eighteen months hospital tents enough to cover 96,000 men. After the army of McClellan reached Harrison's Landing, hospital tents to cover 10,000 men were sent to it, in addition to all it had received before. The hospital tents alone provided for the army would cost at present prices not less than $960,000.

In conclusion, no nation has ever, I believe, made such large, such prodigious provision for its sick and wounded soldiers. It is the greatest charity on earth. It has been the duty of the Quartermaster's Department under my charge to make a part of this provision, and I believe it has been faithfully and efficiency done, but the nation gets not the credit it deserves. Complaint and criticism and misrepresentation injure our cause by decreasing the confidence of the people in their Government.

I would not have written this hasty letter amid engrossing occupations which leave no time to digest or arrange it, but that I hope through you, who seem to hold a ready critical pen, that some little of the truth may be made known to the people, and that they may be relievcing upon them that their Government neglects their brothers when sick and wounded in their service. I have marked this confidential, because I do not with it to be published. I do not wish to enter into controversy, but I wish you to be possessed of some of the facts in the case, and I trust to your patriotism and sense of justice to devote yourself hereafter to an endeavor to undo the cruel wrong you have helped to do the Government and the people. An example of the unintentional injustice done the Quartermaster's Department by these publications from very good and well-meaning people occurs to me, which is ludicrous in its enormity. It is only one, but is worth remembering, when tempted to criticize the acts of the Government whose scope and magnitude are so little understood.

The Sanitary Commission applied to the Quartermaster-General for some steamers to be fitted up under their care for carrying the sick and wounded from the daily expected contest on the Peninsula. Orders were given accordingly, and the quartermaster allowed them to superintend the fitting out of several chartered steam transports and two large sailing ships for this purpose. Some of the agents or members of the Sanitary Commission were established on board. These vessels were all chartered and paid for by the Quartermaster's Department, which paid from $400 to $1,200 a day for each of them for many weeks, while awaiting the anticipated and long delayed battle, but still employing the vessels in transporting the victims of disease, much more numerous than the wounded. This expenditure probably reached $5,000 or $6,000 a day. Judge of my surprise at seeing notices in the New York papers of the noble fleet of seven steamers, all flying the flag of the Sanitary Commission, provided by their benevolent exertions for the sick and wounded soldiers so much neglected by the heartless quartermasters and medical officers; glowing tributes to the liberality and enterprise of the sanitary gentlemen contrasted with the niggardly policy of the Government and its officers! Probably the Sanitary Commission spent upon this fleet, whose honors it carried off, $100 or $200 a day, while the niggardly Government spent its daily thousands. Now, all this was well meant. There was no intention on the part of the gentlemen of the Sanitary Commission to claim for themselves undeserved credit, but the impression on the public is that detailed above; and it was unjust and most injurious, though it doubtless swelled the charitable contributions which they, I believe,