before the Commission can establish a new base. In this way some of the
Commission agents have followed General Grant's army all the way from
the Rapidan, through the Wilderness, across the Mattapony, over the
James, on to the very last advance towards the Southside
Railroad,--refilling their wagons with stores as opportunity has
occurred. As soon now as the march commences and the campaign opens,
preparations upon an extensive scale are made at Washington for the
great probable demand. Steamers are chartered, loaded, and sent with a
large force of relief agents to the vicinity of the probable
battle-fields; or if the campaign is away from water communication,
loaded wagons are held in readiness. The moment the locality of the
struggle is determined, then, under the orders of the Provost Marshal,
an empty house is seized and made the Sanitary head-quarters or general
storehouse; or else some canal-barge is moored at the crazy Virginia
wharf, and used for the same purpose. This storehouse is kept constantly
full from Washington, or else from Baltimore and New York; and the
branch depots which are now established in each army corps are fed from
it, while the hospitals in their turn make requisitions for all needful
supplies on these branch depots. That is to say, the arrangements,
though rougher and less permanent in their character, approximate very
nearly to the arrangements at Washington.

A few details need to be added. Where the distance from the battle-field
to the base of supplies is great, what are called feeding-stations are
established every few miles, and here the wounded on foot or in
ambulances can stop and take the refreshments or stimulants necessary to
sustain them on their painful journey. At the steamboat-landing the
Commission has a lodge and agents, with crackers and beef-tea, coffee
and tea, ice-water and stimulants, ready to be administered to such as
need. Relief agents go up on the boats to help care for the wounded; and
at Washington the same scene of active kindness is often enacted on
their arrival as at their departure. This is the general plan of action
everywhere, modified to suit circumstances, but always essentially the
same. It will apply just as well West as East,--only for the names
Baltimore, Washington, and City Point, you must put Louisville,
Nashville, and Chattanooga.

When I was at City Point, the base of operations had been established
there more than two months; and though ther