When, in 1861, the war broke out in Missouri, and the battles of Boonville, Carthage, Dug Spring and Wilson’s Creek were fought, and collisions and skirmishes multiplied throughout the State, the demand for greater hospital accommodations at St. Louis became imperative. The New House of Refuge Hospital, two miles south of the city, proved to be altogether inadequate; and when all the wards of the St. Louis Hospital, kept by the Sisters of Charity, and of the City Hospital had been filled, still more room was at once required.

To meet this urgent necessity something must be done immediately. In our straits we appealed to General Fremont, who promptly came to our aid,^[93] and, on September 5th, issued an order, authorizing the Western Sanitary Commission, under the medical director of the army, to select, fit up, and furnish suitable buildings for “Army and Brigade Hospitals;” to choose and appoint, under the authority of Miss Dorothea L. Dix, general superintendent of the nurses of military hospitals in the United States, female nurses; to cooperate with the surgeons of the army in providing male nurses; to visit the various military camps, consult with the commanding officers in reference to the sanitary condition of the troops, and aid them in providing the best means for preventing sickness, such as proper drainage, warm clothing and wholesome food. Moreover the Commission was enjoined to use every available means for the promotion of the social and moral welfare of the soldiers. To satisfy the varied wants of those in camps and hospitals, the Commission was directed to procure from the people at large such supplies as they would freely contribute to supplement those furnished by the government. But all this must be done in full and hearty cooperation with the regular medical staff of the army, some members of which were jealous of their honors and at times foolishly sensitive to innovations.

Finally, the general’s order declared that “This Sanitary Commission will, for the present, consist of James E. Yeatman, Esq.; C. S. Greely, Esq.; J. B. Johnson, M. D.; George Partridge, Esq.; and Rev. William G. Eliot, D. D.” Two of these were broadminded, enterprising merchants; one was a physician of high standing; while Mr. Yeatman was a retired Tennessee planter. He had been a slaveholder; but, called to go down the Mississippi River on business, he received from what he saw during his trip such an impression of the enormity of slavery, that, when he returned, he manumitted his slaves, sold his plantation, and thereafter made St. Louis his home. He was a rare man. He was eminently just. He saw clearly the fundamental elements of every problem presented to the Commission for solution. He had large administrative ability, a sharp eye for details, and, to crown all, a great heart. Few men in the nation did more than he to bring the war to a successful issue.

Dr. Eliot, whose name stands last on this roll of honor, was the pastor of the only Unitarian church in our city. By long and efficient ministerial service he had endeared himself to all the people. His name in St. Louis was a household word. But he was as noted for his skill and efficiency in inaugurating and successfully conducting large public enterprises, as for his wise and multifarious pastoral labors. He was the founder of Washington University and of Mary Institute, and it was through his personal efforts that these institutions, an ornament to our city, were built up. In fact every beneficent enterprise in St. Louis felt the stimulating touch of his hand and was indebted to him for his thoughtful guidance. Among the ablest pastors of our city, he was unquestionably best equipped for membership in this all-important Sanitary Commission.

The Commission, thus organized and launched, at once began its labors. It rented a five-story building at the corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets, and speedily fitted it up for hospital service. It was named the “City General Hospital.” On September 10th, it was thrown open for the reception of patients. A throng of sick and wounded men, who had been anxiously waiting for accommodation and succor, quickly filled all its rooms.

In this building the Sanitary Commission made its headquarters. Mr. Yeatman was chosen president and gave his whole time to his duties, while the other members of the Commission met with him every day, except Sunday, for consultation. For this incessant, exacting toil no one of them received any moneyed compensation. Without a thought of personal gain they worked unremittingly and cheerfully for their country. The only motive that impelled them was a glowing, self-sacrificing patriotism. For a time, they employed only one man, and he acted as storekeeper, porter and clerk for thirty dollars a month. And this gratuitous, arduous service, beset at times with swarms of perplexities, was continued to the close of the war.

