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                          HOSPITAL TRANSPORTS.

                                A MEMOIR
                                _of the_
                  EMBARKATION OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED
                     FROM THE PENINSULA OF VIRGINIA
                            IN THE SUMMER OF
                                 1862.

             _Compiled and Published at the request of the
                         Sanitary Commission._

[Illustration]

                               _Boston_:
                          TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
                                 1863.




      Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by

                          TICKNOR AND FIELDS,

    in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of
                             Massachusetts.




                           UNIVERSITY PRESS:
                      WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
                               CAMBRIDGE.




                             _DEDICATION._

                           TO THE MEMORIES OF


                          J. M. GRYMES, M. D.,

sometime Surgeon in charge of the Hospital Transport _Daniel Webster_,
and, at the time of his death, Surgeon to the temporary _Home_ for
disabled soldiers, of the Sanitary Commission at Washington;—


                      WILLIAM PLATT, JUNIOR, ESQ.,

late a Relief Agent of the Sanitary Commission, who died from the effect
of prolonged exposure and excessive exertion in pushing succor to the
wounded during and after the battles of South Mountain, Crampton's Gap,
and Antietam;—


              Lieut.-Col. JOSEPH BRIDGHAM CURTIS, U.S.V.,

formerly of the Engineer Corps of the Central Park of New York,
afterwards of the central staff of the Sanitary Commission, who fell
while leading his regiment to the assault of the rebel works at
Fredericksburg, December, 1862;—


                        RUDD C. HOPKINS, M. D.,

formerly Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum of Ohio, lately a General
Inspector of the Sanitary Commission, and who died in its service, while
on the river passage from Memphis to Cincinnati;—


                       MRS. FANNY SWAN WARRINER,

who bore heroically to the end a woman's part in war, having died at
Louisville, Kentucky, on her way home from the Head-quarters Relief
Station of the Sanitary Commission with the Army of the Tennessee,—of
disease there contracted;—


                       DAVID BOSWELL REID, M. D.,

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; Fellow of the Royal College of
Physicians of London; Member of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of St.
Petersburg; formerly Director of Ventilation at the Houses of Parliament
of Great Britain; late Professor of Physiology and Hygiene at the
University of Wisconsin; at the time of his death, Special Inspector of
the Ventilation of Hospitals of the Sanitary Commission;—and


                     Surgeon ROBERT WARE, U. S. V.,

for several years physician in charge of the largest Dispensary District
in Boston, afterwards a General Inspector of the Sanitary Commission,
and Surgeon of its Relief Stations at Yorktown, White House, and
Berkeley, lastly Surgeon of Volunteers. He fell at his post in the works
at Washington, North Carolina, during its bombardment by the rebels,
March, 1863.




                             INTRODUCTION.


The Sanitary Commission, grateful for the generous confidence reposed in
it by the public, would be glad to meet and justify that confidence by a
circumstantial account of its operations in field and hospital, from the
first day of its existence to the present. It might, perhaps, without
undue boasting, show such a picture of what has been accomplished as
would stimulate, to the last degree, the interest and the liberality of
loyal hearts, if this were required. But the immense mass of details
which such an account must involve, would prove nearly as laborious in
the reading as in the performance, overwhelming rather than enlightening
all who have not been personally engaged in the work. The intense
interest which the service inspires in those devoted to it, lightens
what might, under other circumstances, seem wearisome duties; but a
minute description of the ceaseless round of consultations,
examinations, correspondence, journeys, accounts, distributions,
required of the Commission as trustee of the public bounty, could not be
expected to prove interesting to others.

The most that the Commission can at present be called upon to offer, or
the public be likely to accept, is such brief accounts of single
sections in the various departments of its labor, as may indicate the
general method and spirit extending through the whole. In accordance
with this plan, from time to time, the Commission has published reports
covering a single battle-field, or a term of one round of visits to the
hospitals, or the results of its arrangements for the care of disabled
and discharged soldiers for a stated period. There is one branch of the
service, however, which has as yet had no such public record,—that of
the Hospital Transports. In order to supply this omission in some
measure, the Commission has caused to be placed in the hands of a
manager of the "Woman's Central Army Relief Association of New York," a
quantity of letters and other papers, containing observations made at
the time, and on the spot, by those in its service who assisted in the
embarkation and care of the sick and wounded on the peninsula of
Virginia in 1862. Passages from these have been selected and arranged
with a view to give within moderate compass as many particulars as may
be necessary to show the scope of the enterprise, and the position which
it held as an aid to the government, together with the difficulties and
the success, the disappointments and satisfactions, with which it was
attended. The plan is limited to the Atlantic hospital transports, and
to the period of embarkation of the patients upon them, for the sake of
compactness and completeness in the grouping of incidents. A similar
service in the Western rivers the same year was larger in its scope, and
in some of its arrangements more satisfactory, but it was at the same
time less homogeneous in character.

