The nursery at 28 East 20th Street in the early years of the Civil War missed its chief deity, my father. From the letters exchanged by my mother and father, preserved by each of them, I have formed a clear realization of what it meant to that nursery to lose for almost two years the gay and vigorous personality who always dominated _his_ environment as did later his son. Mr. William E. Dodge, in a very beautiful letter written for the memorial meeting of the Union League Club in February, 1878, just after my father’s death, gave the following interesting account of my father’s special work in the Civil War. This letter was read after an eloquent speech delivered by Mr. Joseph H. Choate. The part of the letter to which I especially refer ran as follows: “When the shadows of the coming war began to grow into a reality he (Theodore Roosevelt) threw himself with all his heart and soul into work for the country. “From peculiar circumstances he was unable to volunteer for military service, as was his wish, but he began at once to develop practical plans of usefulness to help those who had gone to the front. “He became an active worker on the Advisory Board of the Woman’s Central Association of Relief, that wonderful and far-reaching organization of patriotic women out of which grew the Sanitary Commission. “He worked with the ‘Loyal Publication Society,’ which, as many of our members know, was a most active and useful educating power in the days when there was great ignorance as to the large issues of the conflict. “He joined enthusiastically in the organization of the Union League Club, was for years a most valued member of its executive committees and aided in the raising and equipment of the first colored troops. “His great practical good sense led him to see needs which escaped most other minds. He felt that the withdrawal from the homes of so many enlisted men would leave great want in many sections of the country. He saw the soldiers were more than amply clothed and fed, and their large pay wasted mostly among the sutlers, and for purposes which injured their health and efficiency. So with two others he drafted a bill for the appointment of Allotment Commissioners, who without pay should act for the War Department and arrange to send home to needy families, without risk or cost, the money not needed in the camps. For three months they worked in Washington to secure the passage of this act--delayed by the utter inability of Congressmen to understand why anyone should urge a bill from which no one could selfishly secure an advantage. “When this was passed he was appointed by President Lincoln one of the three Commissioners from this State. For long, weary months, in the depth of a hard winter, he went from camp to camp, urging the men to take advantage of this plan. “On the saddle often six to eight hours a day, standing in the cold and mud as long, addressing the men and entering their names.