The sick and wounded of the army multiplied so rapidly, and the demand for medical aid became so insistent, that within two months after the opening of the first hospital, the Commission, with almost incredible energy, had added five more and all were filled to overflowing.

On April 6–7, 1862, the battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, was fought. On that field of carnage, one thousand seven hundred and thirty-five Union soldiers were killed outright, and seven thousand eight hundred and eighty-two were wounded. The latter were sent up to St. Louis by boat-loads. They were carried on stretchers up through our streets to the hospitals. The business men, merchants, clerks, manufacturers, bankers and artisans of various crafts helped bear along these ghastly burdens. Young men, the flower of the northwestern States, had been maimed, crippled, shot to pieces in defence of the Union. We were horror-stricken, and with a depth of emotion which we had not before felt, pledged to the defence of our government “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

We now found that we had not sufficient room for these suffering heroes. Two large halls were immediately secured, transformed into hospitals, filled with the wounded, and furnished with sanitary stores, nurses and physicians. At last we had fifteen well-appointed hospitals in and around our city, with accommodation for six thousand patients. The largest was at Jefferson Barracks, which, within two years, received and treated more than eleven thousand sick and wounded soldiers. So out of necessity grew with ever accelerated pace this great work of beneficence.

But the exigencies of the times called into being hospitals not only for sick and wounded soldiers, but also for refugees; in fact, for any, who, on account of the war, were rendered helpless. And in order by association of ideas to give the greatest possible cheer to those congregated in them, they were called Homes. This name was full of tender suggestion, especially to all of English or Scandinavian blood.

The first Home established was for soldiers. It was on Walnut Street. It was opened in March, 1862. It was designated as a temporary rest for troops that had been discharged or furloughed. Since many of them had little or no money they were here gratuitously furnished with food and lodging. Those who were weak from sickness or wounds received the ministrations of skilful physicians and experienced nurses. They were also protected against sharpers, who, under the guise of friendship, would collect what little money might be due these war-worn heroes, and put it in their own pockets. Moreover, their intellectual, moral and spiritual wants were met in the Home. A reading-room was put into it. Many daily papers and religious journals came regularly to its table, while hundreds of volumes of good books placed upon its shelves allured the weary or convalescing soldiers to read.

No one can measure the good done through the manifold appliances of that Home. During the war over seventy thousand soldiers enjoyed its hospitality. There they were helped over rough places; their difficulties that seemed to them like mountains vanished; they were nursed into strength and took on new heart and hope; became in fact new men, and very many of them went back into the ranks, courageously to fight to the finish the battle for the preservation of the Union.

Early in 1862 the Sanitary Commission also opened a Home on Elm Street, for refugees, of which we have already spoken in a previous chapter; and still another in 1863. These Homes were conducted on the same general principles as the Home for soldiers. A man of great excellence of character, Mr. Cavender, out of his deep sympathy for the forlorn refugees, voluntarily gave his entire time to the care of them. Thus the demand for loving, self-sacrificing toil for others always seemed to be met by some unselfish soul like his.

But the care of the needy among us was not for a moment left to chance volunteers. Not long after the Commission began its work, the Ladies Union Aid Society was formed. It was made up of the best and most efficient women of the city. Social distinctions were for the time being obliterated. The hearts of the rich and the poor were united by the common danger and by a common love of country. Any one who could do some useful service to suffering soldiers was welcomed by all. This society enlisted women, in different parts of the city, who met regularly in groups to prepare such comforts as were needed by our brave boys both in camp and hospital. It had its ramifications in all the loyal churches. Without a thought of denominational distinctions, patriotic women of all creeds or of no creed met to work for the armed defenders of the Union. They freely donated the material that they prepared for use. They scraped lint, knit socks, made under-garments, furnished beds for the sick in hospitals, and secured aid and employment for the wives of soldiers.

Out from the ranks of these women came many of our most efficient hospital nurses. Miss Dix, by whom, or by some deputy of hers, all nurses must be approved, had appointed as her agent in St. Louis, Mr. Yeatman, president of the Sanitary Commission. On account of his position he had unusual opportunities for observing among volunteer helpers those best qualified for stated and official service, and his selections were eminently wise.

