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883 Series I Volume XIV- Serial 20 - Secessionville

Page 883 Chapter XXVI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.

wounded from the field. After consulting with the medical officers he will establish the ambulance depot in the rear and give his assistant the necessary instructions for the efficient service of the ambulance wagons and other means of transportation.

VI. the ambulance depot, to which the wounded are to be conveyed or directed for immediate treatment, should be established at the most convenient building nearest the field of battle. A red flag marks the place and way to it.

VII. Before the immediately after battle the roll of each company will be called, and absentees must strictly account for their absence from the ranks. To quit their standard on the battle-field under fire under the pretense of removing or aiding the wounded will not be permitted; any one persisting in it will be shot on the spot, and whoever shall be found to have quit the field or his regiment or company without authority will be regarded and proclaimed as a coward and dealt with accordingly.

VIII. The active ambulances will follow the troops to succor the wounded and to remove them to the depots. Before the engagement infirmary detachments will also be detailed and organized of three (the least effective under arms) from each company, whose duties will be hereinafter prescribed. These men must not loiter about the depots, but will return promptly to the field as soon as possible.

IX. the infirmary detachments will be under the immediate orders of the medical officers on the field. This corps will go upon the field unarmed, except the non-commissioned officers, who are to protect the corps against stragglers and marauders. The members will be provided with one litter to every two men, and each with a badge, by which he can be easily distinguished from the rest of the command; also with leather shoulder straps, a canteen of water, a tin cup, a haversack containing one-eighth pound of lint, four bandages, two long and two short splints of wood, sponges and tourniquets, and a pint bottle of alcoholic stimulant.

X. It shall be the duty of this corps, under the immediate direction of the assistant surgeon of the regiment, accompanied by the ambulance or wagons, to follow up promptly the action, administering to the immediate wants of the wounded by giving stimulants, checking hemorrhage, and the temporary splinting of fractures.

XI. Those who are too much disabled to walk will be removed to some ambulance depot previously agreed upon, where the will be left in charge of the surgeon of the regiment. The removal of the wounded from the field will devolve upon the infirmary corps, and all men straggling from the ranks under pretext of aiding this corps will be summarily dealt with, to which end the medical officers in charge and the non-commissioned officers are specially required to report to the regimental commanders of the stragglers their names and the company to which they may belong.

XII. The assistant surgeon in charge of the infirmary corps should provide himself with a pocket case, ligatures, needles, pins, chloroform, napkins, brandy or whisky, tourniquets, bandages, lint, and splints. To obviate the shock of the nervous system, to suppress hemorrhage, to put fractures in some temporary apparatus, so as to facilitate the removal of the wounded, should be his first care. This last is to be accomplished by placing under the fractured limb a piece of old linen or cotton of the form of a pocket handkerchief; on the opposite and outer edges of this are placed the splints, which are rolled up in it toward the lint on each side until the fracture is snugly supported in the inter-


Page 883 Chapter XXVI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE.