The Pennsylvania Commissioners were well qualified for the duties assigned to them, and which required they should make a tedious and uncomfortable journey of 2,500 miles and of nearly three weeks’ time. They were heartily welcomed at Knoxville, and gave to its Association a memorandum of their own Society’s judgment concerning the distribution of supplies. They advised first, that the provisions should be given away to those who were unable to buy, and secondly, that to all other applicants they should be sold; the preference to be given, among both classes, first to Union families who had suffered on account of their loyalty; second, to families, who, without having specially suffered, had adhered throughout to the Federal Government; thirdly, to people who, whatever their past conduct, had given their adhesion to the United States. Lastly, they recommended that the old men, women and children of families which then had representatives in the Confederate army should be permitted to share in the bounty, no part of which, they thought, was intended for secessionists of the fighting age. The plan thus proposed was adopted by the Knoxville Association, and practically observed. The Pennsylvania Commissioners informed themselves as far as possible concerning the destitution said to prevail throughout the region. Before they reached Knoxville, refugees had been arriving there daily in growing numbers and some of them slept of necessity in the open air. Gen. Carter, U. S. Provost Marshal, and Wm. G. Brownlow, U. S. Treasury Agent, provided shelter for the needy. Rations were also issued to them for a time and until the necessities of the army prevented.[59] The destitution was found to be all that it had been represented to persons at a distance.