emained graven on her memory on the
day of his departure. The result of these delays was the organization,
by Miss Barton, at her own cost, of a Bureau of Records of Missing Men
of the Armies of the United States, at Washington. Here she collected
all rolls of prisoners, hospital records, and records of burials in the
rebel prisons and elsewhere, and at short intervals published Rolls of
Missing Men, which, by the franks of some of her friends among the
Members of Congress, were sent to all parts of the United States, and
posted in prominent places, and in many instances copied into local
papers. The method adopted for the discovery of information concerning
these missing men, and the communication of that information to their
friends who had made inquiries concerning them may be thus illustrated.

A Mrs. James of Kennebunk, Maine, has seen a notice in the paper that
Miss Clara Barton of Washington will receive inquiries from friends of
"missing men of the Army," and will endeavor to obtain information for
them without fee or reward. She forthwith writes to Miss Barton that she
is anxious to gain tidings of her husband, Eli James, Sergeant Company
F. Fourth Maine Infantry, who has not been heard of since the battle of
----. This letter, when received, is immediately acknowledged,
registered in a book, endorsed and filed away for convenient reference.
The answer satisfied Mrs. James for the time, that her letter was not
lost and that some attention is given to her inquiry. If the fate of
Sergeant James is known or can be learned from the official rolls the
information is sent at once. Otherwise the case lies over until there
are enough to form a roll, which will probably be within a few weeks. A
roll of Missing Men is then made up--with an appeal for information
respecting them, of which from twenty thousand to thirty thousand copies
are printed to be posted all over the United States, in all places where
soldiers are most likely to congregate. It is not impossible, that in
say two weeks' time, one James Miller, of Keokuk, Iowa, writes that he
has seen the name of his friend James posted for information; that he
found him lying on the ground, at the battle of ---- mortally wounded
with a fragment of shell; that he, James, gave the writer a few articles
from about his person, and a brief message to his wife and children,
whom he is now unable to find; that the national troops fell back from
that portion of the field leavin