taste and industry, wc would direct attention
to a particularly elegant quilt, formed ot
stripes of embroidered silk, fringed with white.
Numerous donat ions have been sent to the club.
They are all to be seen, duly labelled with the
names of the donors, at Mrs. Clark’s table.
List of the club : President, Miss Kate Hart;
Treasurer, Miss Mayer; Secretary, Miss Edith
Poher; Members, Misses Wetzlns, Asch, Dan
iels, llowland, Derg, and Schoneman.
HOW THE SANITARY IS WORKING IN THE
FIELD—NO. 3
[Krttm Onr CnmsiHmtlt'iit with tlie rntmimc Army.]
White House, Va., Juno 4, 1804,
In my last letter I referred especially to the
mercantile phase of the Commission, which
may. perhaps, be more readily understood by
(lie good people who contribute so generously
to its treasury and store houses, by referring
to the more immediate plan of the local and
branch societies. The town and village as
sociations send their boxes to the branch of
fice, say in Philadelphia, accompanied by in
voices of their contents. On receipt of these
boxes at the Philadelphia office, their contents
are compared with their accompanying in
voices, the latter duly filed and acknowledged.
The contents are then duly classified and ar
ranged in separate boxes, ready for shipment
to Washington or elsewhere, at a moment’s
warning. When ordered, and shipped to
Washington, the same system is repeated, thus
duplicating the record, and when forwarded
from Washington to the base of supplies for
either field, a triple statement is filed, and
every precaution used that is possible to pre
vent, not only fraud, but neglect. I present
below a list of goods on hand at this water
base at the present date, for the benefit of the
army, which is being distributed now to the
hospitals, and to the wounded, who are crowd
ing here by thousands, for whom there is no
room in the hospitals. Of the manner of dis
tribution I shall speak hereafter:
1. Redding and Hospital Supplies—lo,lll
pieces, 18 boxes, 1 hogshead, 2 barrels.
2. Wearing Apparel —10,309 pieces, 13;
3. Hospital Food and Delicacies 22,030
pounds, 1-48 barrels, 100 half-barrels, 399 gal
lons, 4,040 bottles, 24 packages, 100 dozen of
egg, 70 boxes of lemons, 150 boxes, 11 kegs,
17,000 cans, 3;] sacks and bales, 200 '-cans.
4. Miscellaneous—s7o bottles, 24} barrels,
2,032 tierces, 11 boxes, 43 bales, 935 pounds,
400 bushels.
5. Stationery 0 reams, 9,458 envelopes,
1,110 pencils, 72 bottles.
Supply wagons go to the front and carry
supplies to the corps wagons, which distribute
as directed by the superintendent of that de
partment.
Relief agents, who are here, distribute to the
wounded as they arrive, and continue their
disbursements daily.
Steamers, as they leave for northern hospi
tals, loaded with wounded, are furnished with
Otte IDai IFa.:r:e-
stores, dressers and nurses, who with their
own hands supply the men with needed com
forts.
We arc absent twenty miles from the field
of battle, and over this distance the wounded
are drawn in wagons. The time occupied in
transporting them is from fifteen to twenty
hours.
Before they leave the field, the relief agents
there dress their wounds and supply their
wants ns far as possible, the worst cases being
retained under medical care.
To-day about about fifteen hundred came in,
and could our friends have witnessed their ar
rival, and participated in their care, they
would have realized a far richer compensation
for their labors than they ever did before. An
account of the organization of the auxiliary
relief corps will be omitted for the present.
Its work, however, will be referred to, as an
occasion will thus bo furnished for a few inci
dents of personal interest.
The wounded are lying in an open field in
the rear of Feeding Station No. 1. They have
been taken from the heavy wagon train ; vacant
places in hospitals are filled, and then blankets
arc spread on the grass, and the men are laid
in rows upon them. Among them was the
32d Regiment Pennsylvania Reserves, its colo
nel and many men wounded. Vermont, Michi
gan, New York and New Jersey, and doubtless
many other States were represented in that
group; all of them uncomplaining and endu
ring. Their spirit of patience in suffering is
beyond praise.
One who was shot in three places, and
unable to move one limb in which were two
balls, and another in the arm of the same side,
was lying on his back, looking up towards the
sun, and bearing on his face the expression of
deep suflering, responded pleasantly to the
inquiry, “ What do you most need ?” “ No
thing, sir, but water and patience.” I thought
he had it in abundant measure.
Another, with a wound in his breast—a
ball having passed into his right lung—was
lying upon his right side, and without com
plaint, waited his turn, asking only for a drink
of water, and then he could endure till his
comrades were attended to, and they in turn,
finding he was more seriously injured than any
who were near him, insisted that he should be
first attended to.
Another, with a ball still rankling among his
tendons, said, “My trust for myself is the
Lord, and I have the same trust for my coun
try. I bear my wounds for the sake of both.
Another, more seriously wounded, but of a
more jolly temperament, as he was borne on a
stretcher from a wagon, cried out to those
about him, “We whipped ’em bully, boys, and
they’ll be more bully whipped yet. Hurrah
for Grant and the Union.” He was unable to
stand or sit up, but was as buoyant and hope
ful as the above expression indicates.
A little aside from the field of wounded, a
few coffins, with their tenants, were awaiting
shipment, and a lonely corpse, blanketed and
labelled, was watched by a comrade, who was
earnest for a decent burial, which, under
the charge of the Commission agent, to whom
that department is assigned, was doubtless se
cured. Of this interesting service, more here
after. Suffice it to say that even this last rite
of honorable burial is secured to the dead by
a responsible agent,.
Before nightfall the steamer Winonah was
ready to receive as many as she could con
tain of those who were to be shipped. She
took on board about four hundred and fifty
wounded, a large supply of sanitary stores,
and twelve nurses and dressers of the Sanita
ry Commission. The Utica left a few hours
afterwards, under charge of the Christian Com
mission, and drew up along side of the Sani
tary Commission supply barge, for supplies,
before her departure. These two boat loads
have gone towards what the soldiers call so
significantly, “God’s country.”
Yours, &c.,
the harvest moon.
BY THE LATE BIS HOT l)OAN E
[An Unpublished Pieeo.]
Harvest moon, so called, is a remarkable
phenomenon, relating to the rising of this lu
minary in the harvest season. During the
time she is full, and a few days before and
after, (in all about a week,) there is less dif
ference in the time of her rising, between any
two successive nights, (in other words she is
more constant) than when she is full, in any
other month of the year. For the ichy ; she
thus affords an immediate supply of light after
sunset, which is very beneficial in gathering in
the fruits of the earth. Hence the name.
Second, for the because,. To understand the
matter, it must be borne in mind that the
moon is always opposite to the sun when she
is full; that in our harvest months, she is full
in the signs Pisces and Aries, which are the
signs opposite to Virgo and Libra, where the
sun is at that season ; and because those parts
of the ecliptic rise in a shorter space of time
than any others. The moon, when she is
about her full, in harvest, rises with less dif
ference of time, for several successive nights,
or more immediately after sunset, than when
she is full at other seasons of the year. It
may be observed that this phenomenon is much
more conspicuous in the high latitudes, than
near the Equator. God’s wise providence be
stows the benefit where, from the shortness of
the days, it is most valuable,
PRINTED by Rixowalt & Brown, 111 * 113 South 4th
Street, Philadelphia, for the Groat Central Fair in
aid of the United States Sanitary Commission.
G. W. D.