HOSPITALS AND AMBULANCES.
[Illustration]
The sketch embodied in this chapter is an attempt in a limited space to
give the public a more adequate idea of the medical department of the
army, what it was, how it grew up, and something of what it accomplished.
I enter upon it with a quasi-apology for its incompleteness,
understanding fully how inadequate any mere sketch must be regarded by
those whose labors in this department made its record one of the most
remarkable in the history of the war; yet, like all the other topics
treated in this volume, it must undergo abridgment, and I can only hope
that what is presented will, in some degree, do justice to this much
neglected but very interesting theme in the Rebellion’s annals.
At the time of the battle of Bull Run there was no plan in operation by
which the wounded in that battle were cared for. Before this engagement
took place, while the troops were lying in and around Washington, general
hospitals had been established to provide for the sick. For this purpose
five or six hotels, seminaries, and infirmaries, in Washington and
Georgetown, and two or three in Alexandria, had been taken possession of,
and these were all the hospital accommodations to be found at the end of
the first three months. So general was the opinion that the war would
be speedily ended no one thought of such a thing as building permanent
structures for hospital purposes.
But this condition of affairs soon after changed. Preparations for war
were made on a grander scale. The Army of the Potomac, under the moulding
hands of McClellan, was assuming form, and the appointment by him, Aug.
12, 1861, of Surgeon Charles S. Tripler as medical director of that army
indicated a purpose of having a medical department set on foot and put in
completeness for active service. Let us pause and glance at the situation
as he found it, and we may, perhaps, the better appreciate the full
magnitude of the task which he had before him.
Army Regulations were the written law to which it was attempted to have
everything conform as far as possible. But when these regulations were
drafted, there was no expectation of such a war as finally came upon us,
and to attempt to confine so large an army as then existed to them as a
guide was as impossible and absurd as for the full-grown man to wear the
suit of clothes he cast off at ten years.
“New times demand new measures and new men,”
and so in certain directions Army Regulations had to be ignored. For
example, they provided only for the establishment of regimental and
general hospitals. A regimental hospital is what its name indicates—the
hospital of a particular regiment. But if such a hospital became full or
received some patients whose ailments were not likely to submit readily
to treatment, such cases were sent to a _General Hospital_, that is, one
into which patients were taken regardless of the regiment to which they
belonged. But in these early war times, in the absence of a system, any
patient who was able could, at his pleasure, leave one general hospital
and go to another for any reason which seemed sufficient to him, or he
could desert the service entirely.
By general orders issued from the war department May 25, 1861, governors
of States were directed to appoint a surgeon and assistant surgeon
for each regiment. The men appointed were for the most part country
physicians, many of them with little practice, who, on reaching the
field, were, in some respects, as ignorant of their duties under the
changed conditions as if they had not been educated to the practice of
medicine; and the medical director of the army found his hands more than
full in attempting to get them to carry out his wishes. So, to simplify
his labors and also to increase the efficiency of his department, brigade
hospitals were organized about the beginning of 1862, and by general
orders from the war department brigade surgeons were appointed, with the
rank of major, and assigned to the staffs of brigadier-generals. These
brigade surgeons had supervision of the surgeons of their brigades, and
exercised this duty under the instructions of the medical director.
The regimental hospitals in the field were sometimes tents, and sometimes
dwellings or barns near camp. It was partly to relieve these that brigade
hospitals were established. The latter were located near their brigade or
division.
The hospital tent I have already described at some length. I may add
here that those in use for hospital purposes before the war were 24 feet
long by 14 feet 6 inches wide, and 11 feet 6 inches high, but, owing
to their great bulk and weight, and the difficulty of pitching them in
windy weather, the size was reduced, in 1860, to 14 feet by 14 feet 6
inches, and 11 feet high in the centre, with the walls 4 feet 6 inches,
and a “fly” 21 feet 6 inches by 14 feet. Each of these was designed to
accommodate eight patients comfortably. Army Regulations assigned three
such tents to a regiment, together with one Sibley and one Wedge or A
tent.
