As this tremendous war goes on, the public interest becomes more general
and gathers more and more closely about the wounded, the sick, and the
Government hospitals, the surgeons, and all appertaining to the medical
department of the army. Up to the date of this writing (December 9, 1864)
there have been, as I estimate, near four hundred thousand cases under
treatment, and there are to-day, probably, taking the whole service of the
United States, two hundred thousand, or an approximation to that number,
on the doctors' list. Half of these are comparatively slight ailments or
hurts. Every family has directly or indirectly some representative among
this vast army of the wounded and sick.
The following sketch is made to gratify the general interest in this field
of the war, and also for a few special persons through whose means alone I
have aided the men. It extends over a period of two years, coming down to
the present hour, and exhibits the army hospitals at Washington, the camp
hospitals in the field, etc. A very few cases are given as specimens of
thousands. The account may be relied upon as faithful, though rapidly
thrown together. It will put the reader in as direct contact as may be
with scenes, sights, and cases of these immense hospitals. As will be
seen, it begins back two years since, at a very gloomy period of the
contest.
Began my visits (December 21, 1862) among the camp hospitals in the Army
of the Potomac, under General Burnside. Spent a good part of the day in a
large brick mansion on the banks of the Rappahannock, immediately opposite
Fredericksburg. It is used as a hospital since the battle, and seems to
have received only the worst cases. Outdoors, at the foot of a tree,
within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated
feet, legs, arms, hands, etc.--about a load for a one-horse cart. Several
dead bodies lie near, each covered with its brown woollen blanket. In the
dooryard, toward the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their
names on pieces of barrel staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt. (Most
of these bodies were subsequently taken up and transported North to their
friends.)
The house is quite crowded, everything impromptu, no system, all bad
enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds
pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and
bloody. Some of the wounded are rebel officers, prisoners. One, a
Mississippian--a captain--hit badly in the leg, I talked with some time;
he asked me for papers, which I gave him. (I saw him three months
afterward in Washington, with leg amputated, doing well.)
I went through the rooms, down stairs and up. Some of the men were dying.
I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks
home, mothers, etc. Also talked to three or four who seemed most
susceptible to it, and needing it.
December 22 to 31.--Am among the regimental brigade and division hospitals
somewhat. Few at home realize that these are merely tents, and sometimes
very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blanket is
spread on a layer of pine or hemlock twigs, or some leaves. No cots;
seldom even a mattress on the ground. It is pretty cold. I go around from
one case to another. I do not see that I can do any good, but I cannot
leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively,
and I do what I can for him; at any rate stop with him, and sit near him
for hours, if he wishes it.
Besides the hospitals, I also go occasionally on long tours through the
camps, talking with the men, etc.; sometimes at night among the groups
around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes. I soon get
acquainted anywhere in camp with officers or men, and am always well used.
Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best.
As to rations, the army here at present seems to be tolerably well
supplied, and the men have enough, such as it is. Most of the regiments
lodge in the flimsy little shelter tents. A few have built themselves huts
of logs and mud, with fireplaces.
I might give a long list of special cases, interesting items of the
wounded men here, but have not space.
Left Falmouth, January, 1863, by Aquia creek railroad, and so on
Government steamer up the Potomac. Many wounded were with us on cars and
boat. The cars were just common platform ones. The railroad journey of ten
or twelve miles was made mostly before sunrise. The soldiers guarding the
road came out from their tents or shebangs of bushes with rumpled hair and
half-awake look. Those on duty were walking their posts, some on banks
over us, others down far below the level of the track. I saw large cavalry
camps off the road. At Aquia Creek Landing were numbers of wounded going
North. While I waited some three hours, I went around among them. Several
wanted word sent home to parents, brothers, wives, etc., which I did for
them (by mail the next day from Washington). On the boat I had my hands
full. One poor fellow died going up.
Am now (January, February, etc., 1863) in and around Washington, daily
visiting the hospitals. Am much in Campbell, Patent-office, Eighth-street,
H-street, Armory-square, and others. Am now able to do a little good,
having money (as almoner of others home), and getting experience. I would
like to give lists of cases, for there is no end to the interesting ones;
but it is impossible without making a large volume, or rather several
volumes. I must, therefore, let one or two days' visits at this time
suffice as specimens of scores and hundreds of subsequent ones, through
the ensuing spring, summer, and fall, and, indeed, down to the present
week.