For the style of the letters quoted, this only need be said: they were,
for the most part, addressed to intimate friends, with no thought that
they could ever go beyond them, or, as in the case of those addressed by
the Secretary to the President of the Commission, were in the nature of
familiar and confidential reports; nearly all were written hastily, in
some chance interruption to severe labor,—often with a pencil, while
passing in a boat from one vessel to another. Passages may be found
which are not merely descriptive of the Hospital Transport service, but
they contain thoughts springing from the occasion, and which will serve
to fasten pictures of scenes and circumstances with which that service
was associated, and which are now historical.[1]

Footnote 1:

  The letters were all written by two officers of the Commission and six
  ladies serving with them. As the different writers are quoted from in
  succession, and the same occurrences are often described from more
  than one point of view, a capital letter at the head of a paragraph
  will indicate the change from one writer to another. The officers will
  be known by the letters A. and B.; the ladies, by the letters M. and
  N.

It should be understood that the account is not intended to be complete
in any respect, and that no attempt has been made to give public credit
to individuals for their services, whatever these may have been. It is
known that to do so in some cases where public gratitude is most
deserved would give pain; to do so in all cases would greatly swell the
bulk of the volume. In general terms only it may be said, that among the
surgeons who freely gave their aid in the enterprise were numbered some
of the leading members of the profession,—among those who served as
administrative officers, matrons, and nurses, the most honored
historical families of New England, New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania were represented. The class termed Ward-masters was mainly
composed of medical students of two years, with some young men of
Philadelphia who had had previous experience in caring for sick soldiers
in the noble local charities of that city. It included, also, some
students of theology. The responsibility for the detail of care of the
patients was chiefly with this class, and the devotedness, pliability,
and practical talent with which they generally met this responsibility
was too remarkable to be passed without at least this simple reference
to it as one of a class of facts of the war.

It is a secondary object of the recital to make evident, from narrations
of actual experience, what is sometimes required for supplying the
unavoidable deficiencies of government service in emergencies. Not to
have sprung at once into a thorough practical knowledge of what the
dread contingencies of war require, is no just cause of reproach to a
peaceful people like ourselves, who, meaning peace, sought only to
"ensue it"; but not to thoroughly learn our duty under such an
experience as we are passing through, would indeed bring shame upon our
name.

It is no common nation's task that we have undertaken, and only craven
souls will lose heart in finding that it cannot be light or short in the
sacrifices which it demands of us. True and far-seeing lovers of their
country, as they regard the sufferings of those uncomplaining men who
fought for us in the Peninsula,—men who, though perhaps but green
soldiers in the field, proved, one and all, heroes upon the bed of pain
and in the hour of death, will be led to the reflection, "This is what
it costs a republic to have nursed rebellion tenderly at its breast." We
know that the barbarous spirit with which the chances of war first were
dared in this gambling scheme of reckless ambition, will prolong it,
when resistance to the law can no longer avail for anything but the
gratification of the personal vindictive hate of the disappointed
conspirators. And we know that if we do well the work the pecuniary cost
of which we are throwing so heavily upon our posterity, this will be the
last of such schemes. The more we feel its cost ourselves, the more
resolute shall we be that, when done, this work shall have been done
once for all. The more ready shall we be to meet whatever sacrifice it
may yet require of us; the more ready to truly say, "Our loyalty is
without conditions; success at this point or that, this year or next, we
do not ask; we have elected our leaders, and we accept what they have
the ability to give us. It is enough that in this nation, standing
firmly upon its declaration of equal rights to all, no gleam of peace
can ever be seen to fall upon a rebel in arms."

The deepest solicitude that all unnecessary suffering should be avoided
in carrying on the war, is not in the least degree inconsistent with
this sentiment, provided only it be guided and constrained by a true
appreciation of the duties and the necessities of war. On the contrary,
patriotism and humanity have one origin, and each strengthens the other
in every heart. Whatever, then, leads the public to truly comprehend
what the rebellion costs, and at the same time inculcates a right spirit
of humane provision against the unnecessary suffering of war, must
foster a sound and healthy public sentiment.

Such, it is hoped, may be the influence of this little volume, to the
introduction of which only this further explanation will be required by
the reader.

A sudden transfer of the scene of active war from the high banks of the
Potomac to a low and swampy region, intersected with a net-work of
rivers and creeks, early in the summer of 1862, required appliances for
the proper care of the sick and wounded which did not appear to have
been contemplated in the government arrangements. Seeing this, with the
approval of the Medical Bureau, a proposal was made to the
Quartermaster-General to allow the Sanitary Commission to take in hand
some of the transport steamboats of his department, of which a large
number were at that time lying idle, to fit them up and furnish them in
all respects suitably for the reception and care of sick and wounded
men, providing surgeons and other necessary attendance, without cost to
government. After tedious delays and disappointments of various
kinds,—one fine large boat having been assigned, partially furnished by
the Commission, and then withdrawn,—an order was at length received,
authorizing the Commission to take possession of any of the government
transports, not in actual use, which might be at that time lying at
Alexandria.

The only vessel then lying at Alexandria stanch enough for the ocean
passage from Virginia to New York or Boston, proved to be the _Daniel
Webster_, an old Pacific Coast steamer of small capacity. She had been
recently used for transporting troops, and had been "stripped of
everything movable but dirt,"—so that the labor of adapting her to the
purpose in view was not a light one.

This vessel was assigned