No one could be a candidate for this honor unless she was between twenty-five and fifty years old, had good health, and was cheerful in disposition, without frivolity. And her official entrance upon the work of nursing hardly robbed her of the blessing of gratuitous patriotic service, since the compensation was twelve dollars a month and her keep. How does that strike a professional nurse of to-day?

But the spirit of helpfulness was not confined to special organizations; it seemed quite universal. Separate households planned and carried out benevolent enterprises to aid soldiers in the camps around the city. These soldiers were generally intelligent; many of them were from our academies and colleges. They were always glad to get good papers and magazines. In many households all such reading matter was carefully saved for them. At times when regiments of soldiers marched by our doors it was handed to them. They received it with avidity and often answered the attention bestowed upon them with hearty cheers.

But the distinctive classes of the needy gave rise to specialization on their behalf. Some expended their energies in helping white refugees, others in caring for the freedmen; the efforts of the latter resulted in the organization of the Freedmen’s Relief Society, in 1863. But all lines of special effort were generously aided by the Sanitary Commission. It was the central, controlling energy, and directed by it, the multiplied benevolent agencies worked in perfect harmony. They simply divided the labor that it might be more thoroughly done. The work was one, and behind all its multifarious details there was one spirit and one purpose.

But, however tempting the subject may be, I must not undertake to write even an outline history of the Western Sanitary Commission. This would require a volume, and it would embrace much that does not distinctively belong to our city. And yet we all bore some humble part in its magnificent work, and that work was all wrought before our eyes. But the country at large contributed to it, and the Federal government supported it with a liberal hand. In illustration of this take a single example. In opening the Home for the Refugees, the Commission expended three thousand dollars, the general government two thousand dollars. This is a fair specimen of the whole. All the generals of the Western Department heartily sustained it. So did the Secretary of War, and also Grant and Sherman.

I cannot refrain from giving a hint of the source, nature, and extent of the contributions, which the people poured out to help the Commission in its benevolent and patriotic work. Donations came from all the Northern States, especially, as might have been anticipated, from Michigan and the Northwest; but Philadelphia, New York, Providence and Boston were specially lavish in their gifts. They contributed much money, but also sent in boxes vast quantities of blankets, and bed-linen, of underwear and all sorts of comforts for camps and hospitals. By January, 1864, more than two hundred thousand dollars in cash had been received, of which St. Louis and Missouri had donated more than half; while the distant States of California and Massachusetts had each contributed fifty thousand dollars. But one million five hundred thousand dollars worth of sanitary supplies and hospital comforts had come to hand. From first to last the Commission received and distributed three million five hundred thousand dollars worth of useful articles, and almost a million of money, gladly given by the people. Among the cities of the Republic, the largest givers were Boston and St. Louis.

But if possible, let us get a bird’s-eye view of the manner in which these liberal donations were used. We have already seen how they made possible the founding and equipment of the various hospitals and Homes at St. Louis. But great as the work was there, it was still greater in the regions beyond. As early as October, 1861, the Sanitary Commission, under an order from General Fremont, fitted up two hospital cars, on the Pacific Railroad, with berths, nurses and all necessary arrangements for cooking. So far as I can discover, these were the first hospital cars in the United States, and they proved to be exceedingly useful.

After the battle of Fort Donelson, in February, 1862, the Commission, striking hands with the medical staff of the army, did all that they could to succor the wounded, and to save the many who were ill from exposure in the open field to a driving storm of snow and sleet. One of the Commission, taking with him a large quantity of sanitary stores, went down to Cairo and Paducah, accompanied by a delegation of physicians, nurses and members of the Ladies’ Union Aid Society. At Paducah, whither many of the sick and wounded had been sent, the volunteer helpers from St. Louis were courteously received by Medical Director Simmonds. He put at their disposal the steamboat, “Ben Franklin,” and filled it with wounded soldiers to be carried to St. Louis. On their way thither these suffering soldiers were tenderly nursed. The steamer became a hospital. Out of this experience naturally emerged a most practical and beneficent institution, the Floating Hospital. The Western Sanitary Commission took up this new idea. They at once purchased and fitted up the “City of Louisiana,” at a cost of three thousand dollars. A year later the government purchased her, put into her five hundred beds, and, in honor of the Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Army, named her, the “R. C. Wood.” From time to time, as new exigencies arose, the commission added other steamers to their medical flotilla, until they had on the Mississippi four floating hospitals. As our armies and gunboats moved down the river, these floating asylums for the sick and wounded were always close at hand, ready to receive and aid with all their resources those disabled by disease or by shot and shell.

