The collection of back pay, bounties, and pensions,—how many have a definite idea of this work? Not many, I suspect. Yet it takes all the time of many persons to accomplish it, and it was the branch of Sanitary work which awakened in my own mind the deepest regard; for it has its foundation in a higher virtue than any mere sentimental charity,—yea, in the highest virtue known in heaven or on earth,—justice. However impossible it may be to prevent such occurrences, certainly it is a cruel and undeserved hardship to a soldier who has served faithfully and fought for his country, and has perhaps been wounded and almost died at the post of honor and duty, that he should be unable to obtain his hard-earned pittance, when, too, he needs it for his own comfort, or when it may be that his family need it to keep them from absolute suffering.
Look at a single class of these collections,—the back pay of sick men. Government, we all allow, must have some system in its disbursements. It should not pay money without a voucher, and the proper voucher of a soldier is the pay-roll of the regiment or company of which he is a member. Now a sick or wounded man drops out of the ranks. He gets into a field hospital to which he does not belong. He is transferred from one hospital to another, from hospital to convalescent camp, and finally, it may be, is put on the list of men to be discharged for physical disability. Meanwhile his commanding officer does not know where he is, cannot trace him thinks it very likely that he is a deserter. On pay-day the man's name is not on the roll, and, having no voucher, he gets no money. You say that there ought to be a remedy. There is none. It would be difficult to devise one. What shall the soldier do? He cannot go from point to point to collect evidence, for he is sick. Besides, he is utterly ignorant of the necessary forms. If he applies to a lawyer, it costs him often from one half to three quarters of all he gets. Very likely the lawyer cannot afford to take care of one or two petty cases for a less price. In this emergency the Commission steps in, and, with its knowledge of routine and its credit in all quarters, obtains for the poor fellow for nothing what he has in vain sought for in other ways. Take one single case, and what they would call at the Relief Office an easy case. Study it attentively, and you will get an idea of all cases,—and you will understand, moreover, how much work has to be done, and how impossible it would be for a sick man to do it.
Charles W. J—— is a member of Company K, One Hundred and Twenty-First New York Regiment, and he has been transferred to this company and regiment from Company F of the Sixteenth New York. He has been thus transferred for the reason that the Sixteenth New York is a two years' regiment, whose time has expired, while he is a three years' recruit, who has a year or two more to serve. Now he claims that pay is due him from November 1, 1863, to August 1, 1864, and that he needs his pay very much to send home to his wife. He represents that he was at Schuyler Hospital from the time he left the ranks until December 17, 1863; that then he was sent to Convalescent Camp, New York Harbor; and on December 29 to Camp of Distribution at Alexandria; whence, February 8, 1864, he was brought to Staunton Hospital, Washington, where he now is. He has never joined his new regiment, has only been transferred with others to its rolls. His new officers have never seen him, and do not know where he is. The relief agent hears the story and then sets about proving all its details: first, that the man was a member of the Sixteenth New York Regiment; second, that he has been transferred to the One Hundred and Twenty-First Regiment; third, that he has never been paid beyond November 1, 1863; fourth, that he has really been in the various hospitals and camps which he mentions. This evidence is procured by writing to agents and surgeons at convalescent and distributing camps, and at Hospital Schuyler, and by examining the rolls of the Sixteenth and One Hundred and Twenty-First Regiments. In a few days or weeks the man's story is proved to be correct, and he is put into a position to receive his pay,—a satisfaction not simply in a pecuniary sense, but also to his soldierly pride, by removing an undeserved charge of desertion.
Now I beg my readers not to imagine that this is a difficult case. At the Relief Rooms they treasure up and mysteriously display, much as I suspect a soldier would flaunt a captured battle-flag, a certain roll of paper, I dare not say how many yards long, covered with certificates from one end to the other, obtained from all parts of the country and from all sorts of persons, and all necessary in order to secure perhaps a three or six months' pay of one sick soldier. The correspondence of the back-pay department is itself a burden. From thirty to forty letters on an average are received daily at one of its offices. They are written in all languages,—English, German, French,—and must be read, translated, and the ideas, conveyed often in the blindest style, ascertained and answered.
A new branch has been recently added,—the collection of pay for the families of those who are prisoners in Rebeldom. But as this involves no new principles or fresh details, I pass it by. Another class of cases should receive a moment's notice. This includes the collection of bounties for discharged soldiers, of pensions for wounded soldiers, of bounty, back pay, and pensions for the families of deceased soldiers, and of prize-money for sailors. These cases are not, as a general rule, as intricate as those which I have already considered, inasmuch as the proper departments have a regular system of investigation, and take up and examine for themselves each case in its turn. All that the Commission does is to put the soldier on the right track, and to make out and present for him the fitting application. It undertook this because Washington was infested with a horde of sharpers, who, by false representations, defrauded the soldiers out of large sums.
I cannot more appropriately close this branch of my subject than by stating the simple fact, that during the months of July and August the relief agents examined and brought to a successful issue 809 cases of back pay and bounty-money, averaging $125,—203 cases of invalid pensions, 378 cases of widows' pensions, and 10 cases of naval pensions, averaging $8 a month,—and 121 cases of prize-money, averaging $80.
I have only to add that the amount of good which can be done in this direction seems to be limited only by the capacity of those who undertake to do it. A relief agent said to me, in conversation, that in one hospital in Philadelphia there were several hundreds who claimed, but were unable to collect their just dues,—and that what was true of this hospital was true to a less extent of all of them.
The Hospital Directory is a most interesting branch of Sanitary work. Not because it will compare with many other branches in extent of usefulness, but because it shows what a wide-reaching philanthropy is at work, seeking to furnish every possible alleviation to the inevitable hardships of war. Whoever has at any time had a sick or wounded friend in the army knows how difficult it often is to obtain any intelligence about him. I have in mind a poor woman, who exhausted every resource in seeking to ascertain the whereabouts of a sick son, and who never received any tidings of him, until one day, months after, he came home, worn-out and broken, to die. The regiment is in active service and passes on, while the sick man goes back. He has several transfers, too,—first to the corps hospital on the field, then to the army hospital at City Point, then to Washington, and very possibly again to some hospital in Baltimore, Philadelphia, or other city or town farther north, and on that account believed to be more healthy. Meanwhile, amid all these changes, the man may be delirious, or from some other cause unable to communicate with his friends. How shall they get information? The Commission undertakes to keep a correct list of all the sick and wounded men who are in regular hospitals. They obtain their information from the official returns of the surgeons. I do not mean to say that these lists are absolutely correct. They approximate as nearly to correctness as they ever can, until surgeons are perfectly prompt and careful in their reports.
The amount of work done is very great. Seven hundred thousand names have been recorded in this Directory, between October, 1862, and July, 1864. From ten to twenty-five applications for information are made each day by letter, and from one hundred to two hundred and fifty personally or through the various State agencies. Branch offices, working upon a similar plan, have been established at Louisville and elsewhere.