[Sickness at Chickamauga]
The prevailing sickness at Chickamauga was diarrhœa, dysentery and typhoid. During the spring and summer about 80,000 men passed through the park, but there were probably never over 50,000 encamped there at any one time. The board which investigated the sanitary conditions of 44,803 men at Camp Thomas, reported 9,960 probable cases of typhoid, and 713 fatal results from this disease. One man in every five suffered from this fever, and almost every man was afflicted with some intestinal disorder. Much has been said as to whether this suffering was preventable, and was due to ignorance and neglect, or was paid as the necessary price of war.
In the first call for troops the War Department expressed a desire that the States should give preference among volunteers to National Guard organizations, in the expectation that they were equipped and had been prepared for war by a previous training.
Massachusetts perhaps, satisfied this expectation as fully as any state. Her regiments were at least uniformed, armed, and equipped with means for preparing food, but they had no experience in caring for themselves in the field. The Government ration consisted of bread, coffee, potatoes, onions, canned tomatoes, fresh beef seven days, and bacon three days out of ten. One hundred rations were sufficient in quantity to feed one hundred men one day, but this required careful management on the part of company commanders, and proper preparation by company cooks. Any system of training men for the field should make provision for accustoming men to live, and live comfortably upon this ration.
It is not an answer to say that the United States Army in time of peace, does not live upon this ration, but supplements it by purchases from their company funds. A volunteer regiment going into the United States service, will have no company funds, and must live on the ration until companies accumulate funds, which ordinarily would be impossible in the field. Any system of training which fails to recognize this fact is false in theory and practice.
Previous to the Spanish War, the Massachusetts Militia were fed by caterers at their summer outings. There was a Commissary Department, but its officers were appointed for other reasons than efficiency and experience in handling supplies. Some states had commissary departments which furnished rations, and required the companies to prepare the food, but there was no where any systematic attempt to train men to manage and support life upon the Government ration.