John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[307] moment's or even a day's warning, as a rule, and so it was made the duty of the medical director of a corps to select a sufficient number of medical officers, who, in case a retreat was found necessary, should remain in charge of the wounded. When the Rebels captured such a hospital, it was their general practice to parole all the inmates — that is, require them to give their word of honor that they would not bear arms again until they had been properly exchanged

A medicine wagon.

as prisoners of war. Our government established what were known as parole camps, where such prisoners were required to remain until duly exchanged.

I think it can now be readily understood, from even this fragmentary sketch, how the establishment of these field hospitals facilitated the care of the wounded, and, by their systematic workings, saved hundreds of lives. With a skilful, energetic man as medical director of the army, giving his orders to medical directors of corps, and these carefully superintending surgeons-in-chief of divisions, who, in turn, 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