"United States Sanitary Commission: Our Heroines"
(Harper's Weekly, April 9, 1864)
If you wish to read Part I, you may do so here.
Introduction
In the often quoted The Road to Richmond: The Civil War Memoirs of Major Abner R. Small of the 16th Maine Volunteers, Small included a section at the end aptly titled “Conclusions.” In it, he offered some thoughts about different soldier topics such as “Danger and death,” “Defeat and loyalty,” and “Sickness and other adversities,” among a number of others. In his brief discussion on sickness, Small noted, “At first the ‘Surgeon’s Call’ suggested care for the sick, and certain remedies for nostalgia; but our soldiers became disinclined to heed the call, and shrank from the mysteries of that long, white tent, with its rows of cots so close together that a patient could reach over and clasp the feverish hand of his neighbor. The interior arrangements were horrible in suggesting illness, suffering, and death away from home, between the sick man and eternity there was only a thin canvas which flapped restlessly in the wind as if impatient to open its loose seams and let some tired spirit through.”
However, according to Small, as time passed, with experience gained, and battlefield dangers realized, some soldiers evolved into ‘hospital bummers.’ Small recalled that “Mingled with pity was a feeling of indignation at seeing so many able-bodied men fall into line at the head of each company street every morning at ‘Surgeon’s Call,’ and march to the hospital tent, and swallow with evident relish a blue pill, bitter morphine or quinine, and brandy. Boys of seventeen would watch this funeral procession, so filled with disgust and anger that no discipline could prevent the most extreme profanity.”
Perhaps Small’s less-than-empathetic impressions of soldier sickness and hospitals came from a jaded perspective. Or maybe he was one of the fortunate with a hardy constitution and suffered little from illness. The accounts that follow mostly paint a somewhat different picture of sick Union and Confederate soldiers. Whether dealing with annoying minor illnesses or struggling to survive a deadly disease in central Virginia, there appears to be more concern for one’s health and the wellbeing of comrades than Small exhibited. Covering the two later war periods of November and December 1863, and January to May 1864, this CVBT History Wire shares the voices of the rank-and-file soldiers, their officers, and even those attempting to provide care.
November and December 1863
"Issuing Rations of Whisky and Quinine"
Although this image depicts a scene during the last winter of the war at Petersburg, officers in the Army of the Potomac often attempted to take measures to keep their soldiers healthy.
(Harper's Weekly, March 11, 1865)
Following the Battle of Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac moved back into the Old Dominion, and for the next three or four months maneuvered both north and south while fighting a few smaller engagements. Eventually establishing their camps on opposite sides of the Rapidan River, most soldiers hoped the active campaigning was finally over for the year. However, static camp conditions often resulted in growing sick lists.
Capt. Charles Mattocks, 17th Maine, wrote in his journal at Warrenton on November 5, 1863, after returning from a trip north that, “By some very mysterious plan of Providence I have got [a] cold.” Depending on its severity and without proper treatment a cold in the nineteenth century could develop into something much more serious. But Mattocks, perhaps knowing he could rely on the care of those around him if needed also noted, “I am glad to be back in the ‘bosom of my [army] family’ once more.”
Falling ill in his Orange County camp before the Mine Run campaign, the army sent Pvt. M. Benson Lassiter of the 38th North Carolina Infantry to Richmond to recover. In a letter home on November 15, Lassiter mentioned that he had “been unwell for some time but I am some better than I was a week ago. . . .” He noted that he was unable to do duty, but hoped “it will not be long until I can go back to camp. I am anxious to see the boys and you know how bad I dread to stay in the Hospital.” Lassiter felt he had improved since arriving in Richmond. “I think I am clear of the chills & fever, but the Doctor says that is not all that ails me,” he wrote.
Officers found that in addition to battle wounds and resignations, a sickness in the chain of command could change one’s responsibilities drastically. The previously mentioned Capt. Charles Mattocks, wrote in his journal on Nov. 30, 1863, during the severe cold and wet weather of the Mine Run Campaign that “Lt. Col. Merrill went to the rear sick this afternoon. So I am now 2d in command by seniority.” With the emphasis he placed on “sick,” Mattocks was probably being sarcastic. Regardless, depending on an officer’s level of experience, sudden changes in one’s role could be anxiety-inducing and frustrating.
If sick while on campaign, soldiers could easily become prisoners. Early on December 2, the 53rd North Carolina’s Louis Leon and his battalion of sharpshooters moved carefully toward the Federal earthworks, where they thought they saw a section of artillery. Given the order to “Charge!” they “did so with a rebel yell, and as we got upon their breastworks, lo and behold, there were no Yankees, and the cannon we saw were nothing but logs.” Following closely, Leon and his comrades netted “a great many of their sick and stragglers” as prisoners.
