But I must desist and crave pardon for my (perhaps unpardonably) long letter, for if you have followed me thus far, and especially at comparatively as rapid a rate as I have written, you must be weary. I did not intend to say so much, but let my interest be my apology. And with one more final word in answer to your rational question I have done. Ladies, remember that the call for your organized efforts in behalf of our army was _not_ from any commission or committee, but from Abraham Lincoln and Simon Cameron, and when they no longer need your labors they will tell you. But all this preliminary work bore in upon the mind of Clara Barton two important truths. The first was a necessity for organization. People were ready to give if they knew where to give and how their gifts would be made effective. The problem was one of publicity, and then of effective organization for distribution. But the other matter troubled her yet more. Supplies distributed from Washington and relief given to men there reached the wounded many hours or even days after the beginning of their needs. What was required was not simply good nurses in hospitals and adequate food and medicine for the soldiers who were conveyed thither, but some sort of provision on the battle-field itself. In later years she described her own misgivings as she considered the kind of service that ought to be rendered, and of the difficulties, including those of social duties, which might stand in the way: I was strong and thought I might go to the rescue of the men who fell. The first regiment of troops, the old 6th Massachusetts that fought its way through Baltimore brought my playmates and neighbors, the partakers of my childhood; the brigades of New Jersey brought scores of my brave boys, the same solid phalanx; and the strongest legions from old Herkimer, brought the associates of my seminary days. They formed and crowded around me. What could I do but go with them, or work for them and my country? The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins. The country which he had fought for, I might at least work for, and I had offered my service to the Government in the capacity of a double clerkship at twice $1600 a year, upon discharge of two disloyal clerks from its employ--the salary never to be given to me, but to be turned back into the United States Treasury, then poor to beggary, with no currency, no credit. But there was no law for this, and it could not be done, and I would not draw salary from our Government in such peril, so I resigned and went into direct service of the sick and wounded troops wherever found. But I struggled long and hard with my sense of propriety--with the appalling fact that I was only a woman whispering in one ear, and thundering in the other, the groans of suffering men dying like dogs, unfed and unsheltered, for the life of every institution which had protected and educated me!