ormed at the West, I
completed the entire organization of the four bureaus by the fifth of
March, 1863. Since the first of June, at these several bureaus, the
returns from every United States General Hospital of the army, 233 in
number, have been regularly received.

"The total number of names on record is 513,437. The total number of
inquiries for information has been 12,884, and the number of successful
answers rendered 9,203, being seventy-two per cent. on the number
received. The remaining twenty-eight per cent., of whom no information
could be obtained, are of those who perished in the Peninsula campaign,
before Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, etc."

In the Sanitary Commission, mentioned here, our soldiers have yet
another friend, for whom even our copious Anglo-Saxon can find no word
of description at once strong, wise, tender, and far-reaching; but
perhaps a simple story, taken from the Sanitary Commission Bulletin,
will speak more clearly, and better to the heart, than pages of dry
records.

"Away up in the fourth story of Hospital No. 3, and in a far corner of
the ward, was seen, one day, an old lady sitting by the side of a mere
lad, who was reduced to the verge of death by chronic diarrhoea. She
was a plain, honest-hearted farmer's wife, her face all aglow with
motherly love, and who, to judge from appearances, had likely never
before travelled beyond the limits of her neighborhood, but now had come
many a long mile to do what might be done for her boy. In the course of
a conversation she informed her questioner, that, 'if she could only get
something that tasted like home,--some good tea, for instance, which she
could make herself, and which would be better than that of the
hospital,--she thought it might save her son's life.' Of course it was
sent to her, and on a subsequent visit she expressed her thanks in a
simple, hearty way, quite in keeping with her appearance. Still she
seemed sad; something was on her mind that evidently troubled her, and,
like Banquo's ghost, 'would not down.' At length it came out in a
confiding, innocent way,--more, evidently, because it was uppermost in
her thoughts than for the purpose of receiving sympathy,--that her
means were about exhausted. 'I didn't think that it would take so much
money; it is so much farther away from home than I had thought, and
board here is so very high, that I have hardly enough left to take me
back; and by another week I will have to leave him. I ha