The Commission also devised the flying hospital, or hospital on wheels. It was furnished with cots and medical stores. It could accompany an army on the march and be always close at hand promptly to meet urgent needs whenever any unlooked-for disaster might come. This hospital did considerable service in Missouri, and was warmly commended by Assistant Surgeon General Wood.

Nor must we fail to note the fact that the Commission not only planted hospitals and homes in St. Louis, but, acting in concert with the regular medical staff of the army, in all the principal cities captured by our armies on or near the Mississippi River. They struck hands with the United States Sanitary Commission in founding and equipping at Memphis ten hospitals. They sent sanitary supplies as far as Little Rock, the Red River, Nashville, Jackson, Miss., Chattanooga, Tenn., and Texas. Wherever there was any pressing need, workers from St. Louis, both men and women, were found.

Mr. Yeatman himself often went down the river to superintend in person this ever-expanding work of benevolence. On one of his expeditions, he took to Grant’s army, then engaged in the siege of Vicksburg, two hundred and fifty tons of sanitary supplies. And during all that protracted siege, the floating hospitals fitted out by the Commission were just at hand.

But the Commission did not confine itself wholly to the West. During the Peninsular Campaign by McClellan, they sent sanitary stores to Washington; and from May 1st to November 1st, 1864, forwarded to Sherman’s army, operating in Georgia, supplies “amounting to hundreds of tons.” Nor did they forget the starving prisoners at Andersonville, but sent them through General Sherman such stores as were imperatively needed to alleviate their appalling miseries, although these gifts of mercy never reached their destination. When, however, at a later day, a goodly number of these prisoners were exchanged at Vicksburg, the same supplies were then distributed among them, and when they saw on the boxes the name of General Sherman, their joy was unbounded.

But in this meagre sketch of the magnificent work of the Sanitary Commission, we wish in a few lines to give at least a hint of its efforts to meet in some measure the necessities of the freedmen outside of St. Louis. Between Cairo, Ill., and Natchez, Miss., at least forty thousand of them were found that greatly needed help. That whole region had been for months a battle-ground. Landowners had fled. Plantations were broken up. Slaves, happy in their new-found freedom, had followed our armies, looking upon them as their deliverers; yet bewildered as to what they were to do. Some Union generals, impeded by them, and lacking in humanity, treated them with cruelty. Especially was this true at Helena and Memphis, where they compelled the freedmen to work hard without compensation, while their families were left in extreme want. This to Mr. Yeatman was like a trumpet blast. He took hold of this new problem with marvellous energy. He appealed to the country for help. There was benevolent response from almost every quarter. Massachusetts especially sent in generous quantities both goods and money. Nor did St. Louis lag behind in her gifts. The replenished Commission sent to the hungry and ragged freedmen large supplies of both food and clothing; established hospitals for them in different places; provided them with physicians, nurses and medicines; put a stop to the tyranny of inconsiderate or hard-hearted military officers; and established schools for them in which they were taught to read, and write, to add and substract, and to do properly the ordinary work of the kitchen and field. Mr. Yeatman went over all the territory where the men and women, sent out by the Commission, were working for the freedmen, and gave to them such suggestions and directions as in his judgment would render their work most beneficent and fruitful. He himself established for the freedmen a system of work on plantations around Vicksburg, which, before the close of the war, yielded the best results. On behalf of his project he appealed to the public through the press; laid it personally before the President and found for it an open ear and thus enlisted the government on its behalf. He had the qualities needed for dealing with an ignorant people just freed from bondage: sense, justice, and love.