Sunday, January 25.--Afternoon and till 9 in the evening, visited Campbell
hospital. Attended specially to one case in Ward I, very sick with
pleurisy and typhoid fever, young man, farmer's son--D. F. Russell,
Company E, Sixtieth New York--down-hearted and feeble; a long time before
he would take any interest; soothed and cheered him gently; wrote a letter
home to his mother, in Malone, Franklin county, N. Y., at his request;
gave him some fruit and one or two other gifts; enveloped and directed his
letter, etc. Then went thoroughly through Ward 6; observed every case in
the ward (without, I think, missing one); found some cases I thought
needed little sums of money; supplied them (sums of perhaps thirty,
twenty-five, twenty, or fifteen cents); distributed a pretty bountiful
supply of cheerful reading matter, and gave perhaps some twenty to thirty
persons, each one some little gift, such as oranges, apples, sweet
crackers, figs, etc., etc., etc.
Thursday, January 29.--Devoted the main part of the day, from 11 to 3.30
o'clock, to Armory-square hospital; went pretty thoroughly through Wards
F, G, H, and I--some fifty cases in each ward. In Ward H supplied the men
throughout with writing paper and a stamped envelope each, also some
cheerful reading matter; distributed in small portions, about half of it
in this ward, to proper subjects, a large jar of first-rate preserved
berries; also other small gifts. In Wards G, H, and I, found several cases
I thought good subjects for small sums of money, which I furnished in each
case. The poor wounded men often come up "dead broke," and it helps their
spirits to have even the small sum I give them. My paper and envelopes all
gone, but distributed a good lot of amusing reading matter; also, as I
thought judicious, tobacco, oranges, apples, etc. Some very interesting
cases in Ward I: Charles Miller, Bed No. 19, Company D, Fifty-third
Pennsylvania, is only sixteen years of age, very bright, courageous boy,
left leg amputated below the knee; next bed below him, young lad very
sick--gave the two each appropriate gifts; in the bed above also
amputation of the left leg--gave him a part of a jar of raspberries; Bed
No. 1, this ward, gave a small sum also; also to a soldier on crutches,
sitting on his bed near.
Evening, same day.--Went to see D. F. R., Campbell hospital, before
alluded to; found him remarkably changed for the better--up and dressed
(quite a triumph; he afterwards got well and went back to his regiment).
Distributed in the wards a quantity of note-paper and forty or fifty,
mostly paid, envelopes, of which the men were much in need; also a
four-pound bag of gingersnaps I bought at a baker's in Seventh street.
Here is a case of a soldier I found among the crowded cots in the Patent
hospital--(they have removed most of the men of late and broken up that
hospital). He likes to have some one to talk to, and we will listen to
him. He got badly wounded in the leg and side at Fredericksburg that
eventful Saturday, 13th December. He lay the succeeding two days and
nights helpless on the field, between the city and those grim batteries,
for his company and his regiment had been compelled to leave him to his
fate. To make matters worse, he lay with his head slightly down hill, and
could not help himself. At the end of some fifty hours he was brought off,
with other wounded, under a flag of truce.
We ask him how the Rebels treated him during those two days and nights
within reach of them--whether they came to him--whether they abused him?
He answers that several of the Rebels, soldiers and others, came to him,
at one time and another. A couple of them, who were together, spoke
roughly and sarcastically, but did no act. One middle-aged man, however,
who seemed to be moving around the field among the dead and wounded for
benevolent purposes, came to him in a way he will never forget. This man
treated our soldier kindly, bound up his wounds, cheered him, gave him a
couple of biscuits gave him a drink of whiskey and water, asked him if he
could eat some beef. This good Secesh, however, did not change our
soldier's position, for it might have caused the blood to burst from the
wounds where they were clotted and stagnated. Our soldier is from
Pennsylvania; has had a pretty severe time; the wounds proved to be bad
ones. But he retains a good heart, and is at present on the gain.
It is not uncommon for the men to remain on the field this way, one, two,
or even four or five days.
