Today in History:

190 Series I Volume XLVII-I Serial 98 - Columbia Part I

Page 190 OPERATIONS IN N. C., S. C., S. GA., AND E. FLA. Chapter LIX.

medical officers has come to my knowledge, but on the contrary they have been faithful and zealous in the performance of duty, and the wounded have been promptly removed from the field to the hospitals. The new system of ambulance organization has been more or less completely carried into effect in all the corps and has worked well. The character of the wounds in the cases of those brought to the hospitals was of an unusually grave character, much of the firing being at short was of an unusually grave character, much of the firing being at short range. Of the 1,368 wounded brought to the hospitals 131 died within forty-eight hours. There were eighty-eight capital amputations in cases brought to the hospitals from the battles of the 16th and 19th of March. A number of these, in the Twentieth Corps, were carried in ambulances over very rough roads the day following the battle, and yet, when I saw them a few days ago at the hospital tents in an open field, I think I have never seen so many men with amputations doing so well in the most elaborately arranged hospital. Every years' experience tends to prove the advantage of treating wounded men in tents, where they can enjoy the ventilation almost of the open air. The Sanitary Commission was prompt in furnishing many luxuries to the hospitals which they had no other means of obtaining. The subjoined tabular statement will give a summary of sickness, casualties, &c.: Strength of command, 65,000; average daily number of sick, 1,520; total number wounded, 1,368; died from wounds, 130; sent to rear, 685; total number wounded and sick on arrival at Goldsborough (approximate), 2,888. Those in the above table reported as sent to the rear were sent from Fayetteville to Wilmington, except the wounded from Rivers' Bridge, who were sent to Beaufort. As far as I have been informed there is no case of a sick or wounded man being left on the way. When the army cast loose from everything in the rear on the campaign from Atlanta to Savannah, probably one of the gravest objections to it in the minds of both officers and men was the dread of being on neither that campaign nor this one has this fear been realized, except in the case of two men from the Right Wing, who had compound fractures of the thigh and were left in friendly hands in Georgia. In short, the facility with which an army can subsist in all the settled portions of the Confederacy, while at the same time destroying the food and forage indispensable to the support of its armies, has demonstrated the feasibility of a mode of warfare that six months ago was deemed chimerical and hazardous, and undoubtedly has had an important influence in bringing resent cheerful aspect.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN MOORE,

Surgeon, U. S. Army, Med. Dir. Mil. of the Mississippi.

Major General W. T. SHERMAN,

Commanding Military Division of the Mississippi.

[Indorsement.]


HEADQUARTERS DIVISION MISSISSIPPI,
Goldsborough, N. C., April 10, 1865.

I invite special attention to this very interesting report of Surgeon Moore, U. S. Army, who has been with the army as medical director since the beginning of the campaign. He confirms by his experience and judgment what I know to be the case, that armies may operate in the Southern States the whole year round. The health, spirit and tone of the men are always better in motion than when still. I also call


Page 190 OPERATIONS IN N. C., S. C., S. GA., AND E. FLA. Chapter LIX.