The Sibley tent I have likewise quite fully described. I will only add
here that, not having a “fly,” it was very hot in warm weather. Then,
on account of its centre pole and the absence of walls, it was quite
contracted and inconvenient. For these reasons it was little used for
hospital purposes, and not used at all after the early part of the war.
The hospital tents in the Army of the Potomac were heated, for the most
part, by what was called, for some reason, the _California Plan_. This
consisted of a pit, dug just outside of the hospital door, two and a
half feet deep, from which a trench passed through the tent, terminating
outside the other end in a chimney, built of barrels, or in such a manner
as I have elsewhere described. This trench was covered throughout its
entire extent with iron plates, which were issued by the quartermaster’s
department for that purpose. The radiation of the heat from the plates
kept the tent very comfortable.
The honor of organizing the first field hospital in tents is said to
belong to Dr. B. J. D. Irwin, U. S. A., of the Army of the Ohio. It
occurred at the battle of Shiloh. While establishing a hospital near the
camp of Prentiss’ division of that army, which had been captured the day
before, the abandoned tents still standing suggested themselves to him
as a convenient receptacle for his wounded. He at once appropriated the
camp for this purpose, and laid it out in systematic form. It was clearly
shown by this and succeeding experiences during the war that the wounded
treated under canvas did better and recovered more rapidly than those
treated in permanent hospitals.
As fast as they could be procured, hospital tents were furnished, three
to a regiment, in accordance with the provision of Army Regulations
referred to. Each regiment provided its own nurses and cooks. In general
hospitals one nurse was allowed to ten patients, and one cook to thirty.
The capacity of a regimental hospital tent, like a stagecoach, varied
according to the demand for room. I have said they were designed to
accommodate eight. An old army surgeon says, “Only six can be comfortably
accommodated in one of them, three on each side.” But when the surgeons
were crowded with the wounded, it was a common practice to set two long
narrow boards edgewise through the centre of the tent, about twenty
inches apart. If boards were wanting, two good-sized _poles_ were cut and
used instead. Between these was the passage for the surgeons and nurses.
Behind the boards or poles a filling of straw or fine boughs was made and
covered with blankets. On these latter could be placed twenty patients,
ten on either side; but they were crowded. When six single cots were put
in one of these tents, three on each side, ample space was afforded to
pass among them.
[Illustration: A TWO-WHEELED AMBULANCE.]
In the latter part of 1861, the government, realizing its pressing needs,
began to build general hospitals for the comfort and accommodation of its
increasing thousands of sick and wounded, continuing to build, as the
needs increased, to the very last year of the war, when they numbered two
hundred and five.
Before the civil war, the government had never been supplied with
carriages to convey the sick and wounded. Only two years before, a
board, appointed by the secretary of war, had adopted for experiment a
four-wheeled and a two-wheeled carriage. The four-wheeled vehicle was
tried in an expedition sent into New Mexico, and was favorably reported
on; the two-wheeled was never tested, but was judged to be the best
adapted to badly wounded men (though the contrary proved to be the
fact), and so the board reported in favor of adopting these carriages in
the ratio of five two-wheeled to one four-wheeled.
When Surgeon Tripler took charge, he found several of these two-wheeled
carriages in Washington, but they were used chiefly as pleasure-carriages
for officers, or for some other private purpose. This was stopped, for
a time at least, and an order was issued, leaving one to a regiment and
requiring the rest to be turned over to the quartermaster’s department.
But the perversion of ambulances from their proper use, I will add in
passing, continued, to a greater or less extent, till the end of the war.
This very year McClellan issued an order for them not to be used except
for the transportation of the sick and wounded, unless by authority
of the brigade commander, the medical director, or the quartermaster
in charge, and the provost-marshal was ordered to arrest officers and
confine non-commissioned officers and privates for violation of the order.