I continue among the hospitals during March, April, etc., without
intermission. My custom is to go through a ward, or a collection of wards,
endeavoring to give some trifle to each, without missing any. Even a sweet
biscuit, a sheet of paper, or a passing word of friendliness, or but a
look or nod, if no more. In this way I go through large numbers without
delaying, yet do not hurry. I find out the general mood of the ward at the
time; sometimes see that there is a heavy weight of listlessness
prevailing, and the whole ward wants cheering up. I perhaps read to the
men, to break the spell, calling them around me, careful to sit away from
the cot of any one who is very bad with sickness or wounds. Also I find
out, by going through in this way, the cases that need special attention,
and can then devote proper time to them. Of course I am very cautious,
among the patients, in giving them food. I always confer with the doctor,
or find out from the nurse or ward-master about a new case. But I soon get
sufficiently familiar with what is to be avoided, and learn also to judge
almost intuitively what is best.
I do a good deal of writing letters by the bedside, of course--writing all
kinds, including love letters. Many sick and wounded soldiers have not
written home to parents, brothers, sisters, and even wives, for one reason
or another, for a long, long time. Some are poor writers; some cannot get
paper and envelopes; many have an aversion to writing, because they dread
to worry the folks at home--the facts about them are so sad to tell. I
always encourage the men to write, and promptly write for them.
As I write this, in May, 1863, the wounded have begun to arrive from
Hooker's command, from bloody Chancellorsville. I was down among the first
arrivals. The men in charge of them told me the bad cases were yet to
come. If that is so, I pity them, for these are bad enough. You ought to
see the scene of the wounded arriving at the landing here, foot of Sixth
street, at night. Two boat-loads came about half-past seven last night. A
little after eight it rained, a long and violent shower. The poor, pale,
helpless soldiers had been debarked, and lay around on the wharf and
neighborhood, anywhere. The rain was, probably, grateful to them; at any
rate they were exposed to it.
The few torches light up the spectacle. All around on the wharf, on the
ground, out on side places, etc., the men are lying on blankets, old
quilts, etc., with the bloody rags bound around their heads, arms, legs,
etc. The attendants are few, and at night few outsiders also--only a few
hard-worked transportation men and drivers. (The wounded are getting to be
common, and people grow callous.) The men, whatever their condition, lie
there and patiently wait till their turn comes to be taken up. Near by the
ambulances are now arriving in clusters, and one after another is called
to back up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers.
The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings--a few
groans that cannot be repressed, and occasionally a scream of pain as they
lift a man into the ambulance.
To-day, as I write, hundreds more are expected; and to-morrow and the next
day more, and so on for many days.
The soldiers are nearly all young men, and far more Americans than is
generally supposed--I should say nine tenths are native born. Among the
arrivals from Chancellorsville I find a large proportion of Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois men. As usual there are all sorts of wounds. Some of the men
are fearfully burnt from the explosion of artillery caissons. One ward has
a long row of officers, some with ugly hurts. Yesterday was perhaps worse
than usual: amputations are going on; the attendants are dressing wounds.
As you pass by you must be on your guard where you look. I saw, the other
day, a gentleman, a visitor, apparently from curiosity, in one of the
wards, stop and turn a moment to look at an awful wound they were probing,
etc.; he turned pale, and in a moment more he had fainted away and fallen
on the floor.
I buy, during the hot weather, boxes of oranges from time to time, and
distribute them among the men; also preserved peaches and other fruits;
also lemons and sugar for lemonade. Tobacco is also much in demand. Large
numbers of the men come up, as usual, without a cent of money. Through the
assistance of friends in Brooklyn and Boston, I am again able to help many
of those that fall in my way. It is only a small sum in each case, but it
is much to them. As before, I go around daily and talk with the men, to
cheer them up.
My note-books are full of memoranda of the cases of this summer, and the
wounded from Chancellorsville, but space forbids my transcribing them.
As I sit writing this paragraph (sundown, Thursday, June 25) I see a train
of about thirty huge four-horse wagons, used as ambulances, filled with
wounded, passing up Fourteenth street, on their way, probably, to
Columbian, Carver, and Mount Pleasant hospitals. This is the way the men
come in now, seldom in small numbers, but almost always in these long, sad
processions. Through the past winter, while our army lay opposite
Fredericksburg, the like strings of ambulances were of frequent occurrence
along Seventh street, passing slowly up from the steam-boat wharf, from
Aquia creek.
