this system of special relief provides.
Hundreds of  destitute invalids daily find shelter, food, and rest
in its homes  and its  lodges.   It renders timely and effectual
aid to the wayside sick, the famished soldiers that  have pined
and suffered worse than death in the enemy's prisons, as well
as  to the ignorant, the misguided, and the victims of official
neglect.  In  short, wherever the enlisted man or the  disabled
and needy  soldier is  found in want, distress, or error, when
beyond  the immediate control  or supervision of military au-
thority,  there the Sanitary Commission  recognizes a citizen
soldier  and provides  for his  special  relief.  Its methods  are
systematic and economical, yet as varied and expansible as the
ever-varying wants for which they provide.  In the words of a
recent report," there is hardly a service within the whole range
of  charity  that has not been  rendered  our soldiers by  this
agency.  And they must surely endure longer and  fight better
for knowing that they are thus watched over and aided by the
people whose cause they maintain."
   The vast extent of  the more  systematic work of  this branch
of  the Commission's Relief department may best be estimated
by the  current records of the homes, lodges, and relief hospi-
tals.  These institutions now number twenty-five or more,  and
during the past year  are  reported  to  have accommodated an
average of two thousand three  hundred soldiers daily.  The
more important homes and lodges are located at Washington,
Alexandria, Annapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Cairo, Stevenson, 
44
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.
Memphis, and New Orleans.   And in  a recent report we are
informed that the total number of night's lodgings furnished at
these places, in twelve of the cities, to October 1st, amounted
to 206,570, and the number of meals provided was 602,656.
   To these regular and permanent modes of relief are added
a  large number of temporary supply depots,  with  temporary
lodges attached, scattered throughout the lines of our armies ;
and  besides these are  the  offices for correction of papers and
giving friendly advice  and aid to invalids waiting  their pay,
&c. in each of the grand departments of the army.   Under the
devoted and humane superintendence of Rev. F. N. Knapp, these
operations of special  relief have assumed such completeness
and  fraternal simplicity as to  give them rank among the most
valuable and commended of all the Commission's works.  But
words  can but very inadequately convey an  idea of the spirit
and  the individual details of this philanthropic and  incidental
branch of the  Commission's daily labors.  To every mind, the
methods and duties of this work will impressively illustrate
the breadth, unity, and strength of those Christian sympathies
upon which the work itself  is  based, and which have  extended
its beneficent ministrations, not  only to the  loathsome prison-
houses of the enemy, but to our foes themselves upon battle-
fields and in our  own prisons.   The writer of this article can
never forget the manly acknowledgment and grateful expres-
sion  of the deep convictions  of fraternal unity that an intelligent
officer of the Rebel army once made to him while recovering
from his wounds upon  the  battle-field of Antietam.   Disabled
for life, and about to return on parole  to his Southern home,
he accompanied his parting  farewell with grateful  allusions
to the comfortable  garments  and  dressings  that  covered his
wounded body, (all bearing the well-known stamp, U. S. Sani-
tary  Commission,) and added, " Such treatment proves we still
are brothers and may again be one people."   And  it will yet
be seen in the history  of our republic, and in the records of
human progress, that the  United States Sanitary Commission's
works  and purposes of relief and  mercy have had  an impor-
tant  mission in hastening the day when
                     " Man to man the world o'er
                Shall brothers be, and a' that." 
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.
45
   Allied to the work of special relief, the Commission's " Hos-
 pital Directory "  must be regarded  as  an equally significant
 expression and aid of that work.  It furnishes a complete and
 daily revised encyclopaedia of  information respecting  the  sick
 and wounded  soldiers in the hospitals, and  at  the same time
 provides  the requisite offices and clerks for affording freely,
 both to patients and  friends,  all the information  and benefit
 that such accurate and freshly gathered intelligence  can impart.
 What Miss Nightingale attempted so tenderly to  do for the
 patients that were under her  daily care,  and for  the friends
 at home who anxiously made  inquiry by letters, the Sanitary
 Commission has more successfully accomplished by means of
 its " Hospital  Directory."  This scheme was devised  and or-
 dered during the  " dark days " in September, 1862, when the '
 general hospitals contained  a population of  nearly a hundred
 thousand patients. And the Good Providence  that gave  the
 relief of " material aid " to the Sanitary Commission when,
 during those   days of fearful  anxiety and  imperative  duty,
 the treasury and supply depots became exhausted,  brought at
 once the  means to make the plan of the  Directory complete
 and practicable.  During the  first year of its  operations  the
 Directory registered 513,437 names of patients  in the  general
 hospitals ; and  the total number of inquiries  directly answered
 amounted to 9,362.  Its central offices are  at Washington and
 Louisville.  It  is  not only a work of mercy and comfort,  but
 its influence is so important  upon  the mental hygiene of
 patients in hospital and of friends in the homes they love, that
 its bureaus must be continued until returning peace shall have
 emptied the hospital wards, and made our homes joyous with
 returned fathers, husbands, and sons.
   We might refer to various other methods of relief and aid,
 still  further to  illustrate the spirit and extent of this  depart-
 ment of the Commission's work; but we must  be  content to
 point out the fact, that the greater number of the methods and
 special labors and  expenditures of this entire service of relief
have in view one common influence upon  the government
authorities, namely, the enlargement and better  adaptation of
its own methods and agencies for  administering relief and  aid
to its soldiers when in distress; and, likewise, one common 
46
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
result  upon  the  needy men who receive such  relief at the
hands of the Commission, namely, the speedy  succor  and aid
that shall most surely and quickly restore the disabled soldier
to the ranks, or, if utterly disabled, bring him safely  through
perils to his home, or, if dying, administer such comfort as the
heart of humanity requires.   So vast and widely scattered have
