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

I omitted to say in the proper connection that the men whose wounds were dressed in the field hospitals were transported as rapidly as convenient to the general hospitals, where the best of care and attention could be given them. Such hospitals were located in various places. Whenever it was possible, transportation was by water, in steamers specially fitted up for such a purpose. There may be seen in the National Museum at Washington, the building in which President Lincoln was assassinated, beautiful models of these steamers as well as of hospital railway trains with all their furnishings of ease and comfort, designed to carry patients by rail to any designated place.

Another invention for the transportation of the wounded from the field was the Cacolet or Mule Litter, which was borne either by a mule or a horse, and arranged to carry, some one and some two, wounded men. But although it was at first supposed that they would be a great blessing 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.