The most important steps taken towards organizing the medical department,
and placing it on that thorough basis which distinguished it in the
later years of the war, were the result of the foresight, energy, and
skilful management of Dr. Jonathan Letterman, who was made medical
director of the Army of the Potomac on the 19th of June, 1862. His labor
was something enormous. It was during the progress of the Peninsular
Campaign. All was confusion. Medical supplies were exhausted. Thousands
of sick and wounded men were dying for want of proper care and medicine.
Yet this campaign, so disastrous in its results to our army from a
military point of view, was a valuable teacher in many respects, and one
of its most pointed and practical lessons was the necessity shown of
having the ambulances organized and under a competent head. It remained
for Dr. Letterman to appreciate this need, and effect an organization
which remained practically unchanged till the close of the war. Here is
the substance of the plan which he drew up, and which General McClellan
approved, and published to the army in orders, Aug. 2, 1862, and which
General Meade reissued, with some additions and slight changes, a little
more than a year later.
AMBULANCE CORPS.
All of the ambulances belonging to an army corps were to be placed
under the control of the medical director of that corps, for now, in
addition to a medical director of the army, there was a subordinate
medical director for each army corps. Such an ambulance corps was put
into the hands of a captain as commandant. This corps was divided and
subdivided into division, brigade, and regimental trains, corresponding
to the divisions of the army corps to which it belonged, having a first
lieutenant in charge of a division, a second lieutenant in charge of a
brigade, and a sergeant in charge of a regimental detachment. Besides
these, three privates, one of them being the driver, were to accompany
each ambulance on the march and in battle. The duties of all these men,
both officers and privates, were very carefully defined, as well for camp
as for the march and battle. Besides the ambulances, there accompanied
each corps one medicine-wagon and one army wagon to a brigade, containing
the requisite medicines, dressings, instruments, hospital stores,
bedding, medical books, small furniture (like tumblers, basins, bed-pans,
spoons, vials, etc.).
In addition to the foregoing articles, which were carefully assorted
both as to quantity and quality, each ambulance was required to carry
in the box beneath the driver’s seat, under lock and key, the following
articles:—
Three bed-sacks, six 2-pound cans beef-stock, one leather bucket, three
camp kettles (assorted sizes), one lantern and candle, six tin plates,
six table-spoons, six tin tumblers; and, just before a battle, ten pounds
hard bread were required to be put into the box.
[Illustration: A FOUR-WHEELED AMBULANCE.]
There was another scheme, which was conceived and carried into execution
by Dr. Letterman, which deserves mention in this connection. This was
the establishment of Field Hospitals, “in order that the wounded might
receive the most prompt and efficient attention during and after an
engagement, and that the necessary operations might be performed by the
most skilful and responsible surgeons, at the earliest moment.” Under
Surgeon Tripler, there had been rendezvous established in rear of the
army, to which all the wounded were taken for immediate attention, before
being sent to general hospitals. But there was no recognized system and
efficiency in regard to it. Just before an engagement, a field hospital
for each division was established. It was made by pitching a suitable
number of hospital tents. The location of such a hospital was left to
the medical director of the corps. Of course, it must be in the rear
of the division, out of all danger and in a place easily reached by
the ambulances. A division hospital of this description was under the
charge of a surgeon, who was selected by the surgeon-in-chief of the
division. With him was an assistant surgeon, similarly appointed, whose
duty it was to pitch the tents, provide straw, fuel, water, etc., and,
in general, make everything ready for the comfort of the wounded. For
doing this the hospital stewards and nurses of the division were placed
under his charge, and special details made from the regiments to assist.
A kitchen or cook-tent must be at once erected and the cooks put in
possession of the articles mentioned as carried in the ambulance boxes
and hospital-wagons, so that a sufficient amount of nourishing food could
be prepared for immediate use.