This afternoon, July 22, 1863, I spent a long time with a young man I have
been with considerable, named Oscar F. Wilber, Company G, One Hundred
Fifty-fourth New York, low with chronic diarrhoea and a bad wound also.
He asked me to read him a chapter in the New Testament. I complied and
asked him what I should read. He said, "Make your own choice." I opened at
the close of one of the first books of the Evangelists, and read the
chapters describing the latter hours of Christ and the scenes at the
crucifixion. The poor wasted young man asked me to read the following
chapter also, how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was
feeble. It pleased him very much, yet the tears were in his eyes. He asked
me if I enjoyed religion. I said, "Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you
mean, and yet may-be it is the same thing." He said, "It is my chief
reliance." He talked of death, and said he did not fear it. I said, "Why,
Oscar, don't you think you will get well?" He said, "I may, but it is not
probable." He spoke calmly of his condition. The wound was very bad; it
discharged much. Then the diarrhoea had prostrated him, and I felt that
he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very manly and
affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving, he returned
fourfold. He gave me his mother's address, Mrs. Sally D. Wilber, Alleghany
post-office, Cattaraugus county, N. Y. I had several such interviews with
him. He died a few days after the one just described.
August, September, October, etc.--I continue among the hospitals in the
same manner, getting still more experience, and daily and nightly meeting
with most interesting cases. Through the winter of 1863-4, the same. The
work of the army hospital visitor is indeed a trade, an art, requiring
both experience and natural gifts, and the greatest judgment. A large
number of the visitors to the hospitals do no good at all, while many do
harm. The surgeons have great trouble from them. Some visitors go from
curiosity--as to a show of animals. Others give the men improper things.
Then there are always some poor fellows, in the crises of sickness or
wounds, that imperatively need perfect quiet--not to be talked to by
strangers. Few realize that it is not the mere giving of gifts that does
good; it is the proper adaption. Nothing is of any avail among the
soldiers except conscientious personal investigation of cases, each for
itself; with sharp, critical faculties, but in the fullest spirit of human
sympathy and boundless love. The men feel such love more than anything
else. I have met very few persons who realize the importance of humoring
the yearnings for love and friendship of these American young men,
prostrated by sickness and wounds.
February, 1864.--I am down at Culpepper and Brandy station, among the camp
of First, Second, and Third Corps, and going through the division
hospitals. The condition of the camps here this winter is immensely
improved from last winter near Falmouth. All the army is now in huts of
logs and mud, with fireplaces; and the food is plentiful and tolerably
good. In the camp hospitals I find diarrhoea more and more prevalent,
and in chronic form. It is at present the great disease of the army. I
think the doctors generally give too much medicine, oftener making things
worse. Then they hold on to the cases in camp too long. When the disease
is almost fixed beyond remedy, they send it up to Washington. Alas! how
many such wrecks have I seen landed from boat and railroad and deposited
in the Washington hospitals, mostly but to linger awhile and die, after
being kept at the front too long.
The hospitals in front, this winter, are also much improved. The men have
cots, and often wooden floors, and the tents are well warmed.
March and April, 1864.--Back again in Washington. They are breaking up the
camp hospitals in Meade's army, preparing for a move. As I write this, in
March, there are all the signs. Yesterday and last night the sick were
arriving here in long trains, all day and night. I was among the
new-comers most of the night. One train of a thousand came into the depot,
and others followed. The ambulances were going all night, distributing
them to the various hospitals here. When they come in, some literally in a
dying condition, you may well imagine it is a lamentable sight. I hardly
know which is worse, to see the wounded after a battle, or these wasted
wrecks.
I remain in capital health and strength, and go every day, as before,
among the men, in my own way, enjoying my life and occupation more than I
can tell.