Assistant Surgeon Daniel Holt, 121st New York Infantry
Holt understood the unfavorable consequences to soldiers' health
when exposed to the elements.
(From History of the 121st New York State Infantry, by Isaac O. Best, published 1921)
Upon returning to camp from the Mine Run Campaign, Daniel Holt, the assistant surgeon for the 121st New York Infantry wrote his wife. Holt complained about the conditions that the soldiers had to live in and the exposure to the elements that the campaign inflicted upon them. “You hear about men becoming toughened to it:—so they do, to considerable of an extent, but it is done at the expense of health in nine cases out of ten. Were it designed that man should endure all the rigors of a Northern Winter without covering sufficient to ensure a proper degree of warmth, God would have given us scales and coats of hair and fur such as cover the horse and beaver, and envelope like a blanket the thick hide of an elephant or rhinoceros: but instead not a living thing on the face of the earth has a less protected natural body than man. For a while we can be brought to bear extreme low and high degrees for temperature and have the power of throwing off attacks of disease, which if inflicted upon more sensitive persons would surely produce death; but not long even upon the most thoroughly trained subject can the elements be brought to bear in vain. Nature true to herself at last must give out and then both alike are brought to grief.”
Seeing comrades healthy one day and sick to the point of dying the next was a disturbing experience for soldiers. Not knowing exactly how volatile a sickness might be produced worry in both the patient and those who cared about them. The 27th North Carolina’s Lt. James Graham wrote his father from camp near Orange Court House just before the Mine Run Campaign. He explained, “I was at brother Joe’s camp day before yesterday and I found him in bed. He had been unwell for a week or so and was afraid that he was going to have Camp fever, but the doctor told me that he was getting better.” Graham saw his brother five days later and wrote home informing his folks that, “He has gotten well.” A couple of weeks later Graham mentioned to his mother in a letter, “We are back in our old Camp and have almost recovered from our colds which we caught on the last march [Mine Run Campaign] or rather ‘freeze out.’”
Exposure to the bitter elements during the Mine Run Campaign likely precipitated the complaints that Col. Robert McAllister shared with his wife and family in a letter on December 6 that limited his leadership abilities. He explained, “I am now very well but I had a bad cold on the march and was quite sick. I improved before we returned to camp. I was so hoarse that I could not give an order, and I had command of the Brigade the day of the intended charge [at Mine Run].”
Writing to the New York Sunday Mercury newspaper, a soldier only self-identified as “J. J.” from the 14th New York National Guard (84th New York Infantry), explained that the extreme low temperatures during Mine Run took the lives of some soldiers. J. J. penned that “On the night of the 30th November, five men from the Fifth Corps froze to death, and four sick men died in the ambulances, very likely from the intense cold.” It was so cold that some soldiers mentioned that the water in their canteens froze solid.
"General Stuart's Head-Quarters on the Rapidan".
This image of Confederate winter quarters in Orange County provides a view of how soldiers attempted to deal with cold weather. Despite their best efforts, sickness flourished in winter camps.
(Illustrated London News, April 30, 1864)
Pvt. Samuel Pickens of the 5th Alabama Infantry noted a different, but common, kind of illness—and an ironic twist—in his diary entry for December 10. He concluded that day’s thoughts by writing, “I find myself in very low spirits & home-sick at seeing John [a Pickens family enslaved man] start home to spend Xmas there—when that inexpressible pleasure is denied me. Oh! what w[oul]d I give to be as free to go there as John is!!” Homesickness (sometimes referred to by doctors as nostalgia) was an emotional and mental malady that plagued thousands of soldiers, especially around traditional times of family gatherings or anniversaries. Pickens does not mention beyond his written line whether he fully caught the irony of a soldier bound to military service feeling he had less liberty than an enslaved man who was allowed to travel between the army in central Virginia and home in Alabama.
A few days later Pickens expressed that by necessity the war had changed his thoughts and habits. On Dec. 15, he noted that he and two comrades “took a wash in [a] creek, mountain run, this evening. Water very cold. Before [the] war [I] would never have thought of doing such a thing as bathing [in a] creek in [the] middle [of] Dec[embe]r.” The following day Pickens penned, “Jack is laid up to-day with fever—no doubt brot on by his exposure yesterday [bathing in the cold creek].”
