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About four
months after the opening of the war Vincent Colyer of
Considerable time
elapsed, however, before anything of importance was accomplished. “For a good
many months—seven or eight—the work languished, and at time it seemed as if it
would never be even well begun.”…
Early in 1863, the
affairs of the Commission began to develop more favorably. Rebuffs from those
in authority became less frequent and eventually “the approbation and
commendation” of the President of the
The aim of the
originators and founders of the Christian Commission was to exert a spiritual
influence upon the men in the national service. But just as the United States
Sanitary Commission had found it essential to undertake the collection and
distribution of supplies, so the Christian Commission found it necessary to
minister, not only to the spiritual needs, but likewise to the physical needs
of he men whom they wished to serve. Thus in February, 1863, the Commission
announced that its purpose was “to arouse the Christian Associations and the
Christian men and women of the loyal States to such action towards the men in
our army and navy, as would be pleasing to the Master; to obtain and direct
volunteer labors, and to collect stores and money with which to supply whatever
was needed, reading matter, and articles necessary for health not furnished by
Government or other agencies, and to give the officers and men of our army and
navy the best Christian ministries for both body and soul possible in their
circumstances.”61 The Commission did not propose to supersede the
regular chaplain system as it then existed in the army and navy, but hoped to
cooperate with and aid it.62 Eight principles, including
catholicity, nationality, voluntary service, combination of benefits for body
and soul, reliance upon unpaid delegates, personal distribution with personal
ministrations, respect for authorities, and cooperation, were adopted as rules
to guide the Commission in its undertakings.63
Notes
55 Mr. Moss’s “Christian
Commission” in The Nation, Vol. VI, pp. 214, 215.
61 First Annual Report of the
62 First Annual Report of the
63 Second Annual Report of the United Sates Christian Commission,
1864, pp. 15-21.
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The work of the Commission was divided into two general division, one including the work carried on at the seat of war and the other the work conducted at home or away from the seat of war. The latter department was under the direction of the Young Men’s Christian Associations in places where such organizations were to be found and were willing to assume the duty; otherwise army committees were formed to do the work. The Commission and the many delegates representing it performed the services at the seat of war. The Young Men’s Christian Associations and the army committees distributed religious matter and necessary supplies, and relieved and counseled the sick and wounded in the hospitals and camps, besides collecting stores to be forwarded to the men working near the battle lines. The work of supplying religious services, distributing reading matter, religious and otherwise, administering bodily comforts, and promoting intercourse between the soldiers and their families was known as “General Work”. The relief and care of the wounded during and after battles, the relief and care of the wounded during and after battles, the relief given in parole and convalescent camps, and other emergency relief was designated as “Special Work”.64
Supplies, upon being collected, were forwarded to headquarters of the Commission established near the field of action, whence they were apportioned to delegates for personal distribution among the soldiers. For work upon the battlefields, a trunk was furnished to each company of three, five, or six delegates, according as conditions demanded, packed with articles for the immediate use of men suffering upon the field. These trunks were taken by the delegates as personal baggage, to insure their being on hand upon the delegates’ arrival. In cases of emergency whole car-loads of special stores were bought and gathered together in a very limited time, and sent by express trains to the field of battle. When the Commission’s agents were forewarned of a battle an effort was made to have stores sent in advance so that they might be on hand the instant they were needed.65
Just as many gratuitous services were granted to the Sanitary Commission by railroads, telegraph companies, and similar agencies, so the Christian Commission was given free transportation for their goods and representatives by the railroads; free service was accorded by telegraph companies; and the best hotels in many cities opened their doors free of charge to the Commission’s delegates.66
The
voluntary service of agents and delegates was a feature of the Commission’s
policy which was continually emphasized. With the exception of a few paid
agents, all services were performed without compensation, thus forming a
striking contrast to the Sanitary Commission which preferred paid rather than
voluntary help. The men representing the Christian Commission were “ministers,
merchants, lawyers, surgeons and others” who “offered their services freely, in
numbers ample to distribute all the stores and publications contributed, and
all the Commission has had means to purchase.”67
The men were chosen from all denominations so as to minister, without
preference to men of all creeds.68 Likewise no lines were drawn
between the soldiers of different States or sections of the country. All men
were treated alike, even the enemy wounded being aided in many cases.69
The members of the commission aimed to send their
supplies and render their services where the need seemed to them to be
greatest, and they guarded carefully against flooding one department of the
army with supplies to the neglect of another.70
Since all stores and publications distributed by the Commission were taken directly to the soldiers by delegates or those “known by them to be worthy of all confidence”, the Commission was assured that all goods would reach their proper destination without being lost or misused. This system of personal distribution by voluntary agents and delegates, aided by the free transportation and communication granted them, permitted the Commission to perform its many and valuable functions with but little outlay of money.71
A phase
of relief work which is of special interest, since it was proposed by and
carried out under the direction of Mrs. Wittenmyer, who played such an important
part in the relief work of
Notes
64 First Annual Report of the
65 First Annual Report of the
66 First Annual Report of the United States Christian Commission,1863, pp. 6, 7; Second Annual Report of the United States Christian Commission, 1864, pp. 24, 25.