our  armies  become, that  to  keep this great system of relief
in effective  operation requires a vast expenditure of  money;
material,  supplies, and personal  labor.  And it  now  remains
for us to notice the means by which  the  Commission  supplies
and guards its treasury, and  the  methods and  auxiliary agen-
cies by which it obtains and accumulates supplies  of " sanitary
stores."
   With manifest  forethought of the practically economic bear-
ings of  preventive sanitary measures, the life insurance com-
panies were  the first and have continued to be among the most
liberal  contributors  to  the  Commission's treasury.    Imme-
diately  upon the organization of the Commission, the New
York Life Insurance Company  sent a  spontaneous  offering
of five thousand  dollars, and the New England and the New
York Mutual Life Insurance Companies each gave three thou-
sand, and the last  has since  swelled ijs  gifts  to  the  amount
of ten  thousand dollars.   Other corporations have learned to
give to the   Sanitary treasury, and  from churches,  schools,
public speakers, and voluntary associations the gifts have been
timely  and significant; while  the individual contributions of
private citizens have been like the rills that make the river.
The pro rata of contributions received from the different cities
and States varies  according to the degree of intelligent  interest
in the  Commission's work.   The New England  States have
given to the central treasury about  $ 150,000, and the single
State of New York  has given a still larger amount.  But the
greatest marvel of munificent giving  has been displayed in the
golden States of the Pacific coast.   California  alone has  sent
nearly  $ 600,000, and from  Nevada, Oregon, and  Washington
Territory  about $ 90,000 have  been  received.  The treasury
has already  expended nearly a  million dollars, and still keeps
a small balance in hand  for daily demands.  The  thorough
organization and  system that pervade all branches of the Com- 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
47
mission's work also prevail  in the management of its funds;
and it is a fact not unimportant to  its prosperity, that among
the commissioners are men of long  experience and of sound
discretion in the management of important trusts.
  But it is not in money that the people make their largest
and best contributions in aid of the Sanitary Commission's
work.   They contribute a vast variety and amount of supple-
mentary supplies, that money alone could nt>t readily procure.
Hospital clothing, fruits, and delicate viands are prepared in all
our households, and, through the agency of Aid Societies and
the branches of supply, all  these products of home  material
and home  affections  are  directly forwarded to the sick  and
needy men for whom they were prepared.
  The organization and  complete adaptation of the system of
home efforts, local Aid Societies, and Auxiliary Branches, by
means of which the Relief department of the Sanitary  Commis-
sion is kept steadily in operation, has not been a work of chance.
We have already noticed  the intelligent and  forecasting coun-
sels and inquiries  that preceded the institution of this scheme
of organized effort.  That these streams of succor would burst
forth from every neighborhood and village was foreseen by the
men and women who devised the original plan for systematizing
the means and methods of voluntary aid, and upon the success
of that plan was  staked  the  existence  of the Commission's
department of Relief; but, more  than this, it was clearly fore-
seen that, unless such voluntary offerings found a central and
well-organized system, with methods studiously adapted to mili-
tary  requirements, the sick and wounded would fail of the
timely succor which their  homes would send  to them.  Hence
it became a most imperative duty  to  prepare and  put  into
effectual operation some  adequate  scheme  for  co-ordinating
and guiding these  benevolent efforts  and wishes of our homes.
The Sanitary Commission has  accomplished this, and  that the
principal contributions of supplies for the. soldiers' succor now
seek these  channels, and, through the great branches of sup-
ply which are situated in our principal cities, glide directly and
certainly forward to  the  central  depots  and  to  field  relief
stations, is a fact  not less creditable to the intelligence  of the
people than to the  wisdom of the  Commission. 
48
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
  For  more than two and a half years this business of syste-
matic supply has been going on through the Sanitary Relief
department, until finally its plan and methods have become the
popular habit.  But while, by replenishing the local  treasuries
of the  branches, the receipts from sanitary fairs are  promising
the means of greatly augmenting the total supplies to the Com-
mission's depots, the  central treasury  becomes burdened with
increased  rates of -expenditure, for which the branches are not
directly responsible.  It was  an appreciation of this fact that
led the Boston branch to assign, from the proceeds of its great
fair, $50,000 to  the  Commission's  treasury, and,  following
that example, New York  and Brooklyn are to  turn the pro-
ceeds of  their fairs in the  same  direction; but in most in-
stances  the  branches  directly expend,  for materials of supply,
all the funds they receive.  Such simplicity and singleness of
purpose and such heartiness of co-operation are truthful ex-
pressions  of the united will  of  a free people in  the support
of the national cause and the succor of its defenders.
  The people of  European nations,  in recent wars, have en-
deavored  to mitigate the woes  of  their wounded  and  sick
soldiers, but their  efforts have been unmethodized  and com-
paratively ineffectual.  The  " Times Fund," and Miss  Night-
ingale's depots for the  Barrack Hospital  and  the Crimean
fever-huts, will ever be gratefully remembered ;  the  arobas of
wheat  and fresh vegetables  which were contributed by thou-
sands of Russian families for the relief of their soldiers during
the  Crimean campaign,  and the  good services  of  voluntary
comit6s that were  spontaneously established in  the villages
of France for  the  reception and forwarding of  contributions
of wines, hospital supplies, &c, for the succor of their soldiers
during their last two campaigns, were beautiful and striking
manifestations of the  humane sympathies of mankind, and of
the  affectionate ties that  even  war cannot  sever; but it has
been made  the humane mission and the  patriotic duty of the
United States Sanitary Commission  to show how such sponta-
neous  and  benevolent aid  may be wholly systematized, and
rendered  immediately and steadily effectual and acceptable.
   Unity of plan, earnestness,  patriotism, great  humanity of
purpose, and a broad and positive nationality of sentiment and 
THE SANITARY  COMMISSION.               49
influence, are inscribed upon all the methods,  counsels, sug-
