The Sanitary Commission (1863)

BY REVEREND FREDERICK NEWMAN KNAPP

WASHINGTON, D. C.,

CENTRAL OFFICE, U. S. SANITARY COM’N, October 1st, 1863. . . .

THE main purpose kept in view in this work of Special Relief for the past two years has been . . .

First. To supply to the sick men of the newly arrived regiments such medicines, food, and care as it is impossible for them to receive, in the midst of the confusion, and with the unavoidable lack of facilities, from their own officers. The men to be thus aided are those who are not so sick as to have a claim upon a general hospital, and yet need immediate care to guard them against serious sickness.

Second. To furnish suitable food, lodging, care and assistance to men who are honorably discharged from service, sent from general hospitals, or from their regiments, but who are often delayed a day or more in the city, sometimes many days before they obtain their papers and pay.

Third. To communicate with distant regiments in behalf of discharged men whose certificates of disability or descriptive lists on which to draw their pay prove to be defective—the invalid soldiers meantime being cared for, and not exposed to the fatigue and risk of going in person to their regiments to have their papers corrected.

Fourth. To act as the unpaid agent or attorney of discharged soldiers who are too feeble or too utterly disabled to present their own claim at the paymaster’s office.

Fifth. To look into the condition of discharged men who assume to be without means to pay the expense of going to their homes; and to furnish the necessary means where we find the man is true and the need real.

Sixth. To secure to disabled soldiers railroad tickets at reduced rates, and, through an agent at the railroad station, see that these men are not robbed or imposed upon by sharpers.

Seventh. To see that all men who are discharged and paid off do at once leave the city for their homes; or, in cases where they have been induced by evil companions to remain behind, to endeavor to rescue them, and see them started with through-tickets to their own towns.

Eighth. To make reasonably clean and comfortable before they leave the city, such discharged men as are deficient in cleanliness and clothes.

Ninth. To be prepared to meet at once with food or other aid, such immediate necessities as arise when sick men arrive in the city in large numbers from battle-fields or distant hospitals.

Tenth. To keep a watchful eye upon all soldiers who are out of hospitals, yet not in service; and give information to the proper authorities of such soldiers as seem endeavoring to avoid duty or to desert from the ranks. . . .

Having made these general statements, I will now report, in detail, but briefly as may be, upon the several branches of Relief;—and first, at Washington;

1st. "The Home," 374 North Capitol Street.—Increased accommodations for securing room and comfort at the Home, referred to in my last report, have been obtained; and now, instead of 140 beds, we have at the Home 320, besides a large baggage-room, a convenient washroom, a bath-house, &c. . . . The third building . . . for a "Hospital." . . . The necessity for this building, devoted exclusively to Hospital purposes, is found in the fact, that although the men who come under the care of the Commission are mostly on their way to their homes, and might therefore be supposed to be not so very feeble as to need specially "Hospital" treatment, yet, as a matter of fact, many of them are weakened to such a degree by disease, that by the time they reach Washington, or the railway station from the front, or from the various hospitals, their strength is nearly exhausted, and they are only restored, if at all, by such care as hospital treatment affords; and frequently they are too far gone to make even that available. . . . These were nearly all men having their discharge papers with them, and they had, consequently, given up their claim upon the General or Regimental Hospitals, and had taken the first stage of their journey towards their homes. If they had not found the care which the Commission thus offered to them, these same men must have died in the cars along the way, or at some stopping-point on their journey. . . .

"The doors of the ’Home’ are open night and day; yet vigilant watch is kept, not to harbor any man who ought to be with his regiment, or reporting to some Medical Officer. Otherwise, the `Home’ would quickly become what of course there is, as we are ready to acknowledge, apparent and real danger of its becoming, unless wisely managed, viz., a philanthropic interference with Army discipline, pleading its humanity as an excuse for its intrusion. . . ." . . .

Lodge No. 4, in "H" Street. This is the new Lodge with large accommodations, immediately connected with the office of the Paymaster for discharged soldiers. . . .

This relief station consists of six buildings. A dormatory of a hundred beds: a dining-room, seating about one hundred, with a large kitchen attached: a baggage-room, where all the discharged men coming in to be paid off can deposit their baggage, receiving a check for it: a storehouse: quarters for the guard: and a building containing the office of the Free Pension Agency, office of the Medical Examiner for pensions, and ticket office for the Railroad agent, selling through-tickets to soldiers at reduced rates of fare.

All disabled soldiers discharged directly from the Army of the Potomac or from the Hospitals in this vicinity come to the Paymaster’s office, which is within this same inclosure, to be paid off. Government can no longer hold itself directly responsible for these men, and here is where we take them up. Yet Government cordially co-operates in our work, furnishing to the Commission part of these very buildings, and giving such army rations at this Lodge as we can use for these men advantageously with our other supplies.

The object of the whole thing at this Lodge is this, viz.: so to supply to the discharged soldier close at his hand and without a cent of cost, all that he needs—food, lodging, assistance in correcting his papers, aid in looking up his claims, help in obtaining his pension and his bounty—such that there can be no excuse or opportunity for the soldier to put himself or be put into the hands of claim agents and sharpers, or to go out and expose himself to the temptations of the city. . . .

But for the gratuitous aid thus afforded these soldiers discharged from the service, disabled by wounds or worn down by long marches and exposure in the field, or enfeebled by disease, anxious to get home, would have applied to "Claim Agents" for aid in obtaining speedily their dues from the Government, submitting willingly to pay a commission ranging from 10 to 40 per cent. These agents, with some rare and admirable exceptions, in four cases out of every five, impede the settlement of accounts instead of facilitating them.

, November 1, 1863 (New York), I, 11–16 passim.