Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

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.

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.

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.

A FOLDING LITTER.

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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER XVII.
SCATTERING SHOTS.

“His coat was e’er so much too short,

His pants a mile too wide,

And when he marched could not keep step

However much he tried.”