Another assistant surgeon was detailed to keep a complete record
of patients, with name, rank, company, and regiment, the nature of
their wound, its treatment, etc. He was also required to see to the
proper interment of those who died, and the placing of properly marked
head-boards at their graves.
Then, there were in each of these division hospitals three surgeons,
selected from the whole division, “without regard to rank, but solely on
account of their known prudence, judgment, and skill,” whose duty it was
to perform all important operations, or, at least, be responsible for
their performance. Three other medical officers were detailed to assist
these three. Nor was this all, for the remaining medical officers of the
division, except one to a regiment, were also required to report at once
to the hospital, to act as dressers of wounds and assistants generally.
In addition to these, a proper number of nurses and attendants were
detailed to be on hand. The medical officers left with regiments were
required to establish themselves during the fighting in the rear of their
respective organizations, at such a distance as not to unnecessarily
expose themselves, where they could give such temporary aid to the
wounded as they should stand in need of.
I have said that these hospitals were to be located out of all danger.
That statement needs a little modifying. In case the tide of battle
turned against our army and it was compelled to retreat, what was before
a safe place might at once be converted into a place of great danger.
But a hospital could not be struck and its patients moved at a 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 as prisoners of war. Our government
established what were known as parole camps, where such prisoners were
required to remain until duly exchanged.
[Illustration: A MEDICINE WAGON.]
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 was to place this department of the army on
a footing which endured, with the most profitable of results to the
service, till the close of the war.
I vividly remember my first look into one of these field hospitals.
It was, I think, on the 27th of November, 1863, during the Mine Run
Campaign, so-called. General French, then commanding the Third Corps,
was fighting the battle of Locust Grove, and General Warren, with the
Second Corps, had also been engaged with the enemy, and had driven him
from the neighborhood of Robertson’s Tavern, in the vicinity of which
the terrific Battle of the Wilderness began the following May. Near
this tavern the field hospital of Warren’s Second Division had been
located, and into this I peered while my battery stood in park not far
away, awaiting orders. The surgeon had just completed an operation. It
was the amputation of an arm about five inches below the shoulder, the
stump being now carefully dressed and bandaged. As soon as the patient
recovered from the effects of the ether, the attendants raised him to a
sitting posture on the operating-table. At that moment the thought of his
wounded arm returned to him, and, turning his eyes towards it, they met
only the projecting stub. The awful reality dawned upon him for the first
time. An arm had gone forever, and he dropped backwards on the table in a
swoon. Many a poor fellow like him brought to the operator’s table came
to consciousness only to miss an arm or a leg which perhaps he had begged
in his last conscious moments to have spared. But the medical officers
first mentioned decided all such cases, and the patient had only to
submit. At Peach-Tree Creek, Col. Thomas Reynolds of the Western army was
shot in the leg, and, while the surgeons were debating the propriety of
amputating it, the colonel, who was of Irish birth, begged them to spare
it, as it was very valuable, being _an imported leg_,—a piece of wit
which saved the gallant officer his leg, although he became so much of a
cripple that he was compelled to leave the service.
It has been charged that limbs and arms were often uselessly sacrificed
by the operators; that they were especially fond of amputating, and just
as likely to amputate for a flesh-wound as for a fractured bone, on the
ground that they could do it more quickly than they could dress the
wound; that it made a neater job, thus gratifying professional pride:
but how the victim might feel about it or be affected by it then or
thereafter did not seem to enter their thoughts. It was undoubtedly true
that many flesh-wounds were so ugly the only safety for the patient lay
in amputation. A fine fellow, both as a man and soldier, belonging to
my company, lost his arm from a flesh-wound—needlessly, as he and his
friends always asserted and believed.
[Illustration: A FOLDING LITTER.]
[Illustration: A STRETCHER.]
