this success? Is there no chapter of abortive plans, of unfaithful
agents, of surgeons and attendants appropriating or squandering
charitable gifts? These are questions which are often honestly asked,
and the doubts which they express or awaken have cooled the zeal and
slackened the industry of many an earnest worker. There is no end to the
stories which have been put in circulation. I remember a certain
mythical blanket which figured in the early part of the war, and which,
though despatched to the soldier, was found a few weeks after by its
owner adorning the best bed of a hotel in Washington. To be sure, it
seemed to have pursued a wandering life,--for now it was sent from the
full stores of a lady in Lexington, and now it was stripped perhaps by a
poor widow from the bed of her children, and then it was heard from far
off in the West, ever seeking, but never reaching, its true destination.
Without heeding any such stories, although they have done infinite
mischief, I answer to honest queries, that I have no doubt that
sometimes the stores of the Commission are both squandered and
misappropriated. I do not positively know it; but I am sure that it
would be a miracle, if they were not. It would be the first time in
human history that so large and varied a business, and extending over
such a breadth of country and such a period of time, was transacted
without waste. Look at the facts. Here are thousands of United States
surgeons and attendants of all ages and characters through whose hands
many of these gifts must necessarily go. What wonder, if here and there
one should be found whose principles were weaker than his appetites?
Consider also the temptations. These men are hard-worked, often scantily
fed. Every nerve is tried by the constant presence of suffering, and
every sense by fetid odors. Would it be surprising, if they sometimes
craved the luxuries which were so close at hand? Moreover, the
Commission mission employs hundreds of men, the very best it can get,
but it would be too much to ask that all should be models of prudence,
watchfulness, and integrity.

I allow, then, that some misappropriation is not improbable. At the same
time I do say, that every department is vigilantly watched, and that the
losses are trivial, compared with the immense benefits. I do say,
emphatically, that to bring a wholesale charge against whole classes,
whose members are generally as high-minded and honorable as any other,
to accu