Only a part of the "Tynehead's" cargo was in bags; hence for convenience and economy in handling and the final distribution, we purchased in St. Petersburg and Riga 43,000 additional bags to sack the rest of the cargo, which in all amounted to nearly 117,000 bushels of shelled corn, 11,033 bags of flour and meal, besides small amounts of wheat, rye, bacon, canned goods, drugs, etc., requiring 307 Russian freight cars for its transportation. Some of this was reshipped on steamboats sent up the headwaters of the Volga, reshipped again on cars nearly to the foot of the Ural Mountains, a distance of 3,000 miles from Riga. Notwithstanding our declaration while in St. Petersburg that neither the Red Cross nor the American people desired any public ceremonies in the way of acknowledgments: dinners, excursions and public demonstrations and illuminations were planned, which we felt ourselves obliged to decline on the ground we had first taken, that any effort and any money proposed to be used in this manner would be most acceptable to all Americans if turned into food for the hungry, whom we had come to help.
At our hotel the Russian and American colors were crossed over the entrance; in the shop windows were the American colors, and in other places, where it seemed that these were not easily procured, title-pages of American sheet-music were displayed--such as "America," "Hail Columbia," "Yankee Doodle," "Star-Spangled Banner," etc, and little boys in the streets carried American flags of their own make. One little fellow had made the Russian flag on one side and the American on the other side of his device. The telephone office was kept open all night, to be ready for any possible want, and the locomotive with steam up for any possible service. The Custom House floated on its main staff only the American flag during the entire time of the unloading of the "Tynehead," from Saturday morning until Tuesday noon--three days and a-half. When all was finished at Riga, the last train on its way, all had been so well planned, so well done in every particular that we felt there was not the least necessity for any further attention on our part in looking after this charge. But to the donors at home Russia was a long way off; they had no personal knowledge of the people they were trying to help, and some critics had circulated misgivings about the gifts reaching their intended destination. Hence, that we might be prepared to give a report from personal observation for the satisfaction and the gratification of the people at home, who had contributed these stores, it was decided to see how some of the final distributions were made.