A corporal of the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery suffered a compound
fracture of the left knee-joint from a piece of shell by which he was
struck at the battle of Hatcher’s Run, Oct. 27, 1864. In the course of
time he reached the Lincoln Hospitals (well do I remember them as they
stood on Capitol Hill where they were erected just before the bloody
repulse at Fredericksburg), where a surgeon decided that his leg must
come off, and, after instructing the nurse to prepare him for the
operating-room, left the ward. But the corporal talked the matter over
with a wounded cavalryman (this was a year when cavalrymen were wounded
quite generally) and decided that his leg must _not_ come off; so,
obtaining the loaded revolver of his comrade, he put it under his pillow
and awaited the reappearance of the surgeon. He returned not long after,
accompanied by two men with a stretcher, and approached the cot.
“What are you going to do?” asked the corporal.
“My boy, we will have to take your leg off,” was the reply of the surgeon.
“Not if I know myself,” rejoined the corporal, with determination
expressed in both looks and language.
For a moment the surgeon was taken aback by the soldier’s resolute
manner. But directly he turned to the men and said, “Come, boys, take
him up carefully,” whereupon the stretcher-bearers advanced to obey
the order. At the same instant the corporal drew the revolver from
beneath his pillow, cocked it, and, in a voice which carried conviction,
exclaimed, “_The man that puts a hand on me dies!_” At this the men
stepped back, and the surgeon tried to reason with the corporal, assuring
him that in no other way could his life be saved. But the corporal
persisted in declaring that if he died it should be with both legs _on_.
At that “Sawbones,” (as the men used to call them) lost his temper and
sought out the surgeon in general charge, with whom he soon returned
to the corporal. This head surgeon, first by threats and afterwards by
persuasion, tried to secure the revolver, but, failing to do so, turned
away, exclaiming, with an oath, “Let the d⸺ fool keep it and die!” but
a moment after, on second thought, said to the first surgeon that, as
they wanted a subject to try the water-cure on, he thought the corporal
would meet that want. After obtaining a promise from the surgeon that he
would not himself take the leg off or allow any one else to, the corporal
assented to the proposition.
A can was then arranged over the wounded knee, in such a manner as to
drop water on the cloth which enwrapped it day and night, and a cure was
finally effected.
This is the substance of the story as I received it from the lips of the
corporal himself, who, let me say in passing, was reduced to the rank of
private, and mustered out of the service as such, for daring to keep two
whole legs under him. His bravery in the hour of peril—to him—deserved
better things from his country than that.
[Illustration: PLACING A WOUNDED MAN ON A STRETCHER.]
But to return to the field hospital again; on the ground lay one man,
wounded in the knee, while another sat near, wounded in the finger. This
latter was a suspicious wound. Men of doubtful courage had a way of
shooting off the end of the trigger-finger to get out of service. But
they sometimes did it in such a bungling manner that they were found out.
The powder blown into the wound was often the evidence which convicted
them. These men must be proud of such scars to-day.
Three wounded Rebels also lay in the tent, waiting for surgical
attention. Of course, they would not be put upon the tables until all of
our own wounded were attended to; they did not expect it. In one part of
the tent lay two or three of our men, who were either lifeless or faint
from loss of blood. Only a few rods away from the tent were some freshly
made graves enclosing the forms of men whose wounds had proved fatal,
either having died on their way to the hospital or soon after their
arrival. Among these was the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Hesser,
who was shot in the head while bravely leading the Seventy-second
Pennsylvania Infantry in a charge. The graves were all plainly marked
with small head-boards. A drizzling rain added gloom to the scene; and my
first call at a field hospital, with its dismal surroundings, was brief.
[Illustration: CARRYING A WOUNDED MAN TO THE REAR.]
