SANITARY COMMISSIONS. 



737 



what it can and should furnish. Care is exer- 

 cised also to avoid imposition, while no sufferer 

 in need is allowed to suffer when the Com- 

 mission can supply his wants. The Comn 

 is national in its character, and supplies the 

 soldiers of one State as readily as those of an- 

 other. Nay, more the rebel wounded, when 

 left on the field, or in temporary hospitals with- 

 in the Union lines, or when sent to camps and 

 hospitals as prisoners, have uniformly received 

 its bounty and its assiduous care. It has had 

 in this matter, at times, to contend, both among 

 the people and on the field, with that exclusive 

 feeling which would limit its beneficence to the 

 soldiers of a single State or regiment ; but often- 

 est the agents of these local organizations have, 

 from the feeling which such exclusiveness has 

 caused among the soldiers, turned their stores 

 into the depots of the Commission, and them- 

 selves aided in their distribution to the soldiers, 

 without distinction of locality. The Field Re- 

 lief Superintendents, already mentioned, who 

 accompany each army corps, belong to this de- 

 partment of general relief. 



3. The Department of Special Relief. This 

 department is under the general superintend- 

 ence of Rev. F. X. Knapp, Associate Secretary 

 of the Commission for the East, at Washington, 

 and of Dr. J. S. Newberry, Associate Secre- 

 tary for the West, at Louisville. It furnishes 

 ' Homes " to soldiers, where shelter, food, and 

 medical care and general superintendence are 

 furnished for those soldiers who are not yet un- 

 der the care of the Government, or have just 

 got out of their care, or have somehow lost 

 their status and cannot immediately regain it 

 recruits, or men on leave, sick leave or fur- 

 lough, going to and fro ; men without skill to 

 care for themselves, ignorant, underwitted, or 

 vicious ; men discharged prematurely from the 

 hospitals ; men found in the streets, or left be- 

 hind by their regiments. Of these classes about 

 seven thousand five hundred are accommodated 

 daily or nightly in the homes of the Commis- 

 sion at Alexandria, Harrisburg, Baltimore, 

 Washington, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cairo, Padu- 

 cah, Camp Nelson, Louisville, New Albany, 

 Nashville, Columbus, Cleveland, Detroit, Mem- 

 phis, and New Orleans. 



There are also belonging to this department 

 six lodges homes on a smaller scale where 

 the wearied soldier, sick or feeble, may await 

 his opportunity of obtaining his pay from the 

 Paymaster-General : or landing sick from a 

 steamer or cars, and unable to reach the hos- 

 pital to which he may belong, can find rest, 

 food, and medical care, till he can be transfer- 

 red to the hospital, or is able to rejoin his regi- 

 .nent. There are also at Annapolis, Mel., and 

 nt Washington, D. C., "Homes for the Wives, 

 Mothers, and Children of Soldiers," fitted up 

 and supplied by the Commission, where these 

 friends of the sick and wounded soldier, coming 

 tvith scanty means to minister to his necessities, 

 can find comfortable food and shelter. Besides 

 these, " feeding stations " for the supply of the 

 TOL. iv. 47 A 



sick, wounded, and famished soldier, passing to 

 and from the field, have been establit! 

 temporarily, but sometimes permanently, on tho 

 route from Louisville to Nashville, Chattanooga, 

 Atlanta, &c., and in th Shenandoah Valley, at 

 City Point, and elsewhere. The hospital cars, 

 of which there are several, between Washing- 

 ton, New York, and Boston, and between Louis- 

 ville and Chattanooga, Tennessee, fitted up with 

 hammocks, in rubber slings, and with a small 

 kitchen for preparing the necessary food for the 

 sick and wounded, and under the charge of a 

 skilful surgeon, belong to this department ; sa 

 do also the Sanitary steamers, the Clara Bell, 

 on the Mississippi, the New Dunleith, on the 

 Cumberland, and the Elizabeth, on the Potomac. 

 These are used both for the transmission of ne- 

 cessary supplies, and the transportation of the 

 wounded. In this department, also, the com- 

 mission have established agencies at Washing- 

 ton, Philadelphia, New York, Louisville, and 

 New Orleans, for obtaining for the soldiers and 

 their families, pensions, bounties, back pay, 

 transportation, aid in correcting the soldiers' 

 papers, where there are errors in form, or re- 

 covering them their positions when they have 

 wrongfully been set down as deserters, and 

 saving them from sharpers. The Comni: 

 have also established Hospital Directories at 

 Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Louis- 

 ville. In these four directories are registered 

 the names of all soldiers in the United States 

 general hospitals, and as far as possible tho 

 regimental and post hospitals throughout the 

 country, and these are constantly receiving ad- 

 ditions from the reports sent regularly from 

 such hospitals. By applying to these Directo- 

 ries, information is furnished to friends without 

 cost, other than that of postage or telegram, of 

 the location and condition of any soldier who 

 is or has been within a year an inmate of any 

 L'nited States military hospital. At the Wash- 

 ington office of the Commission, the names of 

 patients in the hospitals in Eastern Virginia, 

 Maryland, District of Columbia, North Caroli- 

 na, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, are 

 recorded ; at Philadelphia, those in Pennsylva- 

 nia hospitals ; at New York, those in New York, 

 New Jersey, and New England ; at Louisville, 

 those in Western Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 

 nois, Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mis- 

 sissippi, and Arkansas. The officers in charge 

 require the name, rank, company, and regi- 

 ment of the person inquired for, and where he 

 was when last heard from. About 900,000 

 names have been thus recorded, and the infor- 

 mation afforded by these directories to the 

 friends of the sick and wounded has been of in- 

 calculable value, often leading to the preserva 

 tion of life, and to the relief of that most terri- 

 ble mental anguish, the torture of a dread un- 

 certainty. 



Still another measure of special relief, on 

 which the Commission has expended more than 

 $30,000, is the sending of supplies, so long as it 

 was permitted, to our soldiers who were pria- 



