s a large three-story
building, with three or four one-story buildings added on each side.
Here there is furnished food for all; then one hundred and fifty beds
for those who are not really sick, but only ailing and worn-out; then
bathing-rooms; and, finally, a reading-room. There is here, too, a
hospital ward, with the requisite nurses and medical attendance. In this
ward I saw a little boy, apparently not over twelve years of age, who
had strayed from his home,--if, alas, he had one!--and followed to the
field an Ohio regiment of hundred-days' men, and who had been taken sick
and left behind. Who he was or where from nobody knew. Tenderly cared
for, but likely to die! A sad sight to look upon! One feature more.
Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday a physician goes from the home in
Washington to New York, taking charge of those who are too sick or too
crippled to care for themselves; while the relief agents procure for the
sick soldier the half-price ticket to which he is entitled, or else give
him one, and such articles of clothing as are needful to send him in
comfort to his own home.

I must not fail to speak in this connection of another beautiful
ministry,--the home for soldiers' wives and mothers. A soldier is like
other human beings. In his sickness he yearns for a sight of the
familiar faces, and sends for wife or mother; or wife or mother, unable
to bear longer the uncertainty, when she can get no tidings from the
absent, starts for Washington. There, searching vainly for husband or
son, she spends all or nearly all her money. Or if she finds him, it may
well be that he has no funds with which to help her. In the little
buildings on one side of the refuge for the sick are rooms where some
sixty-five can receive decent lodging and nourishing food; and if
actually penniless, the Commission will procure them tickets and send
them back to their friends.

We often hear people wondering, almost in a skeptical tone, where all
the Commission's money goes. When I was at Washington and City Point, I
only asked where it all came from. Consider what it must cost simply to
feed and lodge these soldiers and their wives at Washington. And then
remember that this is but one of many similar homes scattered
everywhere: at Baltimore, Washington, and Alexandria, in the Eastern
Department; at Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, in the Western; at
New Orleans and Baton Rouge, in the Southwestern; and at many another
place beside