On December 12, 1863, artilleryman Pvt. George Perkins, Sixth New York Independent Battery, jotted, “My right ear began to grow very sore ” in his diary, describing what appears to be an annoying earache or ear infection. The next day the pain was more intense, so Perkins “Went to the doctor at sick call who prescribed a roast onion be bound on.” On December 14, with the roast onion prescription apparently not working, he wrote, “Ear still very sore, excused from duty by the Dr.” Perkins was also excused on the following day. Finally, on December 16, he noted, “My ear much better. The Dr. marked me for light duty.” However, by Christmas Eve, Perkins was ailing again. That day he “Could not do my guard duty being ill. Felt Feverish. Went to Dr. and got excused from duty and received some cathartic pills [a cure all medication]. Felt miserable and feverish all day.” He “felt no better” on Christmas. On December he was “Worse.” Perkins received another doctor’s excuse from duty. He “Took pills and salt,” and apparently did not have an appetite. His undescribed illness, which may have been a mild case of influenza or typhoid caused him to “Lay abed [a] portion of the day.” Over the next few days, Perkins seemed to finally recover.
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January to May 1864
Brig. Gen. Robert McAllister
McAllister, born in 1813, suffered from intermittent health issues during his
Civil War military career.
(From Sketch of General Robert McAllister by J. Watts de Peyster, published 1875)
Col. Robert McAllister, 11th New Jersey Infantry, wrote his wife about the recent sickness he and one of his Black camp servants endured at Brandy Station early in the new year. “I feel very well now, have very little diarrhea, and am in hopes I will soon be entirely clear of it. It is so unpleasant to have. Morris White has been very ill but is now better and will soon be about again. He took ill very sudenly.”
Having returned to his Brandy Station camp after a 10-day furlough, Pvt. Joel Molyneux of the 141st Pennsylvania promptly wrote home to his brother. In doing so, he reported about some of his ill comrades, but also his own good health: “I found our boys in the same place. William Rogers is sick with a bad cold. Wm. Bedford is not as well as he might be near, and James Pardoe was complaining of feeling unwell. I must say this country agrees the best with me, for before I got back I felt like myself again, which I did not scarcely any of the time while at home.” On January 17, Pvt. Molyneux wrote to his sweetheart, “Am sorry to report our friend Will Rogers as being quite sick. [He] Has been unwell ever since I have been back. He has the symptoms of typhoid fever, but trust it can be broken before it goes much farther. Was over for to see him last evening, but found him asleep. He is at the hospital. The doctor thought him not dangerous.” Whether Molyneux meant the doctor thought Rogers was not contagious or near death is not clear.
Army doctors often found themselves in uncomfortable positions. On one hand, they wanted to provide and recommend the best care possible, but on the other hand, they felt pressure to keep soldiers on duty should a sudden need arise. Camped near Orange Court House, the 13th South Carolina Infantry’s surgeon, Spencer Glasgow Welch, wrote on January 30, 1864: “I received a letter from [Pvt.] Robert Land’s wife begging me to give her husband a sick furlough, and I told him to write her that if he could ever get sick again he certainly should go at once.”
Soldiers’ concern for their comrades—those both personally close and at large—comes through in accounts like the one left by Pvt. Molyneux in a letter on January 31. “Will R. is able to sit up some, and hope to see him walking around in a few days. I have heard it said that the small pox was breaking out in the army. I have seen no cases of it yet. At Washington, I heard it was raging quite fearfully, but hope it may not be as bad as represented.”
John Samuel Apperson, a hospital steward in the Stonewall Brigade, noted a sad reality in his journal on January 25, 1864. While Apperson felth “The health of the army is very good. Not more than ten men are rec’d [admitted to the hospital] per day." He also related that "The mortality [rate of those there] however is very heavy.”
Col. McAllister informed his wife in early February 1864 that he was “having one of my usual billious attacks,” but this time it was not as bad as normal. He blamed his condition on eating “salt fish—salmon and mackeral,” for the last few weeks. “You know that salt fish always destroyed that regularity which is so essential to my health. When I have fresh meant, I am always healthy,” he reminded her. Apparently, his condition was so bad that he “had to take pills.” However, “They did not operate until about the middle of the day, after which I felt better.” He hoped he would return to duty soon, but felt certain “that if I had not taken care of myself and taken the medicine, I would have been quite sick.” McAllister also noted that Helen Gilson, an assistant at the Division Hospital and “a most amiable and excellent lady and a good nurse,” informed McAllister that if he “got worse she would come and attend to me.”
Helen L. Gilson
Col. (later Brig. Gen.) Robert McAllister mentioned the caregiving skills of nurse Helen Gilson
in his letter on February 5, 1864, from Brandy Station.
(Library of Congress)
In a letter on February 7, Pvt. Molyneux noted that yet another disease making its rounds. Nutritional deficiency issues were common among Civil War soldiers. “