to the period of embarkation of the patients upon them, for the sake of compactness and completeness in the grouping of incidents. A similar service in the Western rivers the same year was larger in its scope, and in some of its arrangements more satisfactory, but it was at the same time less homogeneous in character. For the style of the letters quoted, this only need be said: they were, for the most part, addressed to intimate friends, with no thought that they could ever go beyond them, or, as in the case of those addressed by the Secretary to the President of the Commission, were in the nature of familiar and confidential reports; nearly all were written hastily, in some chance interruption to severe labor,—often with a pencil, while passing in a boat from one vessel to another. Passages may be found which are not merely descriptive of the Hospital Transport service, but they contain thoughts springing from the occasion, and which will serve to fasten pictures of scenes and circumstances with which that service was associated, and which are now historical.[1] Footnote 1: The letters were all written by two officers of the Commission and six ladies serving with them. As the different writers are quoted from in succession, and the same occurrences are often described from more than one point of view, a capital letter at the head of a paragraph will indicate the change from one writer to another. The officers will be known by the letters A. and B.; the ladies, by the letters M. and N. It should be understood that the account is not intended to be complete in any respect, and that no attempt has been made to give public credit to individuals for their services, whatever these may have been. It is known that to do so in some cases where public gratitude is most deserved would give pain; to do so in all cases would greatly swell the bulk of the volume. In general terms only it may be said, that among the surgeons who freely gave their aid in the enterprise were numbered some of the leading members of the profession,—among those who served as administrative officers, matrons, and nurses, the most honored historical families of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were represented. The class termed Ward-masters was mainly composed of medical students of two years, with some young men of Philadelphia who had had previous experience in caring for sick soldiers in the noble local charities of that city. It included, also, some students of theology. The responsibility for the detail of care of the patients was chiefly with this class, and the devotedness, pliability, and practical talent with which they generally met this responsibility was too remarkable to be passed without at least this simple reference to it as one of a class of facts of the war.