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MILITARY WOMEN EXCEPTIONAL.

known to the service as little less than four hundred. I cannot vouch for the correctness of this estimate, but I am convinced that a larger number of women disguised themselves and enlisted in the service, for one cause or other, than was dreamed of. Entrenched in secrecy, and regarded as men, they were sometimes revealed as women, by accident or casualty. Some startling histories of these military women were current in the gossip of army life; and extravagant and unreal as were many of the narrations, one always felt that they had a foundation in fact.

Such service was not the noblest that women rendered the country during its four years' struggle for life, and no one can regret that these soldier women were exceptional and rare. It is better to heal a wound than to make one. And it is to the honor of American women, not that they led hosts to the deadly charge, and battled amid contending armies, but that they confronted the horrid aspects of war with mighty love and earnestness. They kept up their own courage and that of their households. They became ministering angels to their countrymen who perilled health and life for the nation. They sent the love and impulses of home into the extended ranks of the army, through the unceasing correspondence they maintained with "the boys in blue." They planned largely, and toiled untiringly, and with steady persistence to the end, that the horrors of the battle-field might be mitigated, and the hospitals abound in needed comforts. The men at the front were sure of sympathy from the homes, and knew that the women remembered them with sleepless interest. "This put heroic fibre into their

LINT AND BANDAGE MANIA.

121

souls," said Dr. Bellows, "and restored us our soldiers with their citizen hearts beating normally under their uniforms, as they dropped them off at the last drum-tap."

The decline of the Havelock fever was followed by a "lint and bandage" mania, which set in with great fury. For a time it was the all-absorbing topic. Knowing now how insignificant in value these items of relief proved in the actual experience of the war, one cannot forbear a smile when reading the sapient discussions of the time. "What is the best material for lint?" "How is it best scraped and prepared?" "By what means can it be best gathered, in the largest quantities?" These were the questions of the hour, discussed gravely by professional men. And the "New York Medical Association for furnishing Hospital Supplies," actually held meetings to discuss "the lint question," and finally opened a "lint and bandage depot." Thus stimulated, every household gave its leisure time to scraping lint and rolling bandages, till the mighty accumulations compelled the ordering of a halt. A little later, the making of lint by machine relieved women of any further effort in this direction.

So determined were the people that their citizen soldiers should be well cared for, that "Relief Societies" were frequently organized in the interest of regiments, as soon as they were mustered into the service. They proposed to follow the volunteers of their neighborhoods with their benefactions-"to provide them with home comforts when well, and with hospital supplies and nurses when wounded or sick." It would have been an admirable plan if it could have been carried out. But numerous difficulties

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A CHAOS OF BENEVOLENCE.

and failures soon brought these methods into disrepute. The accumulation of perishable freight for the soldiers became fearful. It demanded instant transportation, and the managers of freight trains and expresses were in despair.

Women rifled their store-rooms and preserveclosets of canned fruits and pots of jam and marmalade, which they packed with clothing and blankets, books and stationery, photographs and "comfort-bags." Baggage cars were soon flooded with fermenting sweetmeats, and broken pots of jelly, that ought never to have been sent. Decaying fruit and vegetables, pastry and cake in a demoralized condition, badly canned meats and soups, whose fragrance was not that of "Araby the blest," were necessarily thrown away en route. And with them went the clothing and stationery saturated with the effervescing and putrefying compounds which they enfolded.

Added to this discouragement was the frequent loss of the packages. For the constant movements of troops rendered it impossible for express agents to forward boxes to special regiments. For a time there was great waste of the lavish outpouring of the people. It did not, however, check their liberality, but compelled wiser methods. For out of this chaos of individual benevolence and abounding patriotism the Sanitary Commission finally emerged, with its carefully elaborated plans, and its marvellous system.

Early Ignorance and Inefficiency of Officers-The Cause of Sickness and Death in Camp-Letters from the Front in Proof-Fearful Mortality of British Soldiers in the Crimea, in 1855 - Occasioned by similar Causes -Local Relief Societies organized-New York Women show practical Wisdom-The Sanitary Commission evolved from their Methods - Plan of Organization drawn up by Dr. Bellows - Sanctioned by the President and Secretary of War - The Commission soon conquers all Prejudice Its Work very extensive-Inspectors sent to Camps and Hospitals Monographs prepared on the Hygiene of the Army-Portable "SoupKettles"-"Hospital Cars" - Forty Soldiers' Homes-Claim, Pension, and Back Pay Agency-"Hospital Directory"-"Battle-field Relief Service"- Ten "Branch Commissions" Relief rendered at Shiloh and Antietam - The Supplies, or Money for their Purchase, Made or Collected by Women.

HE work of sanitary relief was very soon outlined by the necessities and sufferings of the men at the front. In the early period of the war, the troops reached their destinations generally in a very unsatisfactory condition. They were crowded into cattle cars as if they were beasts, frequently with empty haversacks, and with no provision for their comfort on the road. Prompted by generous impulse, men and women boarded the trains as they halted at the stations in cities, and served to the men hot coffee and such food as could most readily be provided. But it was only by accident, or through tireless and

124

IGNORANCE AND INCOMPETENCE.

patient watching, that they were enabled to render this small service to their country's defenders; for no telegram announced the coming of the hungry men, nor for long and weary months was a system devised for the comfort and solace of the soldiers, as they passed to and from the battle-field. Many became ill or exhausted from exposure, but no relief was furnished.

Rarely were preparations made for their reception. "Men stood for hours in a broiling sun, or drenching rain, waiting for rations and shelter, while their ignorant and inexperienced Commissaries and Quartermasters were slowly and painfully learning the duties of their positions. At last, utterly worn out and disgusted, they reached their camps, where they received rations as unwholesome as distasteful, and endeavored to recruit their wasted energies while lying upon rotten straw, wrapped in a shoddy blanket." Such fearful misery contrasted sadly with the cheerful scenes they had left, and if it did not cool their enthusiasm for the national cause, it developed an alarming prevalence of camp diseases, which might have been prevented, if efficient military discipline had prevailed.

The hospital arrangements, in the early part of the war, were as pitiful and inadequate as were the facilities for transportation. Any building was considered fit for a hospital; and the suffering endured by army patients, in the unsuitable buildings into which they were crowded during the first year of the war can never be estimated. Before the war there was no such establishment as a General Hospital in the army. All military hospitals were post hospitals, and the largest contained but forty beds. There was no