PART III. LADIES WHO ORGANIZED AID SOCIETIES, AND SOLICITED, RECEIVED AND FORWARDED SUPPLIES TO THE HOSPITALS, DEVOTING THEIR WHOLE TIME TO THE WORK, ETC., ETC. WOMAN'S CENTRAL ASSOCIATION OF RELIEF. W HEN President Lincoln issued his proclamation. a quick thrill shot through the heart of every mother in New York. The Seventh Regiment left at once for the defense of Washington, and the women met at once in parlors and vestries. Perhaps nothing less than the maternal instinct could have forecast the terrible future so quickly. From the parlors of the Drs. Blackwell, and from Dr. Bellows' vestry, came the first call for a public meeting. On the 29th of April, 1861, between three and four thousand women met at the Cooper Union, David Dudley Field in the chair, and eminent men as speakers. The object was to concentrate scattered efforts by a large and formal organization. Hence the "Woman's Central Association of Relief," the germ of the Sanitary Commission. Dr. Bellows, and Dr. E. Harris, left for Washington as delegates to establish those relations with the Government, so necessary for harmony and usefulness. The board of the Woman's Central, after many changes, consisted of, VALENTINE MOTT, M. D., President, HENRY W. BELLOWS, D. D., Vice President, HOWARD POTTER, Esq., Treasurer. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. H. W. Bellows, D. D., Chairman. Valentine Mott, M. D. E. Blackwell, M. D., Chairman. Mrs. W. P. Griffin, Secretary, Mrs. H. Baylis. Mrs. V. Botta. Mrs. J. A. Swett. Mrs. C. Abernethy. Wm. A. Muhlenburg, D. D. E. Harris, M. D. FINANCE COMMITTEE. Mrs. Hamilton Fish. Howard Potter, Esq. John D. Wolfe, Esq. Mrs. C. M. Kirkland. Mrs. C. W. Field. While in Washington, Dr. Bellows originated the "United States Sanitary Commission," and on the 24th of June, 1864, the Woman's Central voluntarily offered to become subordinate as one of its branches of supply. The following September this offer was accepted in a formal resolution, establishing also a semiweekly correspondence between the two boards, by which the wants of the army were made known to the Woman's Central. Prominent and onerous were the duties of the Registration Committee. Its members met daily, to select from numberless applicants, women fitted to receive special training in our city hospitals for the position of nurses. So much of moral as well as mental excellence was indispensable, that the committee found its labors incessant. Then followed the supervision while in hospital, and while awaiting a summons, then the outfit and forwarding, often suddenly and in bands, and lastly, the acceptance by the War Department and Medical Bureau. * This lady's place was filled by her daughter from the beginning. The chairman of the committee, Miss E. Blackwell, accompanied by its secretary, Mrs. Griffin, went to Washington in this service. Miss Blackwell's admirable report "on the selection and preparation of nurses for the army," will always be a source of pride to the Woman's Central. In the meantime, the Finance and Executive Committees were struggling for a strong foothold. The chairman of the former, Mrs. Hamilton Fish, raised over five thousand dollars by personal effort. The latter committee had the liveliest contests, for the Government declared itself through the Army Regulation, equal to any demands, and the people were disposed to cry amen. Rumors of "a ninety days' war," and "already more lint than would be needed for years," stirred the committee to open at once a correspondence with sewing-societies, churches, and communities in New York and elsewhere. Simultaneously, the Sanitary Commission issued an explanatory circular, urgent and minute, "To the loyal women of America." Then began that slow yet sure stream of supplies which flowed on to the close of the war, so slow, indeed, at first, and so impatiently hoped for, that the members of the committee could not wait, but must rush to the street to see the actual arrival of boxes and bales. Soon, however, that good old office, No. 10, Cooper Union, became rich in everything needed; rich, too, in young women to unpack, mark and repack, in old women to report forthcoming contributions from grocers, merchants and tradesmen, and richer than all, in those wondrous boxes of sacrifices from the country, the last blanket, the inherited quilt, curtains torn from windows, and the coarse yet ancestral linen. In this personal self-denial the city had no part. What wonder that the whole corps of the Woman's Central felt their time and physicial fatigue as nothing in comparison to these heart trials. Out of this responsive earnestness grew the carefully prepared reports and circulars, the filing of letters, thousands in number, contained in twenty-five volumes, their punctilious and grateful acknow |