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The United States Sanitary Commission was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War.〔The official warrant or order for the organization of the Sanitary Commission appears to have issued from the War Department office, Sunday, 9 June 1861, and to have received President Lincoln's signature four days subsequently.〕 It operated across the North, raised an estimated $25 million in Civil War era revenue (assuming 1865 dollars, $ million in ) and in-kind contributions to support the cause, and enlisted thousands of volunteers. The president was Henry Whitney Bellows, and Frederick Law Olmsted acted as executive secretary. It was modeled on the British Sanitary Commission, set up during the Crimean War, and from the British parliamentary report published after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.〔. Also, "''The New-York Times. Necessity of Sanitary Organization.''" (Vol. X, No. 3031: Sunday, June 9, 1861). p. 5, column 1. Retrieved: August 4, 2015. Additionally, the medical reports of Edmund Alexander Parkes including the British army medical dispatches, the findings of the Royal Sanitary Commission, and first-hand knowledge acquired by Florence Nightingale were compiled in her "''Notes On the Care and Treatment of Sick and Wounded During the Late War in the East, and On the Sanitary Requirements of the Army Generally''" (London: 1858). These were also considered in the establishment of the United States Sanitary Commission〕 ==History== Henry Whitney Bellows, a Massachusetts clergyman, planned the USSC and served as its only president.〔''Sanitary Commission'', p. 10. Rev. Dr. Bellows, President of the Commission, provided a graphic statement (following his preliminary tour through the Western encampments) in a letter to a New York auxiliary committee of finance. Camp diseases, the irregularity of life, exposure, filth, heat and crowded conditions were described in this letter.〕 According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', "its first executive secretary was Frederick Law Olmsted, the famed landscape architect who designed New York's Central Park". George Templeton Strong, New York lawyer and diarist, helped found the commission and served as treasurer and member of the executive committee. In June 1861, the Sanitary Commission setup its Central Office inside the Treasury Building downtown Washington, D.C. By late October 1861, the Central Office and the War Department had received detailed studies and reports from the Sanitary Inspectors of more than four hundred regimental camp inspections. The rapidly crowded events of those first six months of the war displayed the sheer gravity of the situation in which the adjustment to the means and agencies were desperately needed to ensure a high health-rate in all those untrained Union regiments.〔''Sanitary Commission''. pp. 16 - 22.〕 Immediately following the First Battle of Bull Run, the first orders and receipts submitted to the Central Office began to arrive from the military Union hospitals at Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., requesting water-beds, small tables for writing in bed, iron wire cradles for protecting wounded limbs, dominoes, checkerboards, Delphinium and hospital gowns for the wounded.〔''Sanitary Commission''. pp. 14 - 15. Additionally, money donations were requested by the Sanitary Commission to support these military Union hospitals. These funds were received by George T. Strong, Treasurer of the Commission, 68 Wall Street, N.Y., and George S. Coe, Treasurer of Central Executive Committee, American Exchange Bank, N.Y.〕 The demands of the war soon required more frequent decision-making. This led to the creation of the Standing Committee, which met on a nearly-daily basis in New York City where most of its members resided. The Standing Committee initially consisted of five commissioners who retained their position for the entire war: Henry W. Bellows, George Templeton Strong, William H. Van Buren, M.D., Cornelius R. Agnew, M.D., and Prof. Wolcott Gibbs., M.D.〔(US Sanitary Commission records in the New York Public Library )〕 Also active in the association was Col. Leavitt Hunt, a New York lawyer and photographer. In January 1864, he wrote to President Abraham Lincoln's secretary John George Nicolay asking that Nicolay forward him any documents he might have available with the President's signature. Hunt's mother, the widow of Vermont congressman Jonathan Hunt, planned to attach Lincoln's signature to copies of several casts of the President's hand, to be sold to raise funds for the war effort.〔(Letter from Col. Leavitt Hunt to John George Nicolay, January 1864, ''General Correspondence of Abraham Lincoln, American Memory, Library of Congress, accessed 23 September 2013 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States Sanitary Commission」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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