As money was more and more needed, Mrs. Livermore decided to try a Sanitary Commission Fair in Chicago, then her home. The women said, “We will raise $25,000,” but the men laughed at this as an impossibility. The farmers were visited and solicited to give vegetables and grain. Fourteen of Chicago’s largest halls were hired. The women had gone into debt $10,000, and the men of the city began to think and declare them crazy. The Board of Trade called on them and advised that the Fair be given up; the debts should be paid and the men would give the $25,000 when, in their judgment, it was needed. The women thanked them courteously, but pushed forward in their work. It had been arranged that the farmers should come on the opening day, in a procession, with their gifts of vegetables. Of this plan the newspapers made great sport, calling it the “potato procession.” The day came: The school children had a holiday, the bells were rung; one hundred guns were fired, and the whole city gathered to see the “potato procession.” Finally it arrived--great loads of cabbage and onions, and over four thousand bushels of potatoes. The wagons each bore a motto draped in black, with the words: “WE BURIED A SON AT DONELSON,” “OUR FATHER LIES AT STONE RIVER,” and other similar inscriptions. The flags on the horses’ heads were bound with black. The women, who rode beside a husband or son, were dressed in deep mourning. When the procession stopped at Mrs. Livermore’s house, the jeers were over, and the dense crowd wept like children. Six public halls were filled with things for sale, while eight were closed so that no other attraction might compete with the Fair. Instead of $25,000, the women cleared over $100,000! Then Cincinnati followed with a Fair, making $225,000; Boston, $380,000; New York, $1,000,000; Philadelphia, $200,000 more than New York.