U. S. SANITARY COMMISSION, 
No. 90. 
CIROTJLAB 
ADDRESSED TO THE 
BR ANCHES AND AID SOCIETIES 
TRIBUTARY TO THE 
U. S. SANITARY COMMISSION. 
MAY 15, 1865. 
WASHINGTON, D. 0.: 
PRINTED BY McGILL & WITHEROW. 
1865. >. ^anitarg ifanwtiwiw, 
Central Office, 
Washington, D. C., May 15, 1865. 
To the Branches and Soldiers' Aid Societies tributary 
to the United States Sanitary Commission : 
At the late quarterly session of the Board of the U. S. 
Sanitary Commission, held at Washington, April 18-21, the 
President and General Secretary were requested to prepare 
an address to the various Branches and Aid Societies co- 
operating with the Commission, and awaiting instructions 
from the Commission as to their present and future duty. 
Since that period such rapid changes have occurred in the 
military situation, affecting so materially the work of the 
Commission, that it has been impossible, until now, to arrive 
at a satisfactory conclusion as to the probable demands to 
be made upon us. 
While our work in the field is rapidly drawing to a close, 
there remains much to be done by the Commission within 
the approaching two months for the relief and comfort of 
our armies as they return from their long marches and ex- 
hausting service. New depots of supplies have already 
been established at the several points where these armies are 
to rendezvous and encamp preparatory to their discharge. 
The abandonment of the Post and Base Hospitals must 
increase for the time the already large number of patients in 
General Hospital, while the necessary aid to be extended 4 
to the various garrisons during the interval preceding the 
more permanent adjustment of the new military status must 
make large drafts upon our resources. The supplies now 
available at our several depots are wholly insufficient to meet 
this final but urgent demand upon the Supply Service; and, 
deeming it important both for the actual relief of existing 
needs and for the consistent completion of this work of the 
people, continued now through four successive years of 
faithful co-operation, that our issues be not meagre or our 
care neglectful, we call upon our Branches and Aid Socie- 
ties to maintain their usual system and activity up to the 4th 
July next, persevering in their work until that time with 
unabated energy, and with an intelligent appreciation of the 
necessity of the case. 
It is confidently anticipated that their labors in contribut- 
ing supplies to the hospitals and the field may properly term- 
inate at that date, unless wholly improbable and unexpected 
events arise to make such conclusion of their work unpa- 
triotic and inhumane. Timely notice will be given if any 
such necessity occur. 
In the meantime the rapid disbanding of our armies 
and their immediate return to their relations in civil 
life will devolve upon our Branches and Aid Societies 
a new and important work, to be performed under 
their immediate supervision, and necessitating the mainte- 
nance of their organization for an indefinite period. The 
occasion for this continued effort grows out of the fact that 
these returning soldiers, by their military service, have be- 
come more or less detached from their previous relations, 
associations, and pursuits, which are now to be re-established. 
Many of these men will be not only physically but morally 
disabled, and will exhibit the injurious effects of camp life 
in a weakened power of self-guidance and self-restraint, in- 
ducing a certain kind of indolence, and, for the time, indispo- 
sition to take hold of hard work. The possession of money 5 
in the majority of cases will increase the inducements to 
idleness and dissipation, as well as the exposure to imposition. 
To protect the soldier from these evils and temptations, 
naturally resulting from his previous military life, is a duty 
which is now owed to him by the people, as much as was 
the care extended to him, through the Commission, while 
in active service in the field; for we are to regard the future 
necessity that may exist for help and guidance to returned 
soldiers as no less a condition incident to the war than 
the wounds and sickness to which the supply agencies of the 
Commission have hitherto so generously ministered. 
In submitting to our Aid Societies a practical plan of 
work adapted to these new conditions, our object is to sug- 
gest such methods as will aid the process by which these 
men are to resume their natural and proper relations in 
civil life. 