gestions, publications, and labors of the Sanitary Commission.
The very conception and birth of its plan were quickened and
shaped by this spirit of Federal loyalty and nationality;  and at
the present hour the Commission is an exponent of the senti-
ment of nationality that has become triumphant at the  North,
and which is utterly uprooting from among us the  sectional
individualism that threatened to  impede  the  purposes and
patriotism  of our  people.   Every woman and child in our
Northern homes has insensibly caught  the spirit of the Com-
mission's work while  contributing  their  handiwork for  succor
through the branches of the Relief department, and the soldier
himself  is  made happily conscious of  this  spirit of national
unity  whenever he receives  sanitary relief.
   The sketch we  have here presented  of the Sanitary Com-
mission's scheme of organization and effort must of itself fur-
nish the only comment that need  be made upon the official
services  and  personal  qualifications of  the gentlemen  who
constitute the Board of Commissioners.
   In our account  of the  Sanitary Commission we  have neces-
sarily omitted many points of interest in its history and opera-
tions, but the outline which we have here given of the methods
and nature of its labors will convey a correct idea of the  means
by which its purposes are accomplished.   Without precedents,
without military authority, and only having official permission
to render aid as a voluntary  and  advisory organization, the
Commission has devised and executed  its various methods of
operation in a forced and absolute  dependence upon  the sim-
ple moral power of its own intelligent and humane endeavors
to mitigate evils which it had not official authority to prevent,
or certainly control.  How much greater service to the army
and the country such a Commission would accomplish, or would
have accomplished, if endowed with adequate authority to give
full effect to the improvements it advocates, may  not readily be
estimated.  With such official and military privileges as it has,
and with the moral and material resources which it commands,
this Commission has acquired at least such powers as enable it
to carry on a systematic plan of preventive or hygienic service
in all our camps and hospitals, and at the same time give all 
50
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
the relief that voluntary aid can render to the sick, wounded,
or needy soldiers in the field, in hospitals, or by the wayside.
But after such experience as  the government has had of the
decided utility of the measures  devised  and  recommended by
the Sanitary Commission, and  with the instructive example
of the British government in  its appointment of  the Crimean
Sanitary Commission with powers, there certainly would  seem
to be no good  reason  why the  Sanitary Commission  of our
army should not receive similar instructions and  powers to
those that the British  Commission  received.  In Lord  Pan-
mure's  warrant to  the Crimean  Commissioners they  were
directed, among other things, to
  " State fully and urge strongly, for adoption by the proper authorities,
everything that you believe will tend to the preservation of health and
life."
  " It is important that you be deeply impressed with the necessity of
not resting content with an order, but that you see instantly, by your-
selves or by your agents, to the commencement of  the work, and to its
superintendence day by day until it is finished."
  Not having been  endowed  with  such official  authority as
that with  which the Crimean  Commission  was  clothed, the
Sanitary Commission of our army  has. naturally resorted to
all  practicable measures  to  bring  about needed reforms  by
means of  faithful and  persistent representations and proofs
of their importance, nature, and extent, and the most avail-
able means for their accomplishment, while at the same time,
with such privileges and authority as could properly be claimed
under the  warrant creating the  Commission, it  has given to
our troops such benefits as the  knowledge, skill, and humane
purposes of the Commissioners could give, and  has made the
spontaneous offerings of the people  thoroughly effective in aid
of the national cause, and in the succor of its  sick and wounded
defenders.
  The practicability  of such a  scheme of voluntary labors must
have been  doubted — was doubted — by some persons, both in
the army and out of it; by some  the  Commission  has  been
opposed; but its continued operations during a period of two
and a half years have demonstrated its worth and usefulness.
And it is due to the  history of the Commission, and also to its 
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
51
reputation for  intelligent and advanced views in regard to the
work it originally marked  out and is now accomplishing, to
state that the entire  correctness of those views, and the desira-
bleness of such work, have been very strongly corroborated
by the conclusions reached in the deliberations of the Inter-
national  Conference,*  that recently  met  at  Geneva  for  the
discussion of questions similar to those involved in the design
and  labors of  the United States Sanitary Commission.   The
President  of the Conference, General Dufour, said: " To be
truly useful  to the cause of humanity,  we must, instead of
indulging  the vain hope of suppressing wars, endeavor to ren-
der their consequences less terrible  if possible, and lend  our
aid effectually to those whose duty it is to give assistance to
the sufferers."   The  representative of the king  of Prussia,
Dr. Loffler, a chief  medical officer of the Prussian army,  also
expressed  the  sentiments of his government in the following*
language : " The history of the great contests in our times has
demonstrated that, when war  is about to break out, it is impos-
sible for  the official authorities to provide the means of succor
with  sufficient rapidity, and even in a sufficient degree, for all
possible  exigencies.   It is  to the charitable support  and co-
operation  of the  public  that we must  address ourselves to
surround the victims  of the contest with all the care to which
they have a well-deserved right, and which the heart of the true
philanthropist  must demand for unfortunate  fellow-beings."
This  was  the  spirit of the conference, in which  the  nations
of Europe were represented by able  and experienced military
officers and other public men.
  Inspired with enlightened and patriotic zeal for the welfare
of the vast armies that our  country has summoned to the field,
and  having most  fortunately united  in its work  experienced
and  earnest men, who will steadfastly and intelligently main-
tain  the  cause they have undertaken, the United  States Sani-
tary Commission, deliberately marking out its own plan of
humane  and  supplementary  work, has,  from  the necessities
and  incentives of the  occasion, given the first great and suc-

