WOOLLEN MITTENS.—An officer from West Point who commands one of the finest regiments in the service, suggests that woollen [sic] mittens for the soldiers will be greatly needed when the cold weather begins. Will not all who can employ themselves in this way, help to furnish 500,000 pairs? They should be knit with one finger to allow the free use of the first finger and thumb. It is said there were more soldiers disabled in the Crimean war from frost bitten fingers than from any other cause.

The U.S. Sanitary Commission was a civilian organization authorized by the federal government in June 1861 to promote clean and healthy conditions in camps and hospitals to reduce the number of soldiers who died of disease during the Civil War. By November 1861, the work of the Sanitary Commission had reached Delaware as this request for mittens for soldiers that appeared in the November 5, 1861, edition of the Delaware State Journal and Statesman illustrates.

According to some accounts, at least 75% of the Commission’s work was providing food, clothing, bandages, and medicine to soldiers in the field and in hospitals.Women in communities around the country took up the cause and started sewing societies in their communities to lend a hand with this work:

SEWING SOCIETIES–It gives us pleasure to be able to state that the sewing circles proposed to be organised [sic] in the several churches, for the purpose of co-operating with the National Sanitary Committee at Washington, for the relief of our sick and wounded soldiers, are being rapidly formed. We understand that the ladies connected with Bishop Lee’s church went to work yesterday; and the ladies of other congregations will begin in a day or two. We may therefore soon expect to hear a good report from the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of loyal little Delaware, in behalf of the suffering men who are in camps and hospitals, sick and wounded in their country’s service.

Men were encouraged to donate or help raise money for the sewing societies’ mission so that the women could “keep their fingers busy,” as one November 1861 newspaper reported. The Commission also had donation collection sites in New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Louisville, Kentucky, where volunteers sorted through donations and prepared them to be forwarded to troops in on the battle front or in hospitals.

The U.S. Sanitary Commission existed from 1861-1879. After the war ended, members were involved with helping servicemen and their family members file for back pay, pensions, and other related benefits. The Commission also published a journal called The Bulletin, beginning in November 1863, to broadcast their work and their calls for donations. The editors wanted the publication to be a place where “all the information necessary to soldiers or to soldiers’ families,” like information on pensions, furloughs, how to communicate with prisoners of war, how to get sick men home, and “everything about the burial of the dead” could be found. Some editions of The Bulletin have been digitized and can now be found on Google Books.

Other sources: U.S. Sanitary Commission Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1-12, History of Delaware: 1609-1885 by John Thomas Scharf, New York Public Library’s United States Sanitary Commission Records Processing Project.