(1814-82) Clergyman, Reformer and Writer. Best remembered as the founding force and President of the U.S. Sanitary Commission during Civil War. After graduating from Harvard and Harvard Divinity School he briefly held a pastorate in the South but moved to New York where he was pastor of the All Souls Unitarian Church in New York from 1839 until his death in 1882. By the 1840s he had established a national reputation as a pulpit orator and lyceum lecturer and was considered the leader of the Unitarian Church in America, editing its weekly the Christian Inquirer. In 1857 he delivered a series of lectures on the Treatment of Social Diseases and at the outbreak of the Civil War he founded the U.S. Sanitary Commission of which he was President from 1961-78. The Sanitary Commission played a key role in the Union victory by promoting clean and healthy conditions in Union camps, staffing field hospitals and raising money throughout the country to provide hospital supplies. It also worked to educate both the military and the government on health and sanitation issues. Post War it played an important role in standing up for Union Vets, especially in obtaining pay, pensions and benefits. The Commission's use of women led to the formation of other women's movements. As a reformer, he was the first President of the Civil Service Reform Association (1887), organized the Union League and the Century Association of New York City. Along with his friend Peter Cooper, he played a key role in the founding of Cooper Union. In 1865 Bellows founded an organization to try to bring Protestant churches into closer association and was chairman of the council of the organization from 1865-80. Upon his death Augustus Saint-Gaudens created a bronze memorial in his honor. His books include Restatements of Christian Doctrine in Twenty Five Sermons, Unconditioned Loyalty (one of the most highly circulated pamphlets of the Civil War), The Old World In Its New Face: Impressions of Europe (2 Volumes), etc. Sig., "Respectfully yours, H. W. Bellows," cut from a letter and mounted.

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