reported for duty in accordance with orders from the Surgeon-General's Office. many of these rendered most valuable assistance. Immediately upon the establishment of communication with Washington measures were taken to transport to that city all such men as were disabled for more than thirty days. All the available transportation was used for the more severe cases, while many wounded only in the upper extremity were sent in squads on foot to Belle Plain under charge of a medical officer and there placed on board transports.

Mean time the battles of Spotsylvania sent in daily accessions to the number in the city. In some instances the ambulance and wagon trains containing these were unloaded at once, while in others they were halted for a sufficient length of time to allow of provision for the immediate wants of those on board, and were then sent on at once to Belle Plain. On the 20th, 300 hospital tents arrived. These were distributed to the different corps hospitals, and were at once pitched outside the town. So many of the wounded as could thus be accommodated were transferred from the buildings without delay.

On the 22nd, the repairs of the Falmouth and Aquia Creek Railway were completed, and this additional means constantly made use of for the removal of the wounded to Aquia Landing, to which point the depots previously at Belle Plain had been transferred.

Simultaneously with the opening of the railroad, light-draught steamers reached the city by the Rappahannock River. These were hastily furnished with supplies, straw, &c., and used for the transportation of wounded to Tappahannock and other points lower down the river, where hospital transports were ready to receive and convey them to Washington. The army had now moved so far that Fredericksburg was no longer eligible as a hospital depot, and every effort was made to evacuate the town as promptly as possible. By the morning of Saturday, the 28th of May, the wounded were all removed, and all public property placed on board steamers and barges in tow. These dropped down the river under convoy of a gun-boat, while the ambulances and army wagons moved overland under escort of the troops which had been garrisoning the city during its occupation. By night both reached Port Royal, which had already been occupied as a depot, but was about to be abandoned in consequence of the onward march of the army toward the Peninsula. Some thousand wounded had been brought here from the front by Surg. A. J. Phelps, U. S. Volunteers, and by him sent thence to Washington. No more were expected, and White House, on the Pamunkey River, had been designated as the next base. The necessary arrangements for transportation to said point were made without delay, and the medical officers, with their hospital attendants and property, sailed on the afternoon of the following day. Surg. W. L. Faxon, Thirty-second Massachusetts Volunteers, in charge of the Fifth Corps hospital, remained in charge at Port Royal until the departure of the last boat to see that nothing appertaining to the department should be neglected. After thoroughly performing this duty, he accompanied the troops and train across land to the new base.

We reached White House on the 30th and immediately commenced unloading and pitching the tents and preparing for the reception of wounded, whose arrival from the battle-fields of Hanovertown and Cold Harbor was now looked for every hour. The hospitals were arranged along the river-bank in double echelon, extending