The return of the "Brooklyn Phalanx," the First Long Island Regiment, under Colonel Cross, in January, 1864, was the occasion for an immense demonstration. The regiment had taken part in fourteen battles, and came home with 234 men out of 1000.
An event of the war period that is to be regarded as of the highest significance, not only for the relation it bore to the necessities of the war, but to the progress of the city, was what is known as the great Sanitary fair.
CRUISER BROOKLYN, BUILT IN 1858
This Brooklyn and Long Island fair was instituted by the War Fund Committee of Brooklyn and Kings County, and the Woman's Relief Association of Brooklyn, which was known as the Brooklyn Auxiliary of the United States Sanitary Commission. The fair committee was organized with A. A. Low as president. Arrangements for coöperation between all the churches and private and public societies in the city were efficiently perfected, and a public meeting was held at the Academy of Music in January, 1864. Meetings to promote the same object were held at Flatbush, Greenpoint, and elsewhere. Buildings were erected adjacent to the Academy to give shelter to the Museum of Arts, a restaurant, a department of relics and curiosities, and quarters for the "Drum Beat," a journal published during the fair, under the editorship of the Rev. Dr. Storrs and Francis Williams.
The fair opened on Washington's Birthday with a great military parade. The Academy presented a brilliant spectacle. The art display in the Assembly rooms was a triumph in the art annals of the city; the New England Kitchen ingeniously duplicated the features of a colonial New England domestic scene.
On March 11 the fair closed with a memorable calico ball. In the hall of manufactures was a huge broom, sent from Cincinnati, and bearing this inscription: "Sent by the managers of the Cincinnati Fair, Greeting: We have swept up $240,000; Brooklyn, beat this if you can." Brooklyn's reply, in the words of an individual respondent, was: "Brooklyn sees the $240,000, and goes $150,000 better." Such, indeed, were the superb figures of profit from this remarkable enterprise.
The fair has been much extolled for its influence on the city itself. "The first great act of self-assertion ever made by the city of Brooklyn," is a typical comment on the event. However the fair may be regarded in this light, it was a brilliantly successful effort. The service of the Women's Relief Association, of which Mrs. J. S. T. Stranahan was the distinguished leader, was in the highest degree admirable.
The Christian Commission for Brooklyn and Long Island, to act in concert with the United States Christian Commission, was organized in March. Before the close of the war this commission had sent out 1210 Bibles and parts of the Scriptures; 4033 psalm books and hymn books; 50,544 magazines and pamphlets; 177,520 newspapers and periodicals, and other printing, making up a total of 1,078,304.
The Supervisors of the county repeatedly took measures to stimulate volunteers. In July (1864) the Board directed its bounty committee "to pay to any person furnishing an accepted volunteer or recruit for three years' United States service, the sum not exceeding $300, the same as paid to any drafted man furnishing a substitute, and to be paid upon the like certificate of the United States officer, and without regard to the person furnishing such recruit being liable to be drafted into the United States service."