THE final blows of the Civil War came quick and sharp. Grant had taken Petersburg; Thomas had annihilated the Confederate forces under Hood along the Mississippi River; Sherman had swept through Georgia and overrun the Carolinas. Exactly four years after the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy, historic Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered. The closing days sowed flame and devastation. The war cameras followed Sherman's Army into Columbia and the old negatives tell the tragedy of the destroyed Confederate cities. One of them here reproduced is historic Secession Hall in ruins. It was here that the first Ordinance of Secession was passed. This view shows the historic edifice as it appeared when the Union troops took possession of the city. Adjoining the Hall are the ruins of Central Church, and in the background is St. Phillips Church. The fall of Columbia occurred on February 12, 1865. Charleston surrendered the following day, and the Federal Government took possession. One of these photographs shows the ruins of the Northeastern Railroad Depot at Charleston where two hundred persons were blown up on the day of evacuation, February 17, 1865. Sherman moved on through North Carolina and fought his last battle at Bentonville, where the National loss was 1,604 men and the Confederate loss 2,342. During these last days of the war occurred a disaster on the Mississippi River. The "Sultana" was on her journey from New Orleans to St. Louis, receiving on board 1,964 Union prisoners from Columbia, Salisbury, Andersonville and other Confederate prisons. Anxious to proceed North, little heed was given that the ship was already carrying a heavy load of passengers on board, occupying every foot of available space on all the decks to the tops of the cabins and the wheelhouse, and on the twenty-seventh of April, when about eight miles above Memphis, one of her boilers blew up. The dead at the scene numbered 1,500.
STEAMER "SULTANA" CONVEYING EXCHANGED UNION PRISONERS—DESTROYED IN MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN 1865
IN the hospitals of the army during the Civil War 6,049,648 cases were treated by the officers of the Medical Department. The medical skill of the surgeons and physicians is evidenced by the fact that only 185,353 of these patients died during their detention in the hospitals. While a large number of these soldiers suffered from gunshot wounds, the disease of chronic diarrhœa was nearly as fatal, and its deadliness was closely followed by the ravages of typhoid fever and lung diseases. It is estimated that 285,245 men were discharged during the war for disability. A tribute should be paid to the nobility of the hospital corps. Many noble men and women did great service to their country in relieving the sufferings that followed the battles. After many of the terrific conflicts the ground was strewn with the dead and dying. The wounded, in whom there was a hope of life, were given immediate care and hurried on stretchers to nearby houses and barns from which floated the yellow flag of the Medical Department. Large hospital tents were erected near the scene of battle. At times all the rooms in the surrounding farmhouses were full of wounded; the injured men were laid on cornstalks and hay in the barns. Sometimes it was impossible to find shelter for them all and they were laid on boards inclined against fences. Many of the large trees formed a shelter for a temporary hospital, where the men were laid in rows while the attendants administered to their wants. In no previous war in the history of the world was so much done to alleviate suffering as in the War of 1861-1865. But notwithstanding all that was done, the wounded suffered horribly. After any great battle it required several days and nights of steady work before all the wounded men were gathered.
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WHILE AMBULANCE CORPS WERE REMOVING WOUNDED SOLDIERS TO THE FIELD HOSPITAL