[290] In these were treated soldiers taken suddenly ill, convalescents who had overestimated their strength, and wounded whose condition forbade further travel. Some of the general hospitals established received high praise from Federal sources. For example, the lamented Doctor Stanford E. Chaille, of New Orleans, in a private letter written just before his death, tells of the capture of himself and his hospital at Macon, Georgia, by Wilson's cavalry, and goes on to say that he ‘was treated by General Wilson's medical director with marked consideration and to many favors, . . . and he urged me to continue in charge, on Federal pay, retaining my Confederate inmates, and admitting to separate wards Federal sick and wounded. My feelings were then too bitter to accept his generous offer.’ At the beginning of the war, many private hospitals were established wherever troops were stationed for any length of time. These were generally under the control of a committee of women anxious to do something for the good of the cause, and under the charge of a citizen-surgeon of their own selection. The nursing was almost exclusively volunteer, but rations were furnished in some cases by the Confederate Government. Many of these were well conducted and did good service, particularly during that period before the general hospitals were built and the medical staff thoroughly organized. When the Medical Department became able to take care of all the sick and wounded, it seemed best, for obvious reasons, that all sick and wounded should be brought under direct supervision of the Medical Department, and a majority of the private hospitals were discontinued. One of them, however, established in Richmond just after the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run) by Miss Sally L. Tompkins, deserves mention. Doctor William Berrien Burroughs says of this hospital:
Ten days after the battle, on July 30, 1861, entirely at her own expense she opened the Robertson Hospital (corner of Main and Third streets) which continued its mission of mercy to July 13, 1865. In
