How to Use Reading 1: From Incompetence to Proficiency: The
North and the South had struggled through nearly four years of
brutal fighting by the time the Battle of Bentonville erupted in
the spring of 1865. By then, month after month of dead and
wounded soldiers had drained away most, if not all, of the
romance of war that had characterized the start of the conflict.
Yet the seemingly endless flood of casualties had produced at
least one encouraging development, better medical care on the
battlefield. For troops wounded in the early battles of the
Civil War, the disorganization of the medical corps often proved
disastrous. At the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) on July
21, 1861, for example, many Union surgeons refused to treat
casualties from regiments other than their own, and civilian
ambulance drivers fled from the field at the first sound of
gunfire. As a result, some wounded were left lying on the
battlefield for three or four days.Assistant Surgeon John W.
Foye of the Eleventh Massachusetts Infant