  * Conference Internationale pour etudier les Moyens de pourvoir a la Suffisance
rlu Service Sanitaire dans les Arinees en Campagne. Convened at Geneva, Switzer-
land, Oct. 26, 27, 28, 29, 1863. 
52
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
cessful example in providing against the insufficiency of the
sanitary  service in armies.
   The wide range and great  magnitude of the Sanitary Com-
mission's work have been inevitable results of the vast increase
of our forces, and of the original and fixed  policy of the Com-
mission, " to secure for the men who have enlisted in this war
that care which it is the will and the duty of the nation to give
them."
   This work has been, and must continue to be, rendered prac-
ticable by the hearty  support and sympathy of our  free and
loyal people.  It is a necessity which an advancing civilization
has laid  upon their hearts and their hands.  And while in our
peaceful  homes  and in our popular armies it is joyfully  ac-
cepted as a labor equally of patriotism and  of love, the influ-
ence of this great scheme of beneficent labor has gone out to
all other civilized  nations as an impressive  illustration of the
progress of that humane Christian  spirit which  is augmenting
the popular appreciation of the sacredness of human  life and
human sympathies, and which shall yet elevate the brotherhood
of states and nations above the very causes of war. 
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    NORTH   AMERICAN  REVIEW

have the satisfaction of announcing, that the demand for the work under its
new Editors  (Messrs. James Russell  Lowell  and  Charles  Eliot
Norton) has been such as to exhaust the first edition, and they have issued