Of the army hospitals now in and around Washington, there are thirty or
forty. I am in the habit of going to all, and to Fairfax seminary,
Alexandria, and over Long Bridge to the convalescent camp, etc. As a
specimen of almost any one of these hospitals, fancy to yourself a space
of three to twenty acres of ground, on which are grouped ten or twelve
very large wooden barracks, with, perhaps, a dozen or twenty, and
sometimes more than that number, of small buildings, capable all together
of accommodating from five hundred to a thousand or fifteen hundred
persons. Sometimes these large wooden barracks, or wards, each of them,
perhaps, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet long, are arranged in
a straight row, evenly fronting the street; others are planned so as to
form an immense V; and others again arranged around a hollow square. They
make all together a huge cluster, with the additional tents, extra wards
for contagious diseases, guard-houses, sutler's stores, chaplain's house,
etc. In the middle will probably be an edifice devoted to the offices of
the surgeon in charge and the ward surgeons, principal attaches, clerks,
etc. Then around this centre radiate or are gathered the wards for the
wounded and sick.
These wards are either lettered alphabetically, Ward G, Ward K, or else
numerically, 1, 2, 3, etc. Each has its ward surgeon and corps of nurses.
Of course there is, in the aggregate, quite a muster of employees, and
over all the surgeon in charge. Any one of these hospitals is a little
city in itself. Take, for instance, the Carver hospital, out a couple of
miles, on a hill, northern part of Fourteenth street. It has more inmates
than an ordinary country town. The same with the Lincoln hospital, east of
the Capitol, or the Finley hospital, on high grounds northeast of the
city; both large establishments. Armory-square hospital, under Dr. Bliss,
in Seventh street (one of the best anywhere), is also temporarily enlarged
this summer, with additional tents, sheds, etc. It must have nearly a
hundred tents, wards, sheds, and structures of one kind and another. The
worst cases are always to be found here. A wanderer like me about
Washington pauses on some high land which commands the sweep of the city
(one never tires of the noble and ample views presented here, in the
generally fine, soft, peculiar air and light), and has his eyes attracted
by these white clusters of barracks in almost every direction. They make a
great show in the landscape, and I often use them as landmarks. Some of
these clusters are very full of inmates. Counting the whole, with the
convalescent camps (whose inmates are often worse off than the sick in the
hospitals), they have numbered, in this quarter and just down the Potomac,
as high as fifty thousand invalid, disabled, or sick and dying men.
My sketch has already filled up so much room that I shall have to omit
any detailed account of the wounded of May and June, 1864, from the
battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, etc. That would be a long
history in itself. The arrivals, the numbers, and the severity of the
wounds, out-viewed anything that we have seen before. For days and weeks a
melancholy tide set in upon us. The weather was very hot. The wounded had
been delayed in coming, and much neglected. Very many of the wounds had
worms in them. An unusual proportion mortified. It was among these that,
for the first time in my life, I began to be prostrated with real
sickness, and was, before the close of the summer, imperatively ordered
North by the physician to recuperate and have an entire change of air.
What I know of first Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, etc.,
makes clear to me that there has been, and is yet, a total lack of science
in elastic adaptation to the needs of the wounded after a battle. The
hospitals are long afterward filled with proofs of this.
I have seen many battles, their results, but never one where there was
not, during the first few days, an unaccountable and almost total
deficiency of everything for the wounded--appropriate sustenance, nursing,
cleaning, medicines, stores, etc. (I do not say surgical attendance,
because the surgeons cannot do more than human endurance permits.)
Whatever pleasant accounts there may be in the papers of the North, this
is the actual fact. No thorough previous preparation, no system, no
foresight, no genius. Always plenty of stores, no doubt, but always miles
away; never where they are needed, and never the proper application. Of
all harrowing experiences, none is greater than that of the days following
a heavy battle. Scores, hundreds, of the noblest young men on earth,
uncomplaining, lie helpless, mangled, faint, alone, and so bleed to death,
or die from exhaustion, either actually untouched at all, or with merely
the laying of them down and leaving them, when there ought to be means
provided to save them.
The reader has doubtless inferred the fact that my visits among the
wounded and sick have been as an independent missionary, in my own style,
and not as an agent of any commission. Several noble women and men of
Brooklyn, Boston, Salem, and Providence, have voluntarily supplied funds
at times. I only wish they could see a tithe of the actual work performed
by their generous and benevolent assistance among the suffering men.
