OUR WOUNDED AND SICK SOLDIERS.
VISITS AMONG ARMY HOSPITALS,
General Interest in the Wounded--Their Numbers--Scenes at First Fredericksburgh--Return to Washington Hospitals--Campbell, Patent-Office, Armory-square and Others--Case of a Pennsylvania Soldier--Scenes After Chancellorsville--The Wounded Arriving at Night--June, July, &e., 1863--Death of a New York Soldier--Winter of 1863-4 at Culpepper and Brandy Station--Return Again to Washington--Picture of One of the Great Government Hospitals--Spring and Summer of 1864--Wounded from Wilderness, Spottsylvania, &c.--Assistance from Home--Characteristic Scene is a Ward--Fall of 1864--Hospitals in New York and Brooklyn--Government Always Ready and Liberal to Care for Wounded--Forms of Wounds and Diseases--Human Sympathy as a Medical Agent--The Army Surgeons, &c., &c. As this tremendous war goes on, the public interest
becomes more general and gathers more and more closely about the wounded,
the sick, the great Government Hospitals, and Surgeons, and all appertaining
to the medical department of the army. Up to the date of this writing,
(Dec. 9, 1864,) there have been, as I estimate, near 400,000 cases under
treatment, and there are today, probably, taking the whole service of the
United States, 200,000, or an approximation to that number, on the doctors'
lists. Half of these are comparatively alight aliments or hurts.
Every family has directly or indirectly some representative among this
vast army of the wounded and sick.
CAMP HOSPITALS, FREDERICKSBURGH, NEAR FALMOUTH, VA. I began my visits (Dec. 21, 1862,) among the camp
hospitals in Army of the Potomac, under Gen. Burnside. Spent a good
part of the day in a large brick mansion, on the banks of the Rappahannock,
immediately opposite Fredericksburgh. It is used as a hospital since
the battle, and seems to have received only the worst cases. Out doors,
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, &c., about a load for
a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each covered with
its brown woolen blanket. In the door-yard, 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.)
VIA AQUIA CREEK, UP THE POTOMAC. 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 Aguia 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, &c., 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. COMMENCE WITH WASHINGTON HOSPITALS. Am now (January, February, &c., 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. SPECIMENS OF HOSPITAL VISITS. Sunday, January 25.--Afternoon and till 9 in the
evening, visited Campbell Hospital, attended specially to one case in Ward
I a very sick with pleurisy and typhoid fever a young man, farmer's son;
D. F. Russell, Company E, Sixtieth New York; downhearted and feeble for
a long time before he would take any interest she 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, &c. Then went thoroughly through
Ward 5; observed every case in the ward. (without, I think, missing one;)
found some cases I though needed little sums of money; supplied them; (sums
of perhaps $0, 25, or 15 cents;) distributed a pretty bountiful supply
of cheerful reading matter, and gave perhaps from twenty to thirty persons,
each one some little fit, such as oranges, apples, sweet crackers, figs,
&c., &c.
FIFTY HOURS LEFT WOUNDED ON THE FIELD. Here is a case of a soldier I found among the crowded
cots in the Patent Office--(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 Fredericksburgh
that eventful Saturday, 13th of December. He lay the succeeding two
days and nights helpless on the field, between the city and those grim
batteries, for his company and 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 others wounded, under a flag of truce.
METHOD OF VISITS, ENLIVENING, ETC. I continue among the hospitals during March, April, &c., without intermission. My custom is to go through a ward, or 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. WRITING LETTERS BY THE BEDSIDE. I do a good deal of this, 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. AFTER CHANCELLORSVILLE. As I write this in May 1863, the wounded have begun
to arrive from Hooker's command from bloody Chancellorsville. I was
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 scenes of the wounded arriving at
the landing here foot of Sixth-street at night. Two boatloads 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; in any rate they were exposed
to it.
JUNE, JULY, ETC.--THE HOSPITALS FULL. The soldiers are nearly all young men, and far more
American 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, 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, &c. He
turned pale, and in a moment more he had fainted away and fallen on the
floor.