67 First Annual Report of the
68 Second Annual Report of the
69 First Annual Report of the
70 Second Annual Report of the
71 First Annual Report of the
72 Third Annual Report of the
73 Third Annual Report of the
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Collection of Stores
The Christian Commission proceeded in much the same way as the Sanitary Commission had done in its efforts to secure contributions of goods, money, and services. In one of its earliest appeals to the public the Commission wrote: “Let every city, town, and village form and report to us its Army Committee, to hold meetings collect and forward money and supplies, and to select and recommend men to go as delegates.” Although formed by representatives of Young Men’s Christian Associations, the commission emphasized that it was unnecessary to belong to such associations in order to assist and help them in their work.75
Little money was spent in the effort to interest the people in the activities of the Commission or to secure their aid and cooperation. In an early report of the Commission it is stated that the “Christian men who have gone without pay as delegates to relieve, supply, and instruct the soldier, in hospital and camp, have just as freely told the story of their work, and of the soldier’s necessities, which has served to interest the people, and secure their prayers, money, and stores better than any paid agency could possibly have done”.76 …Not only did the Commission choose to perform its work without special agents for raising funds, but it aimed to employ “no outside means, or indirect appliances, combining personal pleasure with public beneficence, to draw money which would not be given directly”, a policy which again was almost directly opposite to that pursued by the United States Sanitary Commission and its branches and local societies.
These policies in regard to raising money and supplies operated satisfactorily for the Christian Commission until the third year of its work, when new difficulties were encountered. The interest of the general public was centered in the sanitary fairs which were being held throughout the country, and the people “appeared to be pressed into forgetfulness of the Christian Commission and its wants.” Some step to overcome this lack of interest had to be taken. Two plans were suggested and both were accepted. An eastern clergyman proposed that in each evangelical congregation there should be formed an auxiliary of the commission, including, so far as possible, “every man, woman, and child as contributing members”. To this was added the idea of uniting the women of the land more firmly with the Commission. The result was a scheme to organize Ladies’ Christian Commissions—one in every evangelical congregation—embracing all sexes and all ages, with a membership fee of one dollar a year, to solicit contributions in money and stores and to prepare clothing and delicacies for distribution in the field. A second plan, to take a national subscription on behalf of the Commission, was suggested by a western merchant…and in many other cities large sums were subscribed.78
The good accomplished by the Ladies’ Christian Commissions was emphasized in the final report of the Commission. Although they were late in being organized and had only a short time to operate before the war closed, a great deal was accomplished by them…
There can be no doubt that from the work of the Christian Commission great benefits were derived by individual soldiers and by the army as a whole. The nature of these benefits is well stated by a historian in setting forth General Grant’s reasons for permitting the Commission’s delegates to work within the limits of his army, before they had received any sanction from government authorities. He granted this permission because of his realization “that the distribution of newspapers and books among his fellow-citizens in arms; the presence among them of men and women who revived in their minds the best ideas connected with home; who supplied them with reading matter that called them away from euchre and bluff and corrupting conversation; who set them singing hymns and hearing sermons when they might otherwise have been breaking guard or smuggling whiskey into camp; who nursed and fed men for whose death too often the hospital stewards were waiting with a natural but discouraging impatience; who wrote thousands of letters that brought back to sick men thousands of comforting letters; who, in short, made able-bodies soldiers less disorderly and able-bodied and disabled soldiers more happy and comfortable—such persons, he perceived, were persons that might properly be used by the general of a volunteer army”.83