He who goes among the soldiers with gifts, etc., must beware how he
proceeds. It is much more of an art than one would imagine. They are not
charity-patients, but American young men, of pride and independence. The
spirit in which you treat them, and bestow your donations, is just as
important as the gifts themselves; sometimes more so. Then there is
continual discrimination necessary. Each case requires some peculiar
adaptation to itself. It is very important to slight nobody--not a single
case. Some hospital visitors, especially the women, pick out the
handsomest looking soldiers, or have a few for their pets. Of course some
will attract you more than others, and some will need more attention than
others; but be careful not to ignore any patient. A word, a friendly turn
of the eye or touch of the hand in passing, if nothing more.
One hot day toward the middle of June I gave the inmates of Carver
hospital a general ice-cream treat, purchasing a large quantity, and going
around personally through the wards to see to its distribution.
Here is a characteristic scene in a ward: It is Sunday afternoon (middle
of summer, 1864), hot and oppressive, and very silent through the ward. I
am taking care of a critical case, now lying in a half lethargy. Near
where I sit is a suffering Rebel from the Eighth Louisiana; his name is
Irving. He has been here a long time, badly wounded, and lately had his
leg amputated. It is not doing very well. Right opposite me is a sick
soldier boy laid down with his clothes on, sleeping, looking much wasted,
his pallid face on his arm. I see by the yellow trimming on his jacket
that he is a cavalry boy. He looks so handsome as he sleeps, one must
needs go nearer to him. I step softly over, and find by his card that he
is named William Cone, of the First Maine Cavalry, and his folks live in
Skowhegan.
Well, poor John Mahay is dead. He died yesterday. His was a painful and
lingering case. I have been with him at times for the past fifteen
months. He belonged to Company A, One Hundred and First New York, and was
shot through the lower region of the abdomen at second Bull Run, August,
1862. One scene at his bedside will suffice for the agonies of nearly two
years. The bladder had been perforated by a bullet going entirely through
him. Not long since I sat a good part of the morning by his bedside, Ward
E, Armory-square; the water ran out of his eyes from the intense pain, and
the muscles of his face were distorted, but he utters nothing except a low
groan now and then. Hot moist cloths were applied, and relieved him
somewhat. Poor Mahay, a mere boy in age, but old in misfortune, he never
knew the love of parents, was placed in his infancy in one of the New York
charitable institutions, and subsequently bound out to a tyrannical master
in Sullivan county (the scars of whose cowhide and club remained yet on
his back). His wound here was a most disagreeable one, for he was a
gentle, cleanly, and affectionate boy. He found friends in his hospital
life, and, indeed, was a universal favorite. He had quite a funeral
ceremony.
Through Fourteenth street to the river, and then over the long bridge and
some three miles beyond, is the huge collection called the convalescent
camp. It is a respectable sized army in itself, for these hospitals,
tents, sheds, etc., at times contain from five to ten thousand men. Of
course there are continual changes. Large squads are sent off to their
regiments or elsewhere, and new men received. Sometimes I found large
numbers of paroled returned prisoners here.
During October, November, and December, 1864, I have visited the military
hospitals about New York City, but have not room in this article to
describe these visits.
I have lately been (November 25) in the Central-park hospital, near One
Hundred and Fourth street; it seems to be a well-managed institution.
During September, and previously, went many times to the Brooklyn city
hospital, in Raymond street, where I found (taken in by contract) a number
of wounded and sick from the army. Most of the men were badly off, and
without a cent of money, many wanting tobacco. I supplied them, and a few
special cases with delicacies; also repeatedly with letter-paper, stamps,
envelopes, etc., writing the addresses myself plainly--(a pleased crowd
gathering around me as I directed for each one in turn.) This Brooklyn
hospital is a bad place for soldiers, or anybody else. Cleanliness, proper
nursing, watching, etc., are more deficient than in any hospital I know.
For dinner on Sundays I invariably found nothing but rice and molasses.
The men all speak well of Drs. Yale and Kissam for kindness, patience,
etc., and I think, from what I saw, there are also young medical men. In
its management otherwise, this is the poorest hospital I have been in, out
of many hundreds.
Among places, apart from soldiers', visited lately (December 7) I must
specially mention the great Brooklyn general hospital and other public
institutions at Flatbush, including the extensive lunatic asylum, under
charge of Drs. Chapin and Reynolds. Of the latter (and I presume I might
include these county establishments generally) I have deliberately to put
on record about the profoundest satisfaction with professional capacity,
completeness of house arrangements to ends required, and the right vital
spirit animating all, that I have yet found in any public curative
institution among civilians.
