Today in History:

56 Series I Volume XXXVIII-III Serial 74 - The Atlanta Campaign Part III

Page 56 THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. Chapter L.

organized by Surg. G. F. French, assisted by Asst. Surg. C. F. Marsh, Twenty-fifth Iowa, and a number of contract surgeons. Buildings were used at first, and afterward tents and buildings. About the 20th of June the field hospital at Chattanooga with medical officers and all remaining patients were brought to Rome. All the iron bedsteads, mattresses, and other hospital furniture used at Huntsville, together with everything of this kind in the hands of Doctor Brewer, the medical purveyor, were sent there in the beginning. These made in all about 1,600 beds, and were afterward increased to 3,000 by making bunks. The number in hospital never exceeded at any one time 2,750. For two or three weeks some difficulty was experienced in getting proper food for the sick. Doctor French, the surgeon in charge, reported that fruit and fowls, cows, and vegetables of all kinds were abundant in the country, but that the general in command (Vandever), for some unaccountable reason, refused to co-operate with him in getting these much-needed supplies, or rather, that he would not allow them to be taken. What are the sufferings of sick men to a hackneyed and effete politician, when he find himself unable to alleviate them without incurring the displeasure of ladies (?) who have remained in pleasant quarters while their husbands, sons, &c., are in the rebel army? It were as unreasonable to expect the Ethiopian to change his skin as for a man like this to be influenced by the instincts of a soldier. After the establishment of this hospital no sick or wounded were sent farther to the rear. All were treated here and in the corps hospitals in Marietta. There were three of these, one for each corps. That of the Fifteenth was entirely under canvas, and, for completeness of arrangement in kitchen, laundry, and comfort of the sick, soon became a model. It was under the charge of Doctor Goslin. The hospital of the Seventeenth Corps was partly in the military college building and partly in tents on the grounds around it. The Sixteenth Corps hospital was altogether in buildings, and was the least comfortable of the three. These at one time contained an aggregate of about 3,000 patients. In a subsequent and fuller report I hope to show that the wounded treated in these hospitals did quiet as well and better than in the more elaborately fitted-up buildings farther to the rear. During the campaign 625 wounded and over 3,000 sick were taken into hospitals at Rome, Marietta, and division hospitals in the field.

The Army of the Cumberland, having been operating on this line at different points ever the war began, had numerous hospitals at its command in Nashville and Chattanooga, and, having until recently a monopoly of the hospital trains, was enabled to send its sick and wounded to the rear rapidly, and was not perplexed with the establishment of hospitals for large numbers of men, with scanty materials and often incompetent or inexperienced men. And yet, forgetting all these circumstances, I have understood I was much censured by a medical inspector at Resaca for not having such well-regulated general hospitals in the rear as the Army of the Cumberland.

SUPPLIES.

The regiments were well supplied on leaving Huntsville. About the 1st of June Doctor Brewer arrived at Big Shanty with a large stock of everything in the way of supplies. These were at once


Page 56 THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. Chapter L.