On August 1, Mrs. Gardner returned to the States, and the responsibility of carrying out the work so ably directed by her, fell upon me.
During the twenty days since, until our departure for Havana on the twenty-first of August, the work of examining boxes, barrels, trunks and sacks of clothing, and keeping a minute record of each case, where it came from, by whom sent, its contents and condition, etc., has gone steadily on, taking out the various provisions ranging from canned meats, soups, vegetables, fruits and condensed milk; flour, corn meal, beans and various preparations of cereals, sugar, tea, chocolate and coffee; hams, bacon, salt pork, dried beef and codfish; dried fruits, even to roasts of once fresh meat, potatoes and eggs packed in February and March; in varying conditions of preservation according to the dual factors of kind and mode of packing.
That nothing should be lost, such packages of meals and grains as had been broken in transportation and had become mixed in the box’s contents, were put into barrels to be sent to the Public Soup Kitchen, that worthy benevolence of one public-spirited citizen of Santiago.
In the process of its repacking for wholesale distribution from the various centers, the department was able to give much individual aid in clothing to those cases whose needs were made known to it. Not among the fewest of these were the soldiers whose privations and forlorn condition would have to be actually seen to be fully appreciated. The officers, being unable to procure the necessary articles of clothing, food and medicine for themselves, their men and their sick, the Red Cross had the privilege of lending a hand to these brave men who so uncomplainingly suffered danger, hardship, exposure, sickness and death for their country’s sake, and who so gratefully appreciated the least office done for them. As one man said to me: “The Red Cross has been a fairy godmother to us men.”
BRINGING IN THE WOUNDED.
CLEARING FOR A CROSS ROAD.