As I was obliged to leave the War Department before an answer came, Major Eccles drove up to the house of my friend, where I was stopping, with the telegraphic order, turning over the property to the Association. The gift of the barracks and the hospital supplies aggregated $52,000. I was lifted to the clouds, figuratively speaking, and rushed to the telegraph-office, and sent off despatches to the newspapers in Iowa. The next morning all the leading papers in Iowa appeared with great head-lines announcing the magnificent gift. Before Congress met we had bought out the heirs of the confiscated property, remodelled and plastered the buildings, and had nearly five hundred soldiers’ orphan children comfortably housed there. Hon. Hiram Price, a member of Congress from the Davenport District, took charge of our bill, and carried it through Congress without annoyance to Mr. Stanton. The fact that we had possession, and were housing and supporting so many soldiers’ orphan children in these barracks, made opposition almost impossible. With this valuable property in our possession, it was an easy task to induce the State Legislature to take this burden off our hands and make it a State institution. The frame barracks have been replaced by substantial brick buildings; but the Home is still conducted on the cottage plan, and is one of the finest institutions of the State. Edwin M. Stanton’s generous action in giving this timely help to a weak society secured the success of a worthy institution, that has educated and sent out thousands of children to be good and useful citizens. Mr. Stanton was one of the strong, true, honest men who made Mr. Lincoln’s administration a success. He was intensely loyal, and intolerant to treason and self-seeking, and he made traitors tremble on both sides of the line. He was, more than any other man, the balance-wheel in the complicated machinery of the government which held and regulated its internal workings. He was a clear and close thinker, a keen and sagacious discerner of human motives, a tireless worker, and was too open and frank to conceal his opinions of men and things. Too unselfish to enrich himself, he toiled on, literally killing himself at work, and dying poor. When passion and prejudice have passed away he will receive his full meed of praise. THE SPECIAL-DIET KITCHEN WORK. No part of the army service was so defective, during the first two years of the war, as the cooking department in the United States government hospitals. Few of the men employed as cooks in these hospitals were trained or skilled; most of them had obtained their knowledge of cookery after being assigned to duty, under most unfavorable circumstances, and without the proper facilities for doing their work. One general kitchen provided the food for all--the sick, the wounded, and the dying, as well as the nurses and convalescents.