“ By this means thousands of wounded soldiers were removed with comparative comfort from the battlefields of the West to well-equipped hospitals in the North. A hospital car provided with a sort of swinging bed or hammock was invented by one of the members of the commission and was put into general use in moving wounded soldiers from the battlefields to the general hospitals. During the war 225,000 sick and wounded soldiers were transported in hospital cars from various battlefields in the East and West to the general hospitals. ”

“ Declining Government support on the ground that it preferred to remain independent, the commission addressed itself for funds to the life insurance companies of the country and to the people at large. ”

“ On April 29, 1861, the Women's Central Relief Association was organized at Cooper Union, New York, under a constitution drawn up by the Rev. Dr. Henry V. Bellows, and a committee was appointed to ask for the official recognition of the association. They were kindly received, but their request for the appointment of a board with power to visit camps and hospitals and to supervise the sanitary administration according to the approved ideas of sanitary science was refused. ”