Notes
75 First Annual Report of the
76 First Annual Report of the
78 Third Annual Report of the
83 Mr. Moss’s “Christian Commission” in The Nation, Vol. VI, p. 215.
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The Western Sanitary
Commission
Organization and Development
Unlike the United states Sanitary Commission, the Western Sanitary Commission did not find its beginning in any preconceived and prearranged plan of operation, but “sprang from sudden exigency for relief of suffering”.84 After the battles of Boonville, Carthage, Dug Spring, and Wilson’s Creek the sick and wounded soldiers were brought into St. Louis in great numbers and in the absence of any adequate existing accommodations, the city was confronted with the task of developing means by which the men could be cared for.85 The “House of Refuge”, a large, uncompleted structure some four miles from the city had been taken over as a hospital, but as “neither stoves, nor bedspreads, nor beds, nor bedding, nor food, nor nurses, nor anything else” had been provided, much remained to be done before the building was suitable for hospital purposes.86 Even when this building was properly equipped, the number of men demanding medical care had become so large that still additional hospitals were a necessity.87
To aid in relieving this situation, early in September, 1861, General Fremont appointed a commission of civilians to cooperate with the medical department in obtaining and furnishing buildings for hospital use.88
…ultimately the work, although not quite so broad nor so extensive, corresponded closely to that of the United States Sanitary Commission. It “not only sent surgeons, nurses, and supplies into the field, but strove by hospitals, soldiers’ homes, agents, and advisors, to succor the convalescent, aid the injured to return home, and to do, in short, for anyone, Union or Confederate, white or black, free or slave, any service of mercy which he needed.” Beginning in St. Louis, the field covered by the Commission gradually spread to the surrounding territory and to neighboring States until soon practically “the whole burden of ministering to the Union (and in some cases to the Confederate) armies in the Mississippi Valley fell upon the Western Sanitary Commission.”94 A member of the Commission writing in 1864 said that the organization “has had, with trifling exceptions, exclusive (sanitary) care of all the armies west of the Mississippi, from the beginning of the war…For the first year of the war, the time of greatest difficulty, it had almost a monopoly in fitting up and supplying hospital steamers and all other Western river work, including supplies to the gunboat flotilla on the Mississippi, and has kept its agents and stores of hospital supplies at every important point in the Western department.”95
The
United States Sanitary Commission early recognized the existence of the western
organization and at first attempted to absorb it as one of its branches. Dr. J.
S. Newberry, the secretary of the Western Department of the United States
Commission, was instructed to confer with the Western Commission relative to a
union of the two organizations. He met the members of the latter body on
Notes
84 Loyal Work in
85 Anderson’s The Story of a Border City During the Civil War, p. 288; Loyal Work in Missouri in The North American Review, Vol. XCVIII, p. 526.
86 Loyal Work in
87
88 Loyal Work in Missouri in The North American Review, Vol. XCVIII, pp. 526, 527; Anderson’s The Story of a Border City During The Civil War, p. 288.
89 War of the Rebellion: Official Records,
Series III, Vol. II, p. 947;
94 Usher’s A Bibliography of Sanitary Work in St. Louis During the Civil War in the Missouri Historical Society Collections, Vol. IV, p. 73; Usher’s The Western Sanitary Commission in the Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, 1908-1909, pp. 219, 220.
95 Loyal Work in
96 Newberry’s The U. S. Sanitary Commission in the Valley of the Mississippi, p. 18.
97 War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Series III, Vol. II, p. 947; Loyal Work in Missouri in The North American Review, Vol. XCVIII, p. 528.
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General Work of the
Commission
Although
its work was, on the whole, similar to that of the United States Sanitary
Commission, the workers for the Western Commission, because of their position,
had their own particular problems to solve. The provision of hospitals, which
was their first task, proved to be one of the greatest. Within tow months after
opening the first hospital, they had five more completely equipped and filled
to overflowing. At the end of the war fifteen hospitals had been established in
and around
The first
soldiers’ home to be established by the Western Commission was opened in March,
1862, at
A new
problem was faced by the Western Sanitary Commission in dealing with the
freedmen and refugees from the southern States. These people became very
numerous in
Notes
99
100
101 Loyal Work in Missouri in the North American Review, Vol. XCVIII, p. 520; Anderson’s The Story of a Border City During The Civil War, pp. 292, 300.
102 Usher’s A Bibliography of Sanitary Work in St. Louis During the Civil War in the Missouri Historical Society Collections, Vol. IV, p. 77; Anderson’s The Story of a Border City During the Civil War, p. 300.
103