YMCA postcard of soldiers crossing a pontoon bridge. ""YMCA prisoner-of-war work --which was to be undertaken on a massive scale in the following century's two world wars -- began during the Civil War, with the YMCA ministering to the needs of Confederate soldiers imprisoned in the north and Union soldiers in the south. Journals record that the YMCA through the U. S. Christian Commission distributed some 100,000 cases of food, clothing and medical supplies, and a total of 12 million books, magazines and pamphlets. Volunteer ""delegates"" wrote an estimated 90,000 letters for the sick and wounded, and distributed $1000 a week in postage for troop correspondence. During the period of peace after the Civil War, the YMCA continued its services, largely in state militia camps. New programs and services were introduced, including the military's first recreational and sports programs and counseling services for military personnel. The tradition of serving the troops beyond the nation's borders began during the Spanish-American War, when YMCA staff and volunteers were dispatched to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. YMCA supplies, including medicine and office materials, reached Cuba before the army's own supplies; and early dispatches from Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders were written on YMCA stationery. Similar army use of YMCA stationery occurred during military operations in Europe a few years later. General John J. Pershing, appreciative of the support that the YMCA had provided the Army during action along the U. S.- Mexican border, at the beginning of the Great War would task the YMCA with enormous responsibilities. In the years before that war, the YMCA had developed mobile canteens and recreational facilities and had broad expertise in service to the armed forces. It was an expertise that would soon blossom into a massive program of morale and welfare services for the military on the home front and particularly overseas. When war was declared in 1917, the YMCA immediately volunteered its support, and President Woodrow Wilson quickly accepted it. The YMCA assumed military responsibilities on a scale that had never been attempted by a nonprofit, community-based organization in the history of our nation and would never be matched again. It was at the conclusion of that war that the military services began to institutionalize the massive human services work carried out by the YMCA."" (http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/ymca.htm) SEE MSS 259-042 for an explanation of the YMCA's post-war work.