was wanted for the relief of the wounded sailors and soldiers of the
Union languishing in the Eastern hospitals. Right on the heels of it
came word that San Francisco had responded superbly before the telegram
was half a day old. Virginia rose as one man! A Sanitary Committee was
hurriedly organized, and its chairman mounted a vacant cart in C street
and tried to make the clamorous multitude understand that the rest of the
committee were flying hither and thither and working with all their might
and main, and that if the town would only wait an hour, an office would
be ready, books opened, and the Commission prepared to receive
contributions. His voice was drowned and his information lost in a
ceaseless roar of cheers, and demands that the money be received now–
they swore they would not wait. The chairman pleaded and argued, but,
deaf to all entreaty, men plowed their way through the throng and rained
checks of gold coin into the cart and skurried away for more. Hands
clutching money, were thrust aloft out of the jam by men who hoped this
eloquent appeal would cleave a road their strugglings could not open.
The very Chinamen and Indians caught the excitement and dashed their half
dollars into the cart without knowing or caring what it was all about.
Women plunged into the crowd, trimly attired, fought their way to the
cart with their coin, and emerged again, by and by, with their apparel in
a state of hopeless dilapidation. It was the wildest mob Virginia had
ever seen and the most determined and ungovernable; and when at last it
abated its fury and dispersed, it had not a penny in its pocket.
To use its own phraseology, it came there “flush” and went away “busted.”
After that, the Commission got itself into systematic working order, and
for weeks the contributions flowed into its treasury in a generous
stream. Individuals and all sorts of organizations levied upon
themselves a regular weekly tax for the sanitary fund, graduated
according to their means, and there was not another grand universal
outburst till the famous “Sanitary Flour Sack” came our way. Its history
is peculiar and interesting. A former schoolmate of mine, by the name of
Reuel Gridley, was living at the little city of Austin, in the Reese
river country, at this time, and was the Democratic candidate for mayor.
He and the Republican candidate made an agreement that the defeated man
should be publicly presented with a fifty-pound sack of flour by the
successful one, and should carry it home on his shoulder. Gridley was
defeated. The new mayor gave him the sack of flour, and he shouldered it
and carried it a mile or two, from Lower Austin to his home in Upper
Austin, attended by a band of music and the whole population. Arrived
there, he said he did not need the flour, and asked what the people
thought he had better do with it. A voice said:
“Sell it to the highest bidder, for the benefit of the Sanitary fund.”
The suggestion was greeted with a round of applause, and Gridley mounted
a dry-goods box and assumed the role of auctioneer. The bids went higher
and higher, as the sympathies of the pioneers awoke and expanded, till at
last the sack was knocked down to a mill man at two hundred and fifty
dollars, and his check taken. He was asked where he would have the flour
delivered, and he said:
“Nowhere–sell it again.”
Now the cheers went up royally, and the multitude were fairly in the
spirit of the thing. So Gridley stood there and shouted and perspired
till the sun went down; and when the crowd dispersed he had sold the sack
to three hundred different people, and had taken in eight thousand
dollars in gold. And still the flour sack was in his possession.
The news came to Virginia, and a telegram went back:
“Fetch along your flour sack!
Thirty-six hours afterward Gridley arrived, and an afternoon mass meeting
was held in the Opera House, and the auction began. But the sack had
come sooner than it was expected; the people were not thoroughly aroused,