Lincoln's Daughters Of Mercy

CONTENTS PREFACE vii 1. MRS. ANDERSON S RE-ENFORCEMENT 3 2. THE GREAT UPRISING 19 3. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND NIGHTINGALES 37 4. NINETY-TWO RESPECTED GENTLEWOMEN 54 5. quot A FIFTH WHEEL TO THE COACH quot 67 6. BANNERS IN THE DUST 87 7. SCRUBBING THE LORDS OF CREATION 102 8. UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 113 9. HEROINES OF THE PENINSULA 124 10. POTATOES AND ONIONS CONQUER VICKSBURG 146 11. A LADY WITH A FLASK 159 12. GLORY, GLORY, HALLELUJAH 175 13. MOTHER BICKERDYKE MARCHES THROUGH GEORGIA 189 EPILOGUE HAPPILY EVER AFTERWARD 203 BIBLIOGRAPHY 209 . 5w . - r JUL 291949 PREFACE This is the story of the United States Sanitary Commission, the great relief organization of the Civil War, which was the ancestor of the American Red Cross. From it are derived most of our techniques for mitigating the horrors of war and binding up the wounds of battle. The U. S. O., the American Women s Vol untary Services, the United Seamen s Services, and most other quot War Eelief agencies present modern variations of its over-all structure and specific ministrations. The WAGS, the WAVES, the SPABS, and other women s military services find in it the first great example of the enlistment of women for war. And, in the present conflict, the armies of all civilized nations pattern their ambulance and hospital services, and their arrangements for the welfare and recreation of the armed services, after the models first set by the United States Sanitary Commission. The story has many heroines, and some heroes. All of them de serve to be remembered now, with gratitude, both on the battle front and the home front. On the battle front, the life of the soldier would be much less tolerable than it is today, if it were not for themany arrangements for the care and comfort of men under arms, first worked out by the Sanitary Commission for the Union Army. The Union Army was the first great popular army of the mod ern type. It was the first army to include more than a million men under a single national command, and the first large army composed almost entirely of men who had been civilians before the outbreak of war. Small volunteer armies have sprung up and fought for the people s rights, under rude conditions, since the beginning of history. But never before had there been such enor mous masses of men to be conditioned and trained quickly for VII military operations that, compared with anything that had pre ceded them, were highly mechanized. The way this army was assembled and organized explains to the soldier many of the routines he is required to follow today. These routines may sometimes seem rather tiresome. But when a man realizes what military life was like before the heroines of this book first taught the army to keep house, he may feel reconciled even to Kitchen Police. To the home front the story of the Sanitary Commission dem onstrates the kind of spirit, and the kind of citizen co-operation that not only wins a war but keeps it won. The victors in the Amer ican Civil War did what the victors in the First World War never did. They kept their victory after they got it. During the long straggle the northern states attained such interior social organiza tion, such unity and articulateness in formulating the ideals for which they were fighting, that their triumphant industrial democ racy maintained its supremacy, without serious challenge, through all the years that followed. This achievement, which thevictors in the present war have yet to equal, was due largely to the ingenuity and heroic self-devotion of the home front behind the army...