The weather is growing excessively hot, and the army is pushing forward in a malarious country in the face of the enemy. We have received a few wounded men from the skirmishes of yesterday. There is obviously great danger that we shall be altogether overwhelmed with sick and wounded in a few days. If the recommendation of my telegram of Sunday is adopted by the Surgeon-General, and a complete hospital for six thousand sent here from Washington, there will be reasonable provision for what is to be expected; otherwise it is dreadful to think of it. There is no doubt that we might take care of a few hundred on our boats,—probably save the lives of some of them; but considering what a week, or, for that matter, a day, may bring forth, I think it right to throw the authorities still on their resources as much as we can, and, if possible, force them to enlarge their shore accommodations.... Nor, when ready, shall I be inclined to hasten the removal of the sick. I shall do my best to avoid taking any but serious cases. It is plain that the facilities so far offered in this respect have been abused, and that serious evils have come of it. Those responsible for the care of the sick here—I mean the military administrative as well as medical officers—have made the presence of the transports near them an excuse for neglecting all proper local provision, and evidently have the idea that, in hurrying patients on board vessels, they relieve themselves of responsibility.[[4]] I saw this danger from the first, and have (I wish the Surgeon-General and our friends to be sure of this) constantly done all that I could to counteract it, not only by verbal protest, but by a habit of action which I know that B. and other friends here, who have not had the duty of looking at the matter as comprehensively as I have, have not been able always to regard as justifiable....
[4]. The reader must constantly remember that the Commission did not supply vessels, but merely furnished a few vessels already held by government with proper hospital arrangements, and that these were at the command of the medical authorities of the army, the Commission being responsible only for their internal administration.
But this is not all. Of this hundred thousand men, I suppose not ten thousand were ever entirely without a mother's, a sister's, or a wife's domestic care before. They are wonderfully like school-boys. Then this is really the first experience of nearly all our officers (who are their schoolmasters and housekeepers) in active campaigning. They are learning to take care of their men as a matter of self-interest. The men need to learn to make themselves content—of contented habit—away from home, to understand that this is in the bargain. It is obvious from the remarks we hear, that the rumor that sick men are to be sent home has a disturbing influence upon the education of the army in both these respects....
The Knickerbocker has arrived while I have been writing; thus I have all the elements of my plan approved by the Medical Director on Monday. But the question still troubles me greatly, If they should have several hundred more patients on shore than they have tents or beds for, and among them all several hundreds seriously ill, such as would properly be sent North, shall I break up my reserve, and have no provision for the avalanche of suffering which a great battle before Richmond would send down upon us? I am afraid that I stand alone in my resistance to the demands of the present.[[5]]
[5]. The wisdom of this resistance was satisfactorily established a few days later, as will be seen.
As it has been publicly reported that the Commission removed forty thousand men from the Peninsula, it should be here stated that the total number of soldiers, sick and wounded, conveyed on the vessels in charge of the Commission, during the summer, was eight thousand. Except under positive orders, which it was not at liberty to disregard, the Commission took no patient on board its vessels until the opinion of a medical officer was had that his wound or illness was of such a character that he could not be fit for duty within thirty days. This was a standing order of the service, and was strictly enforced.
It is impossible to give in small compass an adequate idea of the difficulties of the duty which the Commission had taken upon itself; difficulties which, though seeming small in themselves, were terrible, because the lives of men frequently hung on their being overcome, and that instantly. To present a full picture, in true and living colors, we must be qualified to throw over the whole the atmosphere of sympathy and enthusiasm which animated every heart in presence of our suffering soldiers. On a fixed and recognized basis we can do almost anything; grooves are soon formed, in which affairs run smoothly. But to build with infinite toil on shifting sands; to be called upon to fill leaky cisterns and keep them full; to give our best strength to labors, the results of which often fade while we work,—these things require a great and good cause, and a certainty of being sustained.
(A.) All our vessels are, from the nature of engagement and intentions of those on board, in a constant state of pre-organization and disorganization. Our relations to the crews (seamen, firemen, &c.), upon whom we are dependent, differ in every vessel. Scarcely a day passes in which there is not a real mutiny among them, in which we have no right to interfere, but which it is necessary we should manage to control. We have scarcely any established rights, and are carrying on a very large business by the favor of a multitude of agents, whose favor in each case hangs upon a separate string. Every hour brings its own difficulty, which must be met by itself.... Except in the results accomplished, I need not say that the whole duty is exceedingly unpleasant, from the amount of dependence without rights, and of command without authority.