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August, 1863 AD (search for this): chapter 17
hand to be given a comrade who was quite seriously wounded, yet could hobble along with a shoulder to lean on. The designating mark of members of the ambulance corps was, for sergeants, a green band an inch and a quarter broad around the cap, and inverted chevrons of the same color on each arm, above the elbow; for privates the same kind of band and a half chevron of the same material. By means of this designation they were easily recognized. By orders of General Meade, issued in August, 1863, three ambulances were allowed to a regiment of infantry; two to a regiment of cavalry, and one to a battery of artillery, with which it was to remain permanently. Owing to this fact, an artillery company furnished its own stretcherbearers when needed. I shall be pardoned the introduction of a personal incident, as it will illustrate in some measure the duties and trials of a stretcher-bearer. It was at the battle of Hatcher's Run, already referred to, or the Boydton Plank Road, as som
1860 AD (search for this): chapter 17
sometimes dwellings or barns near camp. It was partly to relieve these that brigade hospitals were established. The latter were located near their brigade or division. The hospital tent I have already described at some length. I may add here that those in use for hospital purposes before the war were 24 feet long by 14 feet 6 inches wide, and 11 feet 6 inches high, but, owing to their great bulk and weight, and the difficulty of pitching them in windy weather, the size was reduced, in 1860, to 14 feet by 14 feet 6 inches, and 11 feet high in the centre, with the walls 4 feet 6 inches, and a fly 21 feet 6 inches by 14 feet. Each of these was designed to accommodate eight patients comfortably. Army Regulations assigned three such tents to a regiment, together with one Sibley and one Wedge or A tent. The Sibley tent I have likewise quite fully described. I will only add here that, not having a fly, it was very hot in warm weather. Then, on account of its centre pole and the
1861 AD (search for this): chapter 17
, about twenty inches apart. If boards were wanting, two good-sized poles were cut and used instead. Between these was the passage for the surgeons and nurses. Behind the boards or poles a filling of straw or fine boughs was made and covered with blankets. On these latter could be placed twenty patients, ten on either side; but they were crowded. When six single cots were put in one of these tents, three on each side, ample space was afforded to pass among them. In the latter part of 1861, the government, realizing its pressing needs, began to build general hospitals for the comfort A two-wheeled ambulance. and accommodation of its increasing thousands of sick and wounded, continuing to build, as the needs increased, to the very last year of the war, when they numbered two hundred and five. Before the civil war, the government had never been supplied with carriages to convey the sick and wounded. Only two years before, a board, appointed by the secretary of war, had ado
1862 AD (search for this): chapter 17
the most part country physicians, many of them with little practice, who, on reaching the field, were, in some respects, as ignorant of their duties under the changed conditions as if they had not been educated to the practice of medicine; and the medical director of the army found his hands more than full in attempting to get them to carry out his wishes. So, to simplify his labors and also to increase the efficiency of his department, brigade hospitals were organized about the beginning of 1862, and by general orders from the war department brigade surgeons were appointed, with the rank of major, and assigned to the staffs of brigadier-generals. These brigade surgeons had supervision of the surgeons of their brigades, and exercised this duty under the instructions of the medical director. The regimental hospitals in the field were sometimes tents, and sometimes dwellings or barns near camp. It was partly to relieve these that brigade hospitals were established. The latter wer
1863 AD (search for this): chapter 17
for this purpose, yet, being strapped tightly to the body of the animal, they felt his every motion, thus making them an intensely uncomfortable carriage for a severely wounded soldier, so that they were used but very little. The distinguished surgeon Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, whose son, Lieut. Bowditch, was mortally wounded in the cavalry fight at Kelly's Ford, voiced, in his Plea for an ambulance system, the general dissatisfaction of the medical profession with the neglect or barbarous treatment of our wounded on the battle-field. This was as late as the spring of 1863. They had petitioned Congress to adopt some system without delay, and a bill to that effect had passed the House, but on Feb. 24, 1863, the Committee on Military Affairs, of which Senator Henry Wilson was chairman, reported against a bill in relation to Military Hospitals and to organize an Ambulance Corps, as an impracticable measure at that time, and the Senate adopted the report, and there, I think, it dropped.
February 24th, 1863 AD (search for this): chapter 17
or this purpose, yet, being strapped tightly to the body of the animal, they felt his every motion, thus making them an intensely uncomfortable carriage for a severely wounded soldier, so that they were used but very little. The distinguished surgeon Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, whose son, Lieut. Bowditch, was mortally wounded in the cavalry fight at Kelly's Ford, voiced, in his Plea for an ambulance system, the general dissatisfaction of the medical profession with the neglect or barbarous treatment of our wounded on the battle-field. This was as late as the spring of 1863. They had petitioned Congress to adopt some system without delay, and a bill to that effect had passed the House, but on Feb. 24, 1863, the Committee on Military Affairs, of which Senator Henry Wilson was chairman, reported against a bill in relation to Military Hospitals and to organize an Ambulance Corps, as an impracticable measure at that time, and the Senate adopted the report, and there, I think, it dropped.
November 27th, 1863 AD (search for this): chapter 17
rn, held the surgeons and assistant surgeons and officers of ambulance corps to a strict accountability for a careful performance of their duties, while the latter fortified themselves by judicious oversight of their subordinates, the result was to place this department of the army on a footing which endured, with the most profitable of results to the service, till the close of the war. I vividly remember my first look into one of these field hospitals. It was, I think, on the 27th of November, 1863, during the Mine Run Campaign, so-called. General French, then commanding the Tiird Corps, was fighting the battle of Locust Grove, and General Warren, with the Second Corps, had also been engaged with the enemy, and had driven him from the neighborhood of Robertson's Tavern, in the vicinity of which the terrific Battle of the Wilderness began the following May. Near this tavern the field hospital of Warren's Second Division had been located, and into this I peered while my battery
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