Still our cursory survey of the work of the Commission would be quite incomplete without casting a glance at what they did for the white refugees in all that great region south of Missouri on both sides of the Mississippi River. Great as the number of these refugees was in St. Louis, it was far greater in that vast territory. There the Commission, as exigencies arose, selected, one after another, ten central points, each of which was made headquarters for all the region contiguous to it. At these centres they founded temporary hospitals, and opened schools for the refugees. They fed, clothed, taught and nursed them, and, so far as practicable, put them to work. It takes but a moment to write this, but these words are a symbol representing a prodigious amount of patient, self-sacrificing toil.

Moreover, the Soldiers’ Home had proved itself to be so great a blessing in St. Louis, that the Commission established five others in the States to the south conquered by our armies. And up to December, 1865, all these Homes, including the one in our city, had entertained without charge four hundred and twenty-one thousand six hundred and sixteen soldiers; furnished them nine hundred and eighty-two thousand five hundred and ninety-two meals, and four hundred and ten thousand two hundred and fifty-two lodgings.

In all this beneficent work the loyal inhabitants of St. Louis had a large share. We liberally contributed to it goods, money and service. But the demands upon us within our own gates were onerous and well nigh exhausting. The time, strength and material resources of every one were laid under tribute; tribute which, for the most part, was gladly paid. All Christian pastors and priests worked much in camps and hospitals. They conducted many public services, often preached, and incessantly ministered to the sick and dying.

When volunteers began to gather in large numbers at St. Louis, in connection with other pastors of the city, I preached, as I had time and opportunity, in the camps. I was greeted by attentive, intelligent audiences. Many regiments were made up largely of Christian men who, while encamped, regularly maintained prayer meetings. There was one regiment from Illinois, having in its ranks above a thousand young men, more than half of whom read their Greek Testaments.

But we met them for religious services not only in camp, but also in buildings in the city specially provided for that purpose.

In an empty store on Fourth Street, on the ground floor, there were long tables. For many days, at the noon hour, soldiers passing through the city or temporarily stopping there, marched in and sat down at those tables for their midday meal. I was asked by Drs. Eliot and Post to take my turn with them in preaching to these soldiers as they ate. To this I consented, but found it a difficult task. I stood at the head of the table and delivered my message, while the militant audience consumed their rations of hardtack, bacon and coffee. They had tin plates, cups and spoons, and cheap iron knives; and though they were always respectful, and declared that they wanted and enjoyed the preaching, the clatter of their metal dishes was so loud and incessant, that it disturbed not a little my course of thought. But I did my best.

When the hospitals were opened I found in them the largest opportunities to labor on behalf of the soldiers. For a time I worked a part of almost every day in the Sisters’ Hospital. For years it had been cared for by the Sisters of Charity; but for the time being it was thrown open for the use of the government. Here I often found sick and wounded men from both of the contending armies; Federal and Confederate soldiers, the blue and the gray, here lay peacefully side by side. For the time at least their animosity was gone. Suffering had made them kin. The heart of the man in gray was touched, when he saw that he was as carefully nursed as the man in blue.

In my ministrations to suffering Southerners, I carefully avoided all allusion to the war, and our political differences. But, apparently astonished at the kindness shown them, many of them would broach some question concerning the national conflict, and when they did so, I always answered their queries as best I could. On one point most of them were set, and that was that the North began the war. I assured them that in this they were altogether in error, and rehearsed to them the historical facts. They said that they could hardly believe my statement, since they had been often told the exact contrary.

