When can their glory fade? The following plaint in behalf of this veteran quadruped I will close this sketch: THE ARMY MULE IN TIME OF PEACE. "That men are ungrateful can plainly be seen In the case of that mule standing out on the green. He thinks of the time when the battle raged sore, "These thoughts put new life into rickety bones- To the rich and the poor, the wise man and fool, CHAPTER XVI. HOSPITALS AND AMBULANCES. HE sketch embodied in this chapter is an attempt in a limited space to give the public a more adequate idea of the medical department of the army, what it was, how it grew up, and something of what it accomplished. I enter upon it with a quasi-apology for its incompleteness, understanding fully how inadequate any mere sketch must be regarded by those whose labors in this department made its record one of the most remarkable in the history of the war; yet, like all the other topics treated in this volume, it must undergo abridgment, and I can only hope that what is presented will, in some degree, do justice to this much neglected but very interesting theme in the Rebellion's annals. At the time of the battle of Bull Run there was no plan in operation by which the wounded in that battle were cared for. Before this engagement took place, while the troops were lying in and around Washington, general hospitals had been established to provide for the sick. For this purpose five or six hotels, seminaries, and infirmaries, in Washington and Georgetown, and two or three in Alexandria, had been taken possession of, and these were all the hospital accommodations to be found at the end of the first three months. So general was the opinion that the war would be speedily ended no one thought of such a thing as building permanent structures for hospital purposes. But this condition of affairs soon after changed. Preparations for war were made on a grander scale. The Army of the Potomac, under the moulding hands of McClellan, was assuming form, and the appointment by him, Aug. 12, 1861, of Surgeon Charles S. Tripler as medical director of that army indicated a purpose of having a medical department set on foot and put in completeness for active service. Let us pause and glance at the situation as he found it, and we may, perhaps, the better appreciate the full magnitude of the task which he had before him. Army Regulations were the written law to which it was attempted to have everything conform as far as possible. But when these regulations were drafted, there was no expectation of such a war as finally came upon us, and to attempt to confine so large an army as then existed to them as a guide was as impossible and absurd as for the full-grown man to wear the suit of clothes he cast off at ten years. "New times demand new measures and new men," and so in certain directions Army Regulations had to be ignored. For example, they provided only for the establishment of regimental and general hospitals. A regimental hospital is what its name indicates - the hospital of a particular regiment. But if such a hospital became full or received some patients whose ailments were not likely to submit readily to treatment, such cases were sent to a General Hospital, that is, one into which patients were taken regardless of the regiment to which they belonged. But in these early war times, in the absence of a system, any patient who was able could, at his pleasure, leave one general hospital and go to another for any reason which seemed sufficient to him, or he could desert the service entirely. By general orders issued from the war department May 25, 1861, governors of States were directed to appoint a surgeon and assistant surgeon for each regiment. The men appointed were for the most part country physicians, many of them with little practice, who, on reaching the field, were, in some respects, as ignorant of their duties under the changed conditions as if they had not been educated to the practice of medicine; and the medical director of the army found his hands more than full in attempting to get them to carry out his wishes. So, to simplify his labors and also to increase the efficiency of his department, brigade hospitals were organized about the beginning of 1862, and by general orders from the war department brigade surgeons were appointed, with the rank of major, and assigned to the staffs of brigadier-generals. These brigade surgeons had supervision of the surgeons of their brigades, and exercised this duty under the instructions of the medical director. The regimental hospitals in the field were sometimes tents, and sometimes dwellings or barns near camp. It was partly to relieve these that brigade hospitals were established. The latter were located near their brigade or division. The hospital tent I have already described at some length. I may add here that those in use for hospital purposes before the war were 24 feet long by 14 feet 6 inches wide, and 11 feet 6 inches high, but, owing to their great bulk and weight, and the difficulty of pitching them in windy weather, the size was reduced, in 1860, to 14 feet by 14 feet 6 inches, and 11 feet high in the centre, with the walls 4 feet 6 inches, and a "fly" 21 feet 6 inches by 14 feet. Each of these was designed to accommodate eight patients comfortably. Army Regulations assigned three such tents to a regiment, together with one Sibley and one Wedge or A tent. The Sibley tent I have likewise quite fully described. I will only add here that, not having a "fly," it was very hot in warm weather. Then, on account of its centre pole and the absence of walls, it was quite contracted and inconvenient. For these reasons it was little used for hospital purposes, and not used at all after the early part of the war. The hospital tents in the Army of the Potomac were heated, for the most part, by what was called, for some reason, the California Plan. This consisted of a pit, dug just outside of the hospital door, two and a half feet deep, from which a trench passed through the tent, terminating outside the other end in a chimney, built of barrels, or in such a manner as I have elsewhere described. This trench was covered throughout its entire extent with iron plates, which were issued by the quartermaster's department for that purpose. The radiation of the heat from the plates kept the tent very comfortable. The honor of organizing the first field hospital in tents is said to belong to Dr. B. J. D. Irwin, U. S. A., of the Army of the Ohio. It occurred at the battle of Shiloh. While establishing a hospital near the camp of Prentiss' division of that army, which had been captured the day before, the abandoned tents still standing suggested themselves to him as a convenient receptacle for his wounded. He at once appropriated the camp for this purpose, and laid it out in systematic form. It was clearly shown by this and succeeding experiences during the war that the wounded. treated under canvas did better and recovered more rapidly than those treated in permanent hospitals. As fast as they could be procured, hospital tents were furnished, three to a regiment, in accordance with the provision of Army Regulations referred to. Each regiment provided its own nurses and cooks. In general hospitals one nurse was allowed to ten patients, and one cook to thirty. The capacity of a regimental hospital tent, like a stagecoach, varied according to the demand for room. I have said they were designed to accommodate eight. An old army surgeon says, "Only six can be comfortably accommodated in one of them, three on each side." But when the surgeons were crowded with the wounded, it was a common practice to set two long narrow boards edgewise through the centre |