736 



SANITARY COMMISSIONS. 



remain constantly with bis corps and minister 

 to its needs. 



It has, throughout, -worked in harmony with 

 the United States Government, and especially 

 with the Medical Bureau, to which it has 

 proved of great service. That bureau, which 

 at the commencement of the war was utterly 

 inadequate, though from no fault of its own, to 

 the vast work before it, is now well regulated 

 and admirably organized, having a corps of 

 three thousand skilful and responsible surgeons, 

 and fifteen thousand hired nurses experienced 

 in their duties. 



But even with this large force, trained as it 

 has been by the arduous duties to which it has 

 been called, there are, and must be, numerous 

 instances where the most perfect working of 

 the Government machinery cannot remedy suf- 

 fering and misery which a more flexible system 

 can relieve. The presence of incipient scurvy 

 among the troops on Morris Island, and the 

 forces engaged in the siege of Vicksburg and 

 Port Hudson, was detected and remedied by 

 the sending at once of large amounts of fresh 

 vegetables and anti-scorbutics by the Commis- 

 sion to those points, which reached them 

 promptly, and arrested the disease, while, by 

 the necessarily slow movements of the Govern- 

 ment, many weeks must have elapsed ere the 

 needed remedies could have been furnished, 

 and meantime half the forces engaged would 

 have perished. "Potatoes and onions, "says one 

 of the energetic lady agents of the Commission 

 in Chicago, " captured Vicksburg." " The sup- 

 plies of fresh vegetables and anti-scorbutics 

 sent by the Sanitary Commission to Morris 

 Island, saved the army of the South," is the 

 testimony of an impartial but thoroughly com- 

 petent witness, who spent ten months in the 

 hospitals of that department in 1863. 



The work of the Sanitary Commission now 

 comprehends the following distinct departments 

 of labor: 1st. The preventive service or Sanitary 

 Inspection, which requires a corps of Medical 

 Inspectors, whose time is passed with each 

 army corps in the field, visiting camps, hospi- 

 tals, and transports ; skilful and experienced 

 physicians, who watch the perils from climate, 

 malarious exposure, from hard marching or ac- 

 tive campaigning, from inadequate food or 

 clothing, growing out of imperfect facilities of 

 transportation, and report to the Chief Inspec- 

 tor of that army, and through him to the Chief 

 of Inspection at headquarters, for remedy, or to 

 the Associate Secretary in charge, or to relief 

 agents under their control, and thus see to the 

 supplying of the needs of that portion of the 

 army, and the adoption of the necessary meas- 

 ures for the improvement of its sanitary condi- 

 tion. From the reports of these inspectors the 

 materials are gathered which are digested into 

 such forms as to be of permanent value in the 

 Commission's Bureau of Statistics. To this de- 

 partment belongs also the corps of Special Hos- 

 pital Inspectors, selected from the most learned 

 and skilful physicians of the country, who, 



from time to time, make the circuit of all the 

 general hospitals of the army (now numbering 

 nearly three hundred), and report upon their 

 wants, condition, progress, personnel, and capa- 

 city for improvement. The substance of these 

 reports is confidentially made over to the Sur- 

 geon-General. A third agency, in connection 

 with this preventive service, is the preparation 

 and circulation of the medical tracts already 

 named, and information important and indis- 

 pensable to the officers, soldiers, and especially 

 the medical men in the field. 



2. The Department of General Relief. The 

 supplies of food, clothing, bandages, hospital 

 furniture, clothing, and bedding, delicacies for 

 the sick, stimulants and cordials for the wound- 

 ed on the field, the sick and wounded in camp, 

 field, regimental, post, and general hospitals, 

 come from the branches of the Commission, of 

 which there are twelve, having depots in Boston, 

 New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Cincin- 

 nati, Cleveland, Chicago, Buffalo, Pittsburg, 

 Detroit, Columbus, and Louisville. Each of 

 these branches, which are variously denomi- 

 nated as Ladies' Aid Societies, Relief Associ- 

 ations, etc., has its distinctly defined field, from 

 which it draws its supplies, and has from one 

 hundred and fifty to twelve hundred auxiliary 

 aid societies, in the towns, hamlets, and villages, 

 and, in the cities, in the different churches, of 

 its field. The stores collected by the branch 

 are received at its depot, opened, assorted, each 

 kind by itself, repacked, and reports of the 

 number and amount of the supplies thus accu- 

 mulated are sent every week to the principal 

 office of the Commission, or to the Associate 

 Secretary of the Eastern or Western Depart- 

 ment, as the case may be, and shipped, accord- 

 ing to orders received, to the depots of distri- 

 bution, Washington, D. C., Camp Distribution, 

 Va., Baltimore, Md., Harper's Terry, Va., An- 

 napolis, Md., Camp Parole, Md., Norfolk, Va., 

 City Point, Va., Newbern, N. C., Beaufort, 

 S. C., New Orleans, La., or to the army where 

 they are needed, with the utmost promptness. 

 One of these branches (the "Woman's Central 

 Association of Relief") reported, among the 

 stores forwarded from its depot, from May 1, 

 1861, to November 1, 1864, 599,780 pieces of 

 clothing, 89,898 pieces of bedding, and over 

 90,000 packages of fruit, vegetables, jellies, 

 wine, condensed milk, beef-stock, groceries, 

 pickles, lemonade, etc., of a total value of over 

 a million of dollars. The " Northwestern Sani- 

 tary Commission," the branch of the U. S. 

 Sanitary Commission at Chicago, had sent to 

 the depots of distribution from its organization 

 to December 31, 1864, supplies to the value of 

 $230,645.02, and had expended besides for the 

 purposes of the Commission, about $57,000 

 more. The supplies thus furnished are distrib- 

 uted with great care to avoid waste, and to 

 supplement the food, clothing, and medicines 

 which the Government is bound to furnish 

 the object being to do what the Government 

 cannot, and to avoid duplicating its supplies of 