I met in that hospital a Confederate soldier from one of the western counties of Arkansas. His name was Anderson. He had small, shining black eyes, peeping out from under black eyebrows; long, heavy, black whiskers, unkempt and begrimed, needing the cleansing power of soap and water; thick, shocky black hair that hung down to his shoulders, and was as coarse as the hair on a horse’s tail. When I first saw him I had a strong desire to have a talk with a man so peculiar and who bore my surname. While he could neither read nor write, I found him intelligent on all matters pertaining to his county, but about things outside of his own immediate neighborhood, he knew next to nothing. He never had been away from home before. Having been taken prisoner, he was compelled to travel. Contrary to his will he had begun to see more of the world. But he was absolutely sure that the “Yanks” had begun the “wicked war.” He informed me, that the North first fired on the South. Nor could I convince him of his error. He was ignorant, and a hot Southerner. His under jaw was square and each ropy hair springing out of his tawny scalp looked as though it were clinched on the inside of his skull. A face so strange and strong, I can never forget.

A few days later, in the same hospital, I was urgently asked by a man about thirty-five years of age to help him solve a question of conscience. He was a Quaker by birth and conviction. He had imbibed with his mother’s milk the notion that war was prohibited by the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” By education it had been interwoven with all his thinking. But having at the same time a great abhorrence of human bondage, when, in his neighborhood, scores of men were enlisting to fight a Confederacy, the corner-stone of which had been boastfully declared to be African slavery, the doctrine that war was murder sank so completely into the background that, for a time, he became quite unconscious of it. Aflame with patriotism, along with his neighbors, he volunteered to fight the enemies of the Union. Then came the long, toilsome days of military drill, and the march southward to meet the foe in battle. He had much time for thought. As he reflected, the conviction that no war is justifiable, which, for a season, had been submerged, came up out of the depths of his subconsciousness and reasserted itself. He began to feel utterly out of place. He had taken a solemn oath to do what his conscience utterly forbade. He was in deep distress. There was no one to whom he could unbosom himself. He was among thousands of his countrymen, but felt absolutely alone. His regiment was ordered into battle. For hours with his comrades in arms he loaded and fired; but he could not shoot at his fellow men, so he shot into the air above their heads. But this was a violation of his oath. And after the battle was over and he had been sent to this hospital, what he had done tortured him. Conscience pierced him for having broken his oath as a soldier, although that same conscience had driven him to break it. In his agony of spirit he pitifully appealed to me. “What shall I do? What can I do?” I dealt with him honestly. I told him that he had no moral right to violate his conscience. But since his conscience had put him between two fires, it was his duty to tell his story to the military authorities, and ask to be discharged from the army. I assured him that they had no wish to compel men to fight, who could not do so with a good conscience. Still he seemed to be greatly distressed to think that, contrary to his oath, he had shot into the air, during that battle. But he did as I advised him to do, and a few days afterwards I heard that, on the ground of his conscientious scruples, he had been honorably dismissed from his regiment.

About this time, March, 1862, I was asked to take the oversight of the religious work in the Fifth Street Hospital. It became my duty to supply the sick and wounded there with religious papers and books. These were freely contributed by loyal Christian families. A book from my own library, “The Signet Ring,” was very popular among the soldiers. It is a good book still, but scarcely known to the present generation. It was also incumbent on me to provide for religious services in the hospital. These were held in the different wards, but especially in those wards where were gathered the convalescents, and those suffering from the milder forms of disease. The services were very simple and brief. A few words of Scripture were read, some joyful hymn was sung, and a prayer was poured out from the heart. Then a short sermon followed, presenting some truth that comforted and helped those that were in trouble. These services were conducted sometimes by chaplains of regiments, often by the different pastors of the city, and were frequently marked by unusual fervor. The eagerness with which the sick and wounded men listened was wonderful. They were reminded of their churches at home, of loved ones with whom they had often met; their hearts were full and the irrepressible tears started. At times during those moments of service heaven and earth seemed to meet and blend.

There were in this hospital, as in all the rest, some professional women nurses, and they were very efficient. They did their work not only with technical skill, but they had that prime quality that must ever characterize nurses of the highest order, heartfelt sympathy with those whose sufferings they strove to alleviate. But in addition to these, there were many volunteer nurses, women, who, by regular appointment, were there at all hours of the day and night. They were ready to do any service within their power. They worked under the direction of the physicians and in harmony with the professional nurses. They often brought with them, from their own household stores, such appetizing foods as reminded the sick soldiers of the tender nursing that in homes far away they had sometimes received from mother or sister. A little gruel or soup, or fruit, or jelly, how grateful to the palate, and cheering to the spirit! The very thought of it started many a sick soldier boy on the road to health and further service in the field.

