The Daily Dispatch: June 22, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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[Communicated.]
the Hospital at Culpeper C. H.

The General Hospital of the Military Department of the Potomac has been placed at Culpeper C. H. There are already, as always happens, many sick soldiers there. As the forces of the Department are receiving constant increase, and as the casualties of battle may in due time be added to the assaults of disease, we must expect to see this number increased.

Meantime the surgeons in charge, though supplied with medicines, find themselves in want of many things requisite for a sick man, and such is the pressure of the multitudinous cares attending the sudden creation of a large army, these necessities may be expected in future. In these painful circumstances, the good ladies of the little village and the vicinity have come to the rescue with their purses, their larders, their needles, and their personal services, and have done for our sick soldiers a generous and blessed work, for which their only earthly reward is the enthusiastic gratitude of the poor fellows whom they have relieved. Nor do they grow weary in well doing, although this labor of love grown daily on their hands.

But it is perfectly obvious that the work of charity may be expected soon to assume proportions by which their strength will be utterly overwhelmed. While Culpeper has furnished her due share of volunteers for the war, it is not fair to respect this one neighborhood of the county to be burthened with the whole care of the sick of a great army, drawn from a large part of Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It seems to me as much as we can ask of them to bestow time and labor for the relief of those whom Providence thus throws upon their Christian charities, while the people of all the region from which these troops come should take upon themselves, as a privilege, the providing of all the materials needed for their benevolent ministry. I therefore take this method, unsolicited by the people of the place, to suggest to the charitable, and especially to all Christian females as a most appropriate way of doing good, the contribution of such things as are needed in a large hospital. Let each wife, sister and mother throughout the South, who extends her aid to those generous sisters in Culpeper, remember that perhaps her husband, her brother, her son may be in the hospital before this campaign closes, to feel the bitter need of such comforts. Let me assure them, of all the sorrowful incidents of war, the military hospital, even under the best regulations, is the most mournful; it is far more dreaded by the soldier than the battle-field. With all that an abounding charity can do to alleviate its evils, untold discomforts will still be endured by multitudes, and that by men who at home have been accustomed to every comfort. In every war, ‘"the pestilence that walketh in darkness"’ destroys more than ‘"the destruction that wasteth at noonday."’ Hence it follows that to save the precious lives and health of our sick soldiers, is the best generalship and the truest patriotism; and every one who has a beloved relative in the army can surely comprehend something of the heart-sinking and dreamy home-sickness with which the strong man lies down, wilted by disease, amidst the scores of the strangers sick and the hireling nurses, as he thinks of his peaceful home far away, (which he thinks he shall most likely see no more,) and of the loving hands that would tend his sick couch there. Remember that though your particular gift may not cheer the one you love in the hour of his suffering and despondency, it will cheer some other, and will be a cheap thank offering to the Providence who has raised up friends for your friend.

The articles which will be seasonable and useful will suggest themselves to every experienced householder. I would specify, particularly, money for procuring necessaries and servants' attendance, rice, tea, white sugar, corn starch, crackers, and other articles of food not perishable in their nature; mattresses and bed-ticks, with pillow slips, stout sheets, worsted socks, shirts and drawers, even if half worn; cheap calico for screens and comforts; cotton batting and raw cotton; cheap spoons, plates and drinking cups, (best of pewter or tin) blackberry and port wines; wash basins, foot-baths and towels.--Those who are disposed to contribute such articles, can send them by railroad via Gordonsville, to the ladies of the Hospital Association, care of Messrs. Cooper and Fouchee, Culpeper Court-House, Va. And may not the liberal donors reasonably ask that the Orange and Alexandria, and other railroads, will transport these free-will offerings free of charge? R. L. Dabney,

Chaplain of 18th Reg't Va. Volunteers.