AMBULANCE PROCESSION. 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 Fredericksburgh, the like strings of ambulances were of frequent occurrence along Seventh-street, passing slowly up from the steamboat wharf, from Aquia Creek. DEATH OF A NEW-YORK SOLDIER. The afternoon, July 22, 1863, I spent a long time with a young man I have been with considerable, named OSCARF. WILDER, Company G, One Hundred and Fifty-fourth New York, low with chronic diarrhea, 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 scenes at the crucifixion. The poor, wasted young men 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 diarrhea 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. Wilder, Alleghany Post-office, Cattaraugus county, N.Y. I had several such interviews with him. He died a few days after the one just described. VISITS CONTINUED--HOSPITAL WISDOM. August, September, October, &c.--I continued 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 adaptation. Nothing is of any avail among the soldiers except conscientious personal investigation of cases, each one for itself; with sharp, critical faculties, but in the fullest spirit of human sympathy and boundless love. The men feel such love, always, more than anything else. I have met very few persons who realize the importance of humoring the yearnings for love ad friendship of these American young men, prostrated by sickness and wounds. CULPEPPER AND BRANDY STATION. February, 1864.--I am down at Culpepper and Brandy
Station, among the camps of the First, Second and Third Corps, and going
through the division hospitals. The conditions 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 diarrhea
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 sent 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.
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.
SPECIMEN OF THE ARMY HOSPITALS NOW IN AND AROUND WASHINGTON. There are thirty or forty of them. I am in
the habit of going to all, and to Fairfax Seminary. Alexandria, and
over Long Bridge to the great Convalescent Camp, &c. 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 altogether 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 ranged in a straight row, evenly
fronting the street; others are planned so as to form an immense V; and
others again are ranged around a hollow square. They make altogether
a huge cluster, with the additional tents, extra wards for contagious diseases,
guard-houses, sutler's stores, chaplain's house, &c. In the middle
will probably be an edifice devoted to the offices of the Surgeon in charge,
and the ward Surgeons, principal attaches, clerks, &c. Then around
this centre radiate or are gathered the wares for the wounded and sick.
WOUNDED FROM WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA, ETC. 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, outvied anything that we had seen before. For days and weeks the 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 physicians, to recuperate and have an entire change of air. LAMENTABLE DEFICIENCIES AFTER HEAVY BATTLES. What I know of first Fredericksburgh, Chancellorsville,
Wilderness, &c., 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.
ASSISTANCE--MORE ABOUT HOSPITAL VISITING AS AN ART. 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 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
these suffering men.
ICE-CREAM TREAT. 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. 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 WM. CONH, of the First Maine Cavalry, and his folks live in Skowhegan. DEATH OF A CASE FROM SECOND BULL RUN. 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 an 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 saw 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 uttered nothing except a low groan now and then. Hot moist cloths were applied, and relieved him some what. 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 of Sulivan 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. CONVALESCENT CAMP. Through Fourteenth-street to the river, and then over the Long bridge, and some three miles beyond, is the huge collections called the Convalescent Camp. It is a respectable sized army in itself, for these hospitals, tents, sheds, &c., 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. LATTER PART OF 1864 IN NEW-YORK. 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.
HOSPITAL, ASYLUM, ETC., AT FLATBUSH, L. I. Among places, apart from soldiers', visited lately, (Dec. 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. READING, INTERESTING THE MEN, ETC. 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. WOMEN 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 15 and 20 years of age. GOVERNMENT CARE FOR WOUNDED. 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. LITTLE GIFTS OF MONEY. 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. WOUNDS AND DISEASES. 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, diarrhea, 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. SURGEONS, THE YOUNG MEN. 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. AMOUNT OF THE TWO YEARS' VISITS. During my two years in the hospitals and upon the field, I have made over 600 visits, and have been, as I estimate, among from 80,000 to 100,000 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. HUMAN MAGNETISM AS A MEDICAL AGENT. 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, nick-nacks, &c., &c. but I steadily found more and more, that I could help and turn the balance in favor of cure, but 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. CONCLUSION. 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 did what I could for them. WALT WHITMAN.
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