The tender sympathy which these women lavished on the suffering was often more healing than medicine. And when, sitting by the bedside of languishing heroes, sick it may be even unto death, they wrote letters for them to the loved ones at home, these missives throbbed with a mother’s love and were often wet with a mother’s tears.

An incident of that kind comes vividly to mind as I write. A young man from Indiana lay on his death-bed. He was about twenty-two years old and fully six feet in height. He was muscular and strong. But pneumonia had seized upon him and had baffled the best skill of the surgeon. He had been told that he could not live more than five or six hours longer. But he was a Christian and had hope of a glorious immortality. In the final arrangement of his affairs he was as calm in spirit as if he were going out on dress parade. By his cot sat a young mother. He asked her to write to his family and tell them what to do with his things. She wrote as he suggested, her heart almost bursting with emotion. He gave one thing to this sister, another to that brother, and last of all he said, “I give Jeff. C. Davis to my youngest brother.” “But what is Jeff. C. Davis?” asked the one who was writing for him his last letter, and there were tears in her voice. He replied, a smile playing around his lips, “It is my colt. I named him for General Davis, who is an Indianian and very popular in our State.”

It was no formal letter which she penned in that sad hour. Into its words and sentences went the glowing sympathy of a mother’s heart. But it is only an example of thousands of others. When the letter was finished, the face of the young man betokened the most perfect satisfaction. His work was done. He was ready to depart. I prayed with him. I left him with a smile on his face. He was so cheerful that I began to think that the surgeon had made a mistake; but when I returned a few hours afterwards, “he was not, for God took him.”

In addition to the above it is with no little pleasure that I give one incident among many that vividly reveal the patriotic devotion of the rank and file of our army. Near the beginning of the war, I was called one night to marry a volunteer cavalry soldier. Immediately after, he rode away under the command of Zagonyi, to Springfield, Missouri. In entering that city a charge was made between two lines of Confederate soldiers, and my friend was shot. For several hours he lay on the frosty ground, slowly bleeding; and then, faint and exhausted, he was put into an army wagon which went jolting over rough roads to Rolla, and from there he was sent by the cars to St. Louis. I found him in the hospital, so changed that I did not at once recognize him. But when all doubt as to his identity was brushed away, he pathetically told me the story of his suffering. He had been shot through the shoulder; the bone had been shattered; pieces of it had protruded from the wound and had been removed. He had preserved them. They were more precious to him than diamonds. He kept them neatly wrapped in a paper under his pillow. With his trembling, emaciated hand he took them out slowly and carefully unwrapped them and showed them to me. Then wrapping them up again, he put them back under his pillow, and looking up, his eye began to gleam as he said: “The doctors say that I cannot recover. I think that they are mistaken. I shall get well. You see that it is the left shoulder that is wounded. When it heals it will be stiff, but I can still hold the reins of my horse in my left hand; and then, sir,” with great emphasis for an apparently dying man, he added, “I have one more shoulder for my country.” He did live to fight many a hard battle thereafter. But I could never forget those brave, burning words, words instinct with self-sacrifice: “Then, sir, I have one more shoulder for my country.”

In closing this inadequate sketch of our hospitals, I wish gratefully to call attention to the fact that they were an immeasurable blessing to St. Louis. They marvellously developed the benevolence of the city. By them scores of men and women were lifted up out of their selfishness. In ministering to those in need they forgot themselves. In spite of all the evils of the war, it led more people in our city to live in some measure the life of Christ than any other influence had ever before done. The best exhibition of Christianity ever witnessed within our gates was that band of devoted workers seen every day and night in the camps and hospitals. Hundreds of women whose Christian activities had never before gone beyond the family or the individual church, now like their divine Lord went about doing good. Like the good Samaritan, they had compassion upon all that they found in distress, irrespective of nationality or creed.