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.