Reminiscences of an army nurse during the Civil War

by Adelaide W. Smith

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, as they worked cheerfully for the government and for their sick comrades, doing their part faithfully during the devastations of war. They were as much needed and as necessary as their heroic comrades in the field. I never knew of one of these faithful, hard-working amateur nurses being guilty of neglect or unkindness, though chronic growlers and irritable sick men were often exasperating to the nurse’s unfailing care and patience. They frequently conveyed some interdicted luxuries from the sutler, or extra rations, to make life more endurable and comfortable for the invalids. This was usually winked at by their officers. They were generally appreciated, and little dissatisfaction or complaint could have been expressed. Perfect discipline and sympathy seemed to prevail.

SANITARY COMMISSION TENT AT CITY POINT

During my year in this Field Hospital I did not hear of any enforcement of severe punishment, but I remember, one day, while riding outside of hospital lines, past a post or camp in the woods, seeing in the distance a poor fellow hanging by his thumbs to the branch of a tree. It was said by the men of his regiment that “the fellow ought to have been hanged.”

Just across the road on one side of the hospital was a row of State Agency tents. Larger tents of the Sanitary Commission,—​that magnanimous gift of the people that so often, even in the far South, so nobly supplemented the regular hospital work and supplies, sometimes even with its own transports and its own official corps of workers,—​headed this row. In the middle of the Agency row were the tents of the Christian Commission, supported chiefly by churches from all over the Northern States. They had built a large rough wooden structure where regular services were held on Sundays and on many evenings during the week, to the great relief and enjoyment of weary men seeking to find a word of hope and comfort, and a change from the monotony of ward life. Many ministers and other speakers came to look over the work, and many of them were very interesting and earnest.

Along this extensive row of tents were the Agencies, supported by the liberality of their several States, which also supplemented the government in giving special care to their own individual men. Capable men and refined women workers toiled uncomplainingly to make hospital life more endurable for the sick.