The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 7: Prisons and Hospitals.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

Interested convalescents

The mosquito-nettings which covered the couches of the sick and wounded have been draped above their heads to give them air and preparatory to the surgeon's visit. the time is evidently summer. In the vignette below, the white cloud has descended, and all is quiet save for the one patient seen crawling into his couch. Although the transmission of disease by mosquitoes had yet to be demonstrated, these soldiers were thoroughly insured. Against self-infection, however, they could not be protected. The number of surgical operations necessary on the quarter of a million men wounded on the Union side during the war does not appear, but as their wounds were practically all infected, with resulting pus-formation, secondary hemorrhage, necrosis of bone, and sloughing of tissue, it must be accepted as

Interested convalescents interior of a ward at Harewood General hospital, Washington, in 1864

Interested convalescents interior of a ward at Harewood General hospital, Washington, in 1864