The first and most important means in the accomplish- 
ment of this object will be found in a systematic provision 
for securing suitable occupation to all these returned men, 
adapted, where necessary, to the condition of those partially 
disabled, thus constituting each Branch and Aid Society 
a "Bureau of Information and Employment," by which the 
light occupations in all towns, and whatever work can be 
as well done by invalid soldiers as by others, shall be re- 
ligiously given to the men 'who may have incapacitated 
themselves for rivalry in more active and laborious fields of 
duty by giving their limbs, their health, and their blood to 
the nation. 
To this end, and to guard against the possibility of 
imposition, the names of all men who have enlisted from 
each town and city should be obtained and preserved, and a 
record kept that shall gather all facts material to the 
work in hand; which, while it will be the means of 
collecting most useful information, will, at the same 
time, constitute an invaluable contribution to the his- 6 
tory of the war. Carefully prepared forms for this pur- 
pose will be furnished from the Central Office of the 
Commission, to which monthly returns will be made, and 
where they will be duly tabulated. These results will be 
promptly transmitted each month to the several Aid Socie- 
ties, to furnish whatever guidance they may for the wise 
prosecution of the work. 
The co-operation of our Aid Societies in extending in- 
formation concerning the various agencies of the Commis- 
sion for the relief and aid of discharged soldiers and their 
families will constitute another important service which 
they may render. 
Some of these agencies are of a character which will not 
terminate with the disbanding of our armies, but will find 
their largest held of activity and usefulness during the year 
succeeding the close of the war. 
The Commission is rapidly extending its system of Claim 
Agencies to all the principal cities and centers of population 
throughout the country. Through these agencies all claims 
of soldiers or sailors and their families are adjusted with the 
least possible delay and without charge, thus securing to the 
applicants the full amount of the claim as allowed, and ex- 
emption from the heavy tax, and often gross imposition and 
fraud, to which they are subjected by the ordinary methods. 
The evils to which the discharged soldier is exposed in the 
adjustment of claims against the Government are of so grave 
a nature that no effort should be spared to secure to him the 
benefits of this agency of the Commission's work. Regard- 
ins* the Local Aid Societies as the natural guardians of the 
soldiers and the supervisors of the work of the Commission 
in their respective towns or cities, it is desired that they will 
exercise a careful superintendence of this work, promoting by 
every practicable means its efficiency, and making sure that 
every returned soldier in their vicinity and the family of 
every deceased soldier is actually informed of the aid gratu- 
itously offered them by this agency of the Commission. 7 
The maintenance of the organization of our Aid Societies 
will preserve to the Sanitary Commission the means of com- 
municating with the people, from time to time, upon such 
topics as concern the continued welfare of returned soldiers, 
and especially in regard to the more permanent provision 
which it will be necessary to make for disabled soldiers, inca- 
pable of self-support. It is the profound conviction of the 
Sanitary Commission, that the peculiar genius and beauty 
of American institutions is to show itself in the power which 
the ordinary civil, social, and domestic life of the nation ex- 
hibits to absorb rapidly into itself our vast army, and restore to 
ordinary occupations those who have been fighting our bat- 
tles ; while the sick and the wounded are distributed through 
the country, objects of love, care, and restoration, in the 
several communities where they belong, instead of being 
collected in great State and national asylums, objects of 
public ostentation, and subjected to the routine, the isola- 
tion, and the ennui of an exceptional, unfruitful, and un- 
happy existence. Public provision of this latter kind, as 
free from its evil as may be, must be made for a certain 
small class of the friendless and the totally disabled; but 
humanity and American feeling demand that this class 
should be reduced to the smallest possible number through 
the zeal and friendliness shown towards our returning inva- 
lid soldiers in the towns from which they originally came. 
The Sanitary Commission will soon lay before its Branches 
and the public plans for such asylums for disabled and 
discharged soldiers as it may be necessary to establish. 
Reserving the expression of our gratitude to our Branches 
and Soldiers' Aid Societies to a later period, we remain in 
behalf of the Board, 
Yours, faithfully and truly, 
H. W. BELLOWS, 
President. 
JNO. S. BLATCHFORD, 
General Secretary.