As the war went on, the demands on the Western Sanitary Commission became enormous. At the close of 1863 and the beginning of 1864 the Commission found its treasury well nigh empty. Something must be done to replenish it. After careful deliberation, the Commission decided to hold a fair, believing that thereby it could secure the funds required for its vastly important work. So on February 1st, 1864, it inaugurated this popular movement.
General William Starke Rosecrans, who, in January, had succeeded General Schofield in command of the Department of Missouri, was made president of the Fair. From the start the project was popular. In St. Louis the people took hold of it with marked enthusiasm. They were ready to work and give to make it a success. That thoroughness might characterize all that was done they carefully organized their forces. They divided among themselves the multifarious tasks to be performed. They appointed committees to look after every important detail, and to report to the central authority. So amid the multiplicity of things there was unity and order. It was exhilarating to see a great community so stirred up in the doing of a patriotic and benevolent work, that, for a time, all conventionalities of society and distinctions of race or creed were forgotten. Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, Europeans and Americans, whites and blacks met, and elbowed, and emulated each other in working for the soldiers of the Union.
But a work so great could not be done by our city alone, however willing and diligent we might be; so, the Commission appealed for help to the people of other cities and States. The response was prompt and exceedingly generous. Money and large consignments of useful articles to be sold at the Fair came from Boston, Salem, Worcester, Providence, New Bedford, New Haven, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Nevada (then a remote mining territory), England and Germany. Other givers also in justice should be mentioned, but we name these merely to show how cosmopolitan the donations to the Fair were. Helping hands were stretched across the sea to us. Wars on behalf of the oppressed are wars of progress, and make kin the lovers of righteousness in all the nations.
But among the givers St. Louis herself ranked with the first. Her business men contributed large amounts of goods; her families, vast numbers of salable articles made in their homes; her artists and lovers of art, valuable paintings, etchings, and engravings; and some liberally gave money.
When the Fair opened on May 17th, there was in its treasury two hundred thousand dollars in cash, which had been contributed by men in St. Louis and in different parts of the Union.
The building for the Fair was on Twelfth Street. It was five hundred feet long and extended from St. Charles to Olive Street. It had wings on Locust Street, each one hundred feet by fifty-four. In the centre of the building was an octagon seventy-five feet in diameter and fifty feet high. This octagon was lavishly decorated with mottoes, national banners, battle trophies, such as flags and weapons captured from the enemy, and arbors of evergreens and flowers.
The building was divided into various departments. One department was devoted to the refugees. Since they were a special object of charity and so much was needed adequately to meet their wants, and the sympathies of so many were specially drawn out to them, it seemed quite necessary to devote a generous space in the building to their particular benefit. The same was true of the freedmen, and a department was assigned to those who were especially interested in meeting their wants and promoting their general welfare.
The Germans, being so large a part of our population, and so ardently devoted to the maintenance of the Union, were given a large space in the building, where they patriotically sold lager beer, and a host of people patriotically drank it. Very many connected with the Fair strongly objected to this, but being in the minority were unable to prevent it.
During the days of preparation for the Fair a committee was appointed to meet a delegation from our German fellow-citizens and if possible persuade them to give up the project of selling beer at the Fair. I was chairman, and presented as well as I could the earnest desire of the temperance people. The German, who was the spokesman of his delegation, understood English quite perfectly, but could not speak it very well. He had not been at all persuaded by the considerations that I had presented, and among other things that he vehemently urged in reply was this: “Zhentelmen,” said he, “lager peer vill not make men trunk; it vill not, it vill not. Zhentelmen, and ef any one gets trunk, we have already, zhentelmen, engaged the police to take him to de calaboose.” So this, and every effort that we put forth to rid the Fair of lager beer, proved abortive; and it was sold, innumerable kegs of it, to alleviate the sufferings of our soldiers. But in justice it ought to be added that no one became so intoxicated that it was necessary to take him to the calaboose.
But we can only name the multiplied departments and varied attractions of this famous Fair. It had its curiosity shop, and skating park; its floral park and gallery of fine arts; its counters on which all kinds of merchandise were offered for sale; its separate rooms for war trophies, agricultural implements, sewing machines, for the sale of works of art, and for the exhibition of gold and silver bars from Nevada. There were also refreshment saloons or restaurants, the New England, and the Holland kitchen, where patriotic women cooked and washed dishes for the Union and where the hungry ate for the same lofty purpose. And then there were confectioners’ counters, a café, and an improvised theatre, where were presented various dramas and other public amusements. Patriotism, the underlying motive of it, lifted up and glorified all the drudgery and all the innocent pastimes connected with it.
The evenings at the Fair were made specially attractive. Then the men that had been absorbed in business during the day came with their families. The great building was lighted as brilliantly as it could be with gas. Electric lights had not yet appeared. In the gallery trained bands skilfully discoursed patriotic music. Often the commanding general with his staff, in their brightest uniform, was present. It is wonderful how the crowd is charmed by military clothes! The names of the Union generals together with the names of the battles that they had fought were blazoned on the walls, and the Stars and Stripes hung out everywhere, while women from the first families of the city were busy selling all sorts of useful articles. No one who shared in those festivities, who saw and heard and drank in the spirit of that patriotic throng can ever forget it.
One feature was specially novel. The colored soldiers, enlisted and drilled under the direction of General Schofield, during the Fair constantly did guard duty. They also distinguished themselves, and greatly commended themselves to all right-minded people, by liberally contributing from their meagre wages to aid the refugees and freedmen. Colored people also freely visited the Fair and made purchases. It looked like a revolution when we saw, in a slave State, white women of high social standing, without complaint or a murmur, sell articles to colored purchasers. Once or twice indeed some whites took offence at this radical and apparently abrupt change from the old order of things, but on the whole the sentiment toward the colored people was humane, reasonable, and liberal.
The Fair proved a great financial success. Its net proceeds were five hundred and fifty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars, at least three dollars and fifty cents for each inhabitant of our city; but the result was largely due to contributors beyond our borders; nevertheless it can be said of St. Louis that she did the work which made this great success possible, and at the same time liberally gave to the Fair both merchandise and money. The large amount of money realized, together with other donations, enabled the Sanitary Commission to complete its great work. In addition to the sums of money that it directly disbursed to aid our armies, it appropriated to the Ladies’ Union Aid Society fifty thousand dollars for hospital work and the assistance of soldiers’ families. It also devoted one thousand dollars per month to the aid of the freedmen, and established at Webster, ten miles west of the city, a Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, at a cost from first to last of over forty thousand dollars. The Home accommodated one hundred and fifty fatherless children.
But the Fair was a blessing not only to refugees and freedmen, to the sick and wounded in hospitals, to the widows and orphans of our slain heroes, but it was also a measureless boon to St. Louis. It was one more mighty agency for curing us of our selfishness. For a time at least it broke in upon our commercialism, and led us to think of others and to do something for their welfare.