Use Restrictions

Public Domain. There are no known restrictions.

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Preferred Citation

"Two Reports Concerning the Aid and Comfort Given by the Sanitary Commission to Sick Soldiers Passing through Washington" by Frederick N. Knapp, Special Relief Agent, C0430, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Purchased by Lynn Eaton from L&T Respess Books in November 2019.

Processing Information

Processing completed by Meghan Glasbrenner in May 2024. Finding aid completed by Meghan Glasbrenner in June 2024.

Biographical and Historical Information

The United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) was a government authorized civilian organization established in 1861, at the start of the Civil War, to provide medical and sanitary assistance to Union volunteer forces. These assistance services included distribution of supplies, food, and medicine to soldiers, outfitting of hospital ships, soldiers' homes, and relief lodges, inspecting and maintaining standards in military hospitals and relief stations, and recruitment and fundraising efforts. While the USSC formally ended its war relief operations in the fall of 1865, following the end of the Civil War, it continued some special relief operations and oversaw reports and records arrangement projects until officially ending its work on January 7, 1879.

Rev. Frederick Newman Knapp was born on November 19, 1821 in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts to Jacob Newman and Louisa (Bellows) Knapp. Raised largely in New Hampshire, Knapp graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1847 and served as a Unitarian Minister in Brookline, Massachusetts until 1855, when complications with recovery from an omnibus injury forced him to resign his position. Following his recovery, Knapp was recruited in 1861 to serve the USSC as superintendent of the Special Relief Department, which focused on helping soldiers in "irregular circumstances" or whose needs fell outside the scope of standard government provisions, such as contacting families of soldiers in cases of sickness or death, assistance with completing government paperwork, and helping soldiers return to civilian life, particularly in providing support for disabled veterans and their families. Following the Civil War, Knapp returned to his work as a minister, serving in both Yonkers, New York and Plymouth, Massachusetts. He passed away on January 12, 1889 at the age of 67 and is buried in Plymouth's Oak Grove Cemetery.

Frederick Law Olmsted was born on April 26, 1822 in Hartford, Connecticut. Considered the founder of American landscape architecture, Olmsted is today best known as the designer of the grounds of New York City's Central Park, the U.S. Capitol, the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Olmsted left his job as superintendent of Central Park to serve as Secretary General of the USSC until illness forced him to resign in 1863. He passed away on August 28, 1903 at the age of 81 and is buried in Hartford's Old North Cemetery.

Scope and Content

Printed pamphlet titled "Two Reports Concerning the Aid and Comfort Given by the Sanitary Commission to Sick Soldiers Passing through Washington" written by Frederick N. Knapp, Special Relief Agent addressed to Secretary of the Sanitary Commission Fred. Law Olmsted. The reports detail and examine the measures taken to improve conditions of Union soldiers in Washington, D.C. in the early American Civil War.

The First Report, dated September 23, 1861, begins on numbered page 1 and goes through numbered page 12. The Second Report, dated October 21, 1861, begins on an unnumbered page (assumed to be 13) and ends on numbered page 19, the final printed page of the pamphlet. Both reports have been printed on a single double-sided oversized piece of paper and have not been cut into a booklet, with the exception of numbered pages 17-19 which have been cut from two smaller individual papers and adhered to numbered page 16.

Arrangement

This is a single item collection.

Related Material

The Special Collections Research Center has other Civil War collections, including the William Darke Briscoe Civil War diaries collection and the Milton Barnes papers .

The Massachusetts Historical Society holds the Frederick Newman Knapp Papers and The New York Public Library's Manuscripts and Archives Division holds the United States Sanitary Commission records .

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Medical care
• Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822-1903
• United States -- Armed Forces -- Medical care
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Medical care
• United States Sanitary Commission
• Washington (D.C.)