Courtesy/YMCA

From YMCA.net

The YMCA had only existed in American for 10 years when the Civil War separated the country into North and South. The New York and Chicago YMCAs raised troops for the North, while several YMCAs in the South also did so. In 1861, 5 Northern YMCAs came together to create the “U.S. Christian Commission” for the relief of soldiers on the battlefield.

A conference with President Abraham Lincoln led to the full-scale recruitment of YMCA volunteers, eventually numbering 5,000, who served as surgeons, nurses and chaplains. These volunteers distributed medical supplies, food and clothing, and even taught soldiers to read and white.

Y volunteers wrote more than 90,000 letters for the sick and wounded, and distributed $1,000 per week in stamps for solders’ letters home. The YMCA’s Christian Commission also published a “record of the Federal Dead” which helped many bereaved families find their fallen sons. Forty-three Christian Commission volunteers, including three women, lost their lives during service.

American poet Walt Whitman served in the Y’s Christian Commission and called his service, “the greatest privilege and satisfaction …and most profound lesson of my life.”

One Confederate YMCA began during the war in a federal prison camp at Johnson’s Island, Ohio. However, only two southern YMCAs survived the War Between the States: the Richmond (Va.) and Charleston (S.C.) YMCAs.

Although it would take several decades for YMCAs to regain their former strength in both the North and South, the work of the Y during the war had brought the movement great prestige among both Federal and Confederate troops.