Off White House, Va., June 17, 1862.
(A.) My dear General:—Your prompt action, of which I am notified by your telegram of this date, in securing the shipment of large supplies of anti-scorbutics to the Army of the Potomac, without waiting for the Medical Director to assume the responsibility of ordering them, leads me to hope that you may think it right in like manner to interpose for the protection of the army from other evils, for which the remedies are equally obvious, and more readily attainable.
I therefore urge that tarpaulings, old sails, felt, or canvas in bolts, with means of putting it together, be sent here immediately, in quantities sufficient to form a shelter for ten thousand wounded men. The materials for extending and supporting it in the form of sheds can be found in the woods immediately in the rear of the line of operations, where the shelters should be placed. I should propose that at least one depot for wounded should in this way be prepared for each army corps. Water should be secured in its vicinity, and means for providing large quantities of beef-tea or soup.
I know that such an arrangement would have saved many hundred lives after the battle of Fair Oaks. Nearly all of those with whom I conversed, of the first three thousand wounded men who received aid at this point from the Sanitary Commission, assured me that they had been without shelter from sun or rain, and without nourishment, from the time they fell until they came into our hands. This would be a period of from one to four days. The men seemed sincere, and their appearance was such as to lead me to the conclusion that, in many cases, at least, they asserted no more than the truth.
If, without waiting for a demand from the Medical Director, or the convenience of the Quartermaster's staff of this army, it would be in your power to order it, it seems to me that a provision of the kind I have indicated should be made within a single week. Everything necessary should be sent here; canvas, nails, tools, laborers, kettles, beef, pans, spoons, cooks. The smallest service for hospital purposes cannot be procured here now by the most energetic and persistent surgeons in less than a fortnight from the time they undertake to secure it. I have called three times a day, for ten days, for a detail of ten men to police the landing-place of the hospital boats; and though constantly promised me, and though the need for the work is acknowledged to be very great, I do not yet succeed in getting them.
Memorandum of Arrangements proposed by the Secretary
of the Commission, to prevent a recurrence of the confusion
in the Transport Service which occurred after the
Battle of Fair Oaks.
The following is a list of Transports understood to be at present available for hospital service for the Army of the Potomac:—
Sea Steamers, fitted for long passages outside.
S. R. Spaulding,
Daniel Webster No. 1.