(Photo)
In April 1861, Rev. Henry Bellows of New
York
organized a number of separate women's
aid
organizations into the Women's
Central Association of Relief. On May
18, Bellows
and three eminent medical men, seeing
the great
need
for organization
and coordination of the benevolent
activities as
well as improvement in cleanliness of
the
soldiers'
camps, proposed to
the secretary of war that a commission
of
civilians, medical men, and military
officers be
organized to regulate and
develop the country's soldiers' aid
activities.
On
June 7, the administration reluctantly
agreed to
the
naming of a
"Commission of Inquiry and Advice in
Respect to
the
Sanitary Interests of the United States
Forces,"
which became known
as the U.S. Sanitary Commission,
the forerunner of the American Red
Cross.
President Abraham Lincoln's first call
for
troops to put down the Southern
rebellion evoked
an
unsolicited
outpouring of food, clothing, medical
supplies,
and
money from individual citizens for the
care and
comfort of the
Union soldiers. Some individuals banded
together
in
aid societies to care for the units
formed from
their locality,
but the mostly uncoordinated flood of
material
resulted in a chaos of rotting
food-stuffs and
undelivered but badly
needed supplies.