re they were, one hundred and twenty strong, some for
little and some for much, some for a single article and some for a dozen
articles.

But it is not in camps of long standing that the wounded and sick suffer
for want of care or lack of comforts. It is when the base is suddenly
changed, when all order is broken up, when there are no tents at hand,
when the stores are scattered, nobody knows where, after a great battle
perhaps, and the wounded are pouring in upon you like a flood, and when
it seems as if no human energy and no mortal capacity of transportation
could supply the wants both of the well and the sick, the almost
insatiable demands of the battle-field and the equally unfathomable
needs of the hospital, it is then that the misery comes, and it is then
that the Commission does its grandest work. After the Battles of the
Wilderness and Spottsylvania, twenty-five thousand wounded were crowded
into Fredericksburg, where but ten thousand were expected. For a time
supplies of all kinds seemed to be literally exhausted. There were no
beds. There was not even straw. There were not surgeons enough nor
attendants enough. There was hardly a supply of food. Some found it
difficult to get a drop of cold water. Poor, wounded men, who had
wearily trudged from the battle-field and taken refuge in a deserted
house, remained hours and a day without care, and without seeing the
face of any but their wounded comrades. Then the Sanitary Commission
sent its hundred and fifty agents to help the overburdened surgeons.
Then every morning it despatched its steamer down the Potomac crowded
with necessaries and comforts. Then with ceaseless industry its twenty
wagons, groaning under their burden, went to and fro over the wretched
road from Belle Plain to Fredericksburg. A credible witness says that
for several days nearly all the bandages and a large proportion of the
hospital supplies came from its treasury. No mind can discern and no
tongue can declare what valuable lives it saved and what sufferings it
alleviated. Who shall say that Christian charity has not its triumphs
proud as were ever won on battle-field? If the Commission could boast
only of its first twenty-four hours at Antietam and Gettysburg and its
forty-eight hours at Fredericksburg, it would have earned the
everlasting gratitude and praise of all true men.

* * * * *

But is there not a reverse to this picture? Are there no drawbacks to