Reprints of the January and  April  Numbers,

                   FROM NEW STEREOTYPE  PLATES,

An  Event  unparalleled in  the History of  Review Literature in this
                                 Country.                   •

  The  articles in these numbers, by able writers, upon subjects of the most
lively interest, have received the  most favorable notices from the loyal press
throughout the country, and commend  the  Review to every citizen of the
Republic.


                 Contents of the January Number.

  Art. I. Life of William H.  Prescott.   II. The Bible and Slavery.  HI.
The Ambulance  System.  IV. The Bibliotheca Sacra.  V. Immorality  in
Politics.  VI. The  Early Life of Governor Winthrop.  VH. The Sanitary
Commission.  VIII. Renan's  Life  of Jesus.  IX. The  President's  Policy.
X.  Critical Notices.

                   Contents  of the April Number.

  Art. I. Theodore  Parker.   II. Shakespearian Pronunciation.   IH. The
Sanitary  Commission.  IV. St. Louis and  Joinville.   V. The Navy of the
United States.   VI. The Future  Supply  of  Cotton.   VII.  Carl  Ritter.
VIII.  Loyal Work in Missouri.  IX. West Point.  X.  General McClellan's
Report.  XI.  Editorial  Note: Letter from the President.  XH.  Critical
Notices.


  The  North-American Review is too well known  to the literary  world to require an
extended notice.
  The " ablest and most permanent publication of the kind in America " (see AppletorCs Cyclo-
pedia), it has, through all the changes of management, sustained its high position as the leading
review of this country, and  as an able representative of American mind. Constantly maintaining
a high character both for style and critical ability, its influence has been widely felt, and has
largely contributed to make American literature what it is.
  From its  commencement it has enlisted the pens of our ablest writers.  Its list of editors and
contributors includes nearly all our most distinguished  authors, and some of our  greatest states-
men and jurists ; and the  reputations of our best-known essayists  and reviewers are mainly
founded upon their contributions to its pages.
  The  North-American Review will maintain, in the hands of its new editors, its estab-
lished reputation for independent criticism, and (or well-considered opinions in  politics and
literature.  In discussing political and social questions, the spirit of the Review will be thoroughly
national and loyal.  It will defend and illustrate the distinctive principles on which the institu-
tions of America are founded.  In literature, it will avail itself of the best material of thought and
scholarship  which the country can supply.  In its criticism, it will have no ends to serve but
those of sound learning and good morals.  Bound by strong associations to the past, in sympathy
with the present, hopeful for the future, the Review will do its part in the intellectual movement
of the times.
  The  patronage of  the friends of American literature  is requested to this
Review, which, from its devotion to the political, social, business, and  literary interests of
America, its thorough loyalty, and its endeavors to elevate the tone of literature and criticism in
its department, merits a liberal support.



                   The North  American  Review

is published quarterly, on the first days of January, April, July, and October,
in numbers of about three hundred  pages each, containing  matter equal to
four ordinary octavo volumes.
  Terms. — Five dollars a year ; single  numbers, one dollar and  twenty-
five cents.

      CROSBY  AND  NICHOLS, Publishers,

                                         117 Washington  Street, Boston.