Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

The report of the Surgeon-General, Joseph K. Barnes, at the close of the war, showed that, from the beginning, in 1861, to July 1, 1865, there had been treated, in the general hospitals alone, 1,057,423 cases, among whom the rate of mortality was only eight per cent. That rate varied in different portions of our widely extended country; the central, or the region of the Mississippi basin, being much the larger. The rate was much smaller than had ever been known before. The annual mortality of the United States army, in the Mexican war, from diseases, was over ten per cent. That of the British army, in the Crimean war, was nearly twenty-four per cent., and that of their French allies was still greater.

The low rate of mortality in the Union army was due to several causes, the chief of which was the employment, by the Government, of a sufficient number of competent surgeons;¹ a bountiful provision in all hospitals of every necessary; the beneficent labors of two powerful popular organizations, known as the United States Sanitary Commission, and the United States Christian Commission, and the untiring labors of women, everywhere. The latter worked with tenderness and devotion, day and night, in hospitals, in camps, and in the field, as efficient nurses. They had healing words of cheer and consolation for the languishing, threatened with that despair which defies the medicine of the apothecary; and by their presence, they continually brought images of home to the yearning soul of the sick and wounded son or husband, whose best ideal of earthly happiness was in the fashion of a loving woman.

To this catalogue of chief causes for the low rate of mortality, must be added, as most important sanitary helps, the potent influences of the Chaplains, who numbered at least one hundred thousand. As a class, they were faithful servants of their Divine Master, and full of love toward their fellowmen, their country, and their God. Their work as spiritual guides, was :amazingly potential, for they administered “medicine to a mind diseased,” by which the physician's prescriptions were often made doubly curative. They formed a trusted link between the sick soldier and his home — a ladder for the angels of thought and affection, between his Bethel and heaven on earth — and to many a bereaved heart did their written words, telling of the joy and hope of a loved one at the gate that leads to immortality, convey messages that sweetened tears. Without hope of reward in the plaudits of the people for deeds of valor in battle, and with their names only faintly written in the records of Patriotism, they nevertheless braved danger and death in every form, for the sake of the, souls and bodies of those in their spiritual keeping. The value of their services in the field of moral agencies, during the war, can not be overestimated. The most profound respect and gratitude of the nation is due to the Chaplains of the hospitals of the army and the navy.