Bearing the People's Love: The U.S. Sanitary Commission in Virginia, 1864

Formed in the first days of the Civil War, the the United States Sanitary Commission was composed of civilian volunteers devoted to the health of Union soldiers, through medical education, food deliveries, and even medical care near the battle-field. It was called by one admirer “the great artery bearing the people’s love to the people’s army.”

Ranger Maddie’s talk will detail how Commission members, some working near Rural Plains, cared for the multitudes of wounded soldiers felled at the Battle of Totopotomy Creek and elsewhere during the 1864 Overland Campaign.