It seems almost beyond belief that the North rushed into the Civil War wholly unprepared to care for the Nation’s Defenders, either in health or in sickness.  Transportation facilities were of the poorest!  Young men just from the home, the farm and the college were crowded into cattle cars as though they were beasts, frequently with no provision whatever for their comfort.  And rarely were proper arrangements made for their reception in camp.  The bewildered soldiers stood for hours under broiling southern sun, waiting for rations and shelter, while ignorant officers were slowly learning their unaccustomed duties.  At night they were compelled to lie wrapped in shoddy blankets upon rotten straw.  Under such conditions these brave volunteers suffered severely and camp diseases became alarmingly prevalent.  But the miserable makeshifts used as hospitals were so bad that sick men fought for the privilege of dying in camp with their comrades rather than undergo the privations, and sometimes the brutality of inexperienced and careless attendants in the crowded and poorly equipped quarters provided by the government.  The largest hospital available contained but forty beds, and not one afforded a trained, efficient, medical staff.  Competent nurses, sanitary kitchens, proper medicines, means of humanely transporting the sick and wounded, all were wanting during early months of the war.

This condition which the government did almost nothing to remedy led to the organization of the United States Sanitary Commission.  Strangely enough the founder of this most necessary and timely organization, Rev. H. W. Bellows, of New York, encountered the opposition of high officials who deemed the whole plan quixotic.  Even President Lincoln at first regarded the Commission unnecessary and called it “a fifth wheel to the coach.”  Brief experience, however, demonstrated that the government could not provide all that was necessary for the soldier, either in sickness or in health, and the Sanitary Commission became often the only hope of brave men in dire distress.  In fact, at this day, it is difficult to see how the Northern cause would have triumphed at all but for the widespread and wholly helpful activity of the army of Sanitary workers.

The greatest difficulty encountered by the leaders of this noble philanthropy was to provide necessary funds.  Again and again it seemed that the work must stop because the heavily burdened people could give no more.  At sundry critical junctures California came to the rescue, and made possible the continuance of this “most beneficent of all charities.”  But at whose motion, and under whose influence?