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the light from her eye, the spring from her step, and her loving friends forced her away from her labor of love to sunny France and Italy, and the bracing air of the Alps, to drink in fresh health. After years of suffering, she still lives, alas! not yet restored. "God bless the Cairo Angel," say the "heroes of the rank and file;" and so say all that knew her and her blessed work. To go back to Yorktown, White House, or Harrison's Landing, the successive bases of the Sanitary Commission on the Potomac. A second squad of the hospital corps was detailed to accompany the patients North, to the hospitals. These patient workers were taxed to the utmost to meet the continued requisitions of hospital transports. I have labored on more than one of these, and can testify, no duty was more exhausting in its character, nor more important in its results. It lacked the excite

ment of the first rush of the army of sufferers, but required that patience, tenderness and skill that fail not, neither grow, weary. The number of the attendants was generally limited, and the wants of the patients innumerable, as they recovered consciousness, or approached convalescence.

The comprehensive and extensive system of hospital transports, was continued by the Commission from this time forward, in the armies of the West as well as the East; and when the battle-field was inaccessible to water transportation, hospital cars, with swinging hammocks, were fitted up, and kept running continually from Chattanooga to Louisville. The battles of Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the later battles in Virginia, as well as the battles of Gauley's Bridge, Donelson, Shiloh, Perrysville, Vicksburg, Corinth, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, Atlanta-in

fine, the entire brilliant series of the Western battles, were relieved and supplied in a surprising manner, with clothing, delicacies, stimulants, vegetables, sour-krout and anti-scorbutics, till the Sanitary Commission became the watchword of the sick soldier, and the rainbow of promise on the dark cloud of war. Ship Island, the Têche country, North and South Carolina, New Orleans—indeed, the whole Department of the Gulf-shared its benefits, and at a later period in the history of the war, ship-loads of supplies were sent to Savannah, with the members of the Commission attending them, often at great personal sacrifice.

The work of inspection performed by the U. S. Sanitary Commission in the army, has been but little understood by the people at large. Its results were prodigious, and were thus appreciated by the army and sanitary workers. The experience of the British troops in the Crimean war had taught a fearful lesson of mortality consequent upon a lack of sanitary precautions. The deaths in that army in January, 1853, amounted to ninety-seven per cent. from disease. By the introduction of sanitary reforms, they were reduced in ten months to twenty-five per cent. In our American army, even in the swamps of the Peninsula, where malarious poison was as rife and deadly as in the Crimea, the mortality did not exceed sixteen and a half per cent. from disease. No one will assert that this vast difference was owing to the superior material of our troops.

The experience of the Crimean war had led the Sanitary Commission to investigate the subject, and their scientific deductions and applications of sanitary principles, for the prevention as well as cure of disease in camps and hospitals, are

FEDERAL PRINCIPLE OF U. S. SAN. COMMISSION.

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the only satisfactory solution of this gratifying fact. The Soldiers' Homes, Lodges, and Rests, under the care of the Sanitary Commission, were limited only by their necessity. The Back-Pay Agencies secured vast amounts of blood-bought earnings that would have otherwise been lost to the brave fellows, too feeble or too poor to prosecute their claims, and the Commission has just closed this branch of its work. The Hospital Directory, established in each department of the Sanitary Commission, enabled friends to ascertain the situation of their sick and wounded relatives, as its connection with hospitals and regiments was as prompt and accurate as the nature of the case would admit, and enabled thousands to reach and nurse their friends, and as many more to secure their precious remains.

The supply work of the Commission was placed chiefly in the hands of the patriotic women of the land, who stimulated and furnished the enormous amount of com forts and delicacies that saved so large a number of lives and alleviated so much suffering. The system of sanitary dépots, hospital-transports, hospital-cars, diet-kitchens, and relief-stations, completed the circle of sanitary labor, that embraced in its beneficent arms the sick and wounded of the Union army; lifting them from battle-fields into stretchers and ambulances, plying them with restoratives, placing them in clean cots, clothing them afresh, and vigorously guarding them from neglect or abuse. By its quick and untrammelled movements, the Sanitary Commission often stayed the ebbing tide of life, till care and nursing could complete the work of restoration. The entire labors of the Sanitary Commission were based on the federal principle. Its ministrations were

not limited by State boundaries, and it knew no soldiers but the soldiers of the Union. Although its broad and just policy excluded sectional zeal, and appealed only to the most enlarged patriotism, it grew rapidly in favor, and, it is believed, strengthened and developed the federal principle for which our armies were contending, and which is the only true basis of our nationality.

This imperfect sketch is a bare and meagre outline of the blessed work of the U. S. Sanitary Commission. Its complete history, and the record of its teachings and experience, will ere long be furnished for the satisfaction of its hearty friends and liberal contributors; also as a guide to future patriots and philanthropists.

CHRISTIAN COMMISSION.

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CHAPTER IV.

Christian Commission.-Its organization, work, and extensive usefulness.-Letter from Mrs. Duffield, of Detroit.-Letter from Agent of Christian Commission at Brazos.-Ladies' Relief Society of Philadelphia.-Governors and State Sanitary Commissions.-Board of Trade, Chicago.-Lieut.-Colonel J. C. Wright.

In the second year of the war there was a strong desire on the part of the Churches of the land to provide for the spiritual wants of the soldiers, as the Sanitary Commission was providing for their temporal necessities, although, as I have reason to know, they often did more than that. In view of the separation of these men from their homes and religious privileges, the destitution of religious reading, and the temptations of camp life, an organization to meet these emergencies was formed January 28, 1862. The president of this - highly important organization was George H. Stuart, of Philadelphia, a man eminent for religious zeal, and liberality in proportion to his large means and high position. He had been mainly instrumental in its formation, and continued to be its ruling spirit till the close of the war. Joseph Patterson, Esq., of Philadelphia, was treasurer, and Rev. W. E. Boardman, secretary. Under the guidance and inspiration of such men, the organization rapidly grew in power and influence, and extended its missionary work to a million of men within the army lines-a work as sublime and extensive,