STLToday.com

Home > Buy historic photos & newspaper pages
Look Back: Civil War Fundraiser
Date: 5/20/2011 Album ID: 1250311
Photos by Missouri History Museu,Mercantile Library and Washington University
Slideshow icon View Slideshow
by Tim O'Neil --- The Grand Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, a fund-raiser for Union troops in the Civil War, opened on May 17, 1864. The Ladies’ Union Aid Society was the driving force of the Western Sanitary Commission, which sought to fill yawning gaps in Army medical care. Through its closing June 18, the fair raised $550,000 to give Union soldiers hospital care, clean garments and warm meals.
Anna Clapp, president of the Ladies' Union Aid Society in St. Louis, which raised money and collected bandages and other assistance for Union soldiers during the Civil War. Clapp and her husband, Alfred, a merchant, moved here from New York state in the 1850s. Many of her fellow Aid Society leaders were transplants from the Northeast and her fully committed to the Union cause. When Southern-sympathizing neighbors threatened to remove the American flag flying from the Clapp home, she said, You can only reach the flag over my dead body. It stayed. (Missouri History Museum)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
A scene at the Grand Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, held from May 17 to June 18, 1864, in St. Louis to raise money for assisting Union troops, their families and freed slaves. The fair was held in a temporary building erected for that purpose in the middle of 12th Street (Tucker Boulevard) on the two blocks north of Olive Street. It had 54 booths that sold food, clothing, needlework and Missouri-made wine and beer. Many members of the Ladies' Union Aid Society members wanted to ban beer, but relented in a nod to the many pro-Union and pro-beer German immigrants in St. Louis. This booth was named for Gen. U.S. Grant, who had lived for a time in St. Louis and was, at the time of the Sanitary Fair, leading a series of bloody battles in Virginia against the Confederate army of Gen. Robert E. Lee. (Missouri History Museum)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
Another booth at the fair. The city's public schools and private schools each sponsored a booth. The fair was sponsored by the Western Sanitary Commission,an organization created in St. Louis in September 1861 to help soldiers in the Western theater. It was modeled after the U.S. Sanitary Commission, formed in June that year. Both were intended to help fill the yawning gaps in medical care that the Union Army provided for its soldiers. The commissions hired nurses, supervised the manufacture of bandages and clothing items and assisted at military hospitals. The Western Sanitary Commission also outfitted five hospital steamboats that brought wounded and sick soldiers from the battlefields in Tennessee and Mississippi to the hospitals in St. Louis. It worked closely with the Ladies' Union Aid Society. (Missouri History Museum)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
A view of the midway at the fair, with all the bunting and flags. (Missouri History Museum)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
Adeline Couzins, a leader of the Ladies' Union Aid Society who served as a nurse for the Western Sanitary Commission. She worked on the hospital steamboats and the temporary hospitals on the front lines, including those during the battles of Shiloh, Tenn., and Vicksburg, Miss. She suffered frostbite while with troops during a campaign in winter 1862 and was wounded by a rifle shot during the siege of Vicksburg the following year. Her husband, John Couzins, was St. Louis police chief during the Civil War. The original St. Louis Police Board was secessionist in sympathy, but pro-Union forces took control in summer 1861 and hired John Couzins. (Missouri History Museum)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
Phoebe Couzins, a daughter of Adeline and John Couzins. She often met her mother on the steamboat landing in St. Louis when the boats brought wounded soldiers for treatment. An attractive woman in her early 20s, she also was elected Queen of Flowers during a Sanitary Commission fundraiser at the new Lindell Hotel, at Sixth Street and Washington Avenue, in 1863. She became the first woman graduate of the Washington University School of Law and became a leader in the women's suffrage movement after the war. (Missouri History Museum)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
The Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot, a Unitarian minister and pastor of the Church of the Messiah in St. Louis. He was an abolitionist and spoke from the pulpit in favor of the Union cause. He proposed creating the Western Sanitary Commission. In 1853, he had been a co-founder of Washington University. (Washington University)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
James Yeatman, president of the Western Sanitary Commission. The Tennessee-born businessman was a member of Eliot's congregation, which drew most of its membership from natives of the Northeast. He was a president of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce and a founder of the St. Louis Mercantile Library. Yeatman successfully resisted early efforts of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, based in Washington, to take over the Western Sanitary Commission. (Mercantile Library)
Email Page to FriendEnlarge this Photo
MyCapture, Inc. - A Second Street Media, Inc. Solution
© MyCapture, Inc. - A Second Street Media, Inc. Solution All rights reserved.

FAQ | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Order Status