and saw
that they were sent on board; fitted up the new boats furnished to the
Commission by the Quartermaster's orders; received, sorted and
distributed the patients brought to the landing on freight-cars,
according to orders; fed, cleansed, and gave medical aid and nursing to
all of them, and selected nurses for those to be sent North; and when
any great emergency came did their utmost to meet it.

The amount of work actually performed was very great; but it was
performed in such a cheerful triumphant spirit, a spirit that rejoiced
so heartily in doing something to aid the nation's defenders, in
sacrificing everything that they might be saved, that it was robbed of
half its irksomeness and gloom, and most of the zealous workers retained
their health and vigor even in the miasmatic air of the bay and its
estuaries. Miss Wormeley, one of the transport corps, has supplied,
partly from her own pen, and partly from that of Miss Georgiana Woolsey,
one of her co-workers, some vivid pictures of their daily life, which,
with her permission, we here reproduce from her volume on the "United
States Sanitary Commission," published in 1863.

"The last hundred patients were brought on board" (imagine any of the
ships, it does not matter which) "late last night. Though these
night-scenes are part of our daily living, a fresh eye would find them
dramatic. We are awakened in the dead of night by a sharp steam-whistle,
and soon after feel ourselves clawed by little tugs on either side of
our big ship, bringing off the sick and wounded from the shore. And, at
once, the process of taking on hundreds of men--many of them crazed with
fever--begins. There is the bringing of the stretchers up the
side-ladder between the two boats; the stopping at the head of it, where
the names and home addresses of all who can speak are written down, and
their knapsacks and little treasures numbered and stacked; then the
placing of the stretchers on the platform; the row of anxious faces
above and below deck; the lantern held over the hold; the word given to
'Lower;' the slow-moving ropes and pulleys; the arrival at the bottom;
the turning down of the anxious faces; the lifting out of the sick man,
and the lifting him into his bed; and then the sudden change from cold,
hunger and friendlessness, into positive comfort and satisfaction,
winding up with his invariable verdict, if he can speak,--'This is just
like home!'

"We have put 'The Elm City' in order,