One regulation made for this department of the service was never
enforced. It provided that no one but the proper medical officers or
the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of the ambulance
corps should conduct sick or wounded to the rear, either on the march or
in battle, but as a matter of fact there were probably more wounded men
helped off the field by soldiers _not_ members of the ambulance corps
than by members of that body. There were always plenty of men who hadn’t
the interests of the cause so nearly at heart but what they could be
induced, without much persuasion, when bullets and shells were flying
thick, to leave the front line and escort a suffering comrade to the
rear. Very often such a sufferer found a larger body-guard than could
well make his needs a pretext for their absence from the line. Then,
too, many of these escorts were most unfortunate, and _lost their way_,
so that they did not find their regiment again until after the battle
was over. A large number of them would be included among the Shirks and
Beats, whom I have already described. But, in truth, it was not possible
for the ambulance corps to do much more in a hot fight than to keep
their stretchers properly manned. Each ambulance was provided with two
of these, and the severely wounded who could not help themselves must be
placed on them and cared for first, so that there was often need for a
helping hand to be given a comrade who was quite seriously wounded, yet
could hobble along with a shoulder to lean on.
The designating mark of members of the ambulance corps was, for
sergeants, a green band an inch and a quarter broad around the cap, and
inverted chevrons of the same color on each arm, above the elbow; for
privates the same kind of band and a half chevron of the same material.
By means of this designation they were easily recognized.
By orders of General Meade, issued in August, 1863, three ambulances were
allowed to a regiment of infantry; two to a regiment of cavalry, and one
to a battery of artillery, with which it was to remain permanently. Owing
to this fact, an artillery company furnished its own stretcher-bearers
when needed. I shall be pardoned the introduction of a personal
incident, as it will illustrate in some measure the duties and trials
of a stretcher-bearer. It was at the battle of _Hatcher’s Run_, already
referred to, or the _Boydton Plank Road_, as some called it. The guns had
been ordered into position near Burgess’ Tavern, leaving the caissons
and ambulance nearly a half-mile in the rear. Meanwhile, a flank attack
of the enemy cut off our communications with the rear for a time, and we
thought ourselves sure of an involuntary trip to Richmond; but the way
was opened again by some of our advance charging to the rear, and by the
destructive fire from our artillery. Soon orders came for the battery
to return to the rear. In common with the rest, the writer started to
do so when a sergeant asked him to remain and help take off one of our
lieutenants, who was lying in a barn near by, severely wounded. So
actively had we been engaged that this was my first knowledge of the sad
event. But, alas! what was to be done? Our ambulance with its stretchers
was to the rear. That could not now avail us. We must resort to other
means. Fortunately, they were at hand. An abandoned army-blanket lay
near, and, carefully placing the lieutenant on this, with one man at each
corner, we started.
But the wounded officer was heavy, and it was, as can readily be seen,
an awkward way of carrying him. Moreover, his wound was a serious
one,—mortal as it soon proved,—and every movement of ours tortured him
so that he begged of us to leave him there to die. Just then we caught
sight of a stretcher on which a wounded Rebel was lying. Some Union
stretcher-bearers had been taking him to the rear when the flank attack
occurred, when they evidently abandoned him to look out for themselves.
It was not a time for sentiment; so, with the sergeant at one end of
the stretcher and the narrator at the other, our wounded enemy was
rolled off, with as much care as time would allow. With the aid of our
other comrades we soon put the lieutenant in his place, and, raising
the stretcher to our shoulders, started down the road to the rear. We
had gone but a few rods, however, before the enemy’s sharpshooters or
outposts fired on us, driving us to seek safety in the woods. But it
was now dusk, and no easy matter to take such a burden through woods,
especially as it rapidly grew darker. Suffice it to know, however,
that, after more than an hour’s wandering and plunging, our burden was
delivered at the ambulance, where another of our lieutenants, also
mortally wounded, was afterwards to join him. This fragment of personal
experience will well illustrate some of the many obstacles which
stretcher-bearers had to contend with, and disclose the further truth
that in actual combat the chances for severely wounded men to be taken
from the field were few indeed, for at such a time stretcher-bearers,
like the proverbial “good men,” are scarce.
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.