organizations,--but rather to tell just what it is doing, precisely where the money goes, and exactly what kinds of good are attempted. * * * * * The work of the Sanitary Commission may be naturally and conveniently classed under five heads. First, the work undertaken for the prevention of sickness and suffering. Second, the Special Relief Department. Third, the Hospital Directory. Fourth, the assistance given to stationary hospitals. Fifth, the grand operations in the front, on or near the actual battle-field. * * * * * The efforts for the prevention of suffering and sickness are first in order of time, and possibly first in importance. When this war commenced, we had no wounded and we had no sick. What we did have was a crowd of men full of untrained courage, but who knew little or nothing about military discipline, and as little in regard to what was necessary for the preservation of their health. What we did have was hundreds and thousands of officers, taken from every walk of life, who were, for the most part, men of great natural intelligence, but who did not at all comprehend that it was their duty not only to lead their men in battle, but to care for their health and their habits, and who had never dreamed that such homely considerations as what are the best modes of cooking food, what are the most healthy localities in which to pitch tents, what is the right position for drains, had anything to do with the art of war. What we did have was surgeons, many of whom had achieved an honorable reputation in the walks of civil life, but who, on this new field, were alike inexperienced and untried. The manifest danger was, that this mass of living valor and embodied patriotism would simply be squandered,--that, as in the terrible Walcheren Expedition, or in the Crimea, the men whose strength and courage might decide a campaign would only furnish food for the hospital and the grave.