Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI DEPOT FIELD HOSPITAL AND STATE AGENCIES AT CITY POINT, VIRGINIA THE hospital was situated half a mile from General Grant's headquarters at City Point, at the junction of the James and Appomatox Rivers, and about eight miles from Petersburg front. The hospital camp, then under the charge of Surgeon Edward Dalton and medical staff, was laid out with great precision. This field hospital was divided into the 9th, 2d, 6th, 5th corps, and corps d'Afric, and these again into divisions, avenues, and streets at right angles, -- numbered and lettered. There were many thousands of sick and wounded in these wards, nine thousand or more at a time, I believe. Convalescent soldiers did police, ward, nurse and kitchen duty. There were hundreds of wards with stockade sides, covered with canvas roofs upheld in the usual manner by ridge and tent poles, each containing probably fifty or more bunks or cots. A perfect system of order and policing by convalescent men was enforced, and not a particle of refuse or any scrap was allowed to lie for a moment upon the immaculate streets or avenues of the "Sacred Soil," which was generally beaten hard and dry, though in wet weather this was a problem to try men's souls and women's soles too. At such times we were obliged to wade through nearly a foot of liquid mud, occasionally sticking fast till pulled out somehow, perhaps with the loss of a high rubber boot. The wards were wonders of cleanliness, considering the disadvantages of field life, and even at that time sanitation was of a high order and, to a great degree, prevented local diseases. Men nurses, soldiers unfit for active duty, took pleasure in fixing up their wards with an attempt at ornamentation, when allowed. These men well deserved their pay, ...