In Washington, in camp and everywhere, I was in the habit of reading to
the men. They were very fond of it, and liked declamatory, poetical
pieces. Miles O'Reilly's pieces were also great favorites. I have had many
happy evenings with the men. We would gather in a large group by
ourselves, after supper, and spend the time in such readings, or in
talking, and occasionally by an amusing game called the game of Twenty
Questions.
For nurses, middle-aged women and mothers of families are best. I am
compelled to say young ladies, however refined, educated, and benevolent,
do not succeed as army nurses, though their motives are noble; neither do
the Catholic nuns, among these home-born American young men. Mothers full
of motherly feeling, and however illiterate, but bringing reminiscences of
home, and with the magnetic touch of hands, are the true women nurses.
Many of the wounded are between fifteen and twenty years of age.
I should say that the Government, from my observation, is always full of
anxiety and liberality toward the sick and wounded. The system in
operation in the permanent hospitals is good, and the money flows without
stint. But the details have to be left to hundreds and thousands of
subordinates and officials. Among these, laziness, heartlessness, gouging,
and incompetency are more or less prevalent. Still, I consider the
permanent hospitals, generally, well conducted.
A very large proportion of the wounded come up from the front without a
cent of money in their pockets. I soon discovered that it was about the
best thing I could do to raise their spirits and show them that somebody
cared for them, and practically felt a fatherly or brotherly interest in
them, to give them small sums, in such cases, using tact and discretion
about it.
A large majority of the wounds are in the arms and legs. But there is
every kind of wound in every part of the body. I should say of the sick,
from my experience in the hospitals, that the prevailing maladies are
typhoid fever and the camp fevers generally, diarrhoea, catarrhal
affections and bronchitis, rheumatism and pneumonia. These forms of
sickness lead, all the rest follow. There are twice as many sick as there
are wounded. The deaths range from six to ten per cent of those under
treatment.
I must bear my most emphatic testimony to the zeal, manliness, and
professional spirit and capacity generally prevailing among the surgeons,
many of them young men, in the hospitals and the army. I will not say much
about the exceptions, for they are few (but I have met some of those few,
and very foolish and airish they were). I never ceased to find the best
young men, and the hardest and most disinterested workers, among these
surgeons, in the hospitals. They are full of genius, too. I have seen many
hundreds of them, and this is my testimony.
During my two years in the hospitals and upon the field, I have made over
six hundred visits, and have been, as I estimate, among from eighty
thousand to one hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of
spirit and body in some slight degree, in their time of need. These visits
varied from an hour or two, to all day or night; for with dear or critical
cases I watched all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the
hospital, and slept or watched there several nights in succession. I may
add that I am now just resuming my occupation in the hospitals and camps
for the winter of 1864-5, and probably to continue the seasons ensuing.
To many of the wounded and sick, especially the youngsters, there is
something in personal love, caresses, and the magnetic flood of sympathy
and friendship, that does, in its way, more good than all the medicine in
the world. I have spoken of my regular gifts of delicacies, money,
tobacco, special articles of food, knick-knacks, etc., etc. But I
steadily found more and more that I could help, and turn the balance in
favor of cure, by the means here alluded to, in a curiously large
proportion of cases. The American soldier is full of affection and the
yearning for affection. And it comes wonderfully grateful to him to have
this yearning gratified when he is laid up with painful wounds or illness,
far away from home, among strangers. Many will think this merely
sentimentalism, but I know it is the most solid of facts. I believe that
even the moving around among the men, or through the ward, of a hearty,
healthy, clean, strong, generous-souled person, man or woman, full of
humanity and love, sending out invisible, constant currents thereof, does
immense good to the sick and wounded.
To those who might be interested in knowing it, I must add, in conclusion,
that I have tried to do justice to all the suffering that fell in my way.
While I have been with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New
England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and from
Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, and the Western States, I have
been with more or less from all the States North and South, without
exception. I have been with many from the border States, especially from
Maryland and Virginia, and found far more Union Southerners than is
supposed. I have been with many Rebel officers and men among our wounded,
and given them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as
any. I have been among the army teamsters considerably, and indeed always
find myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and
in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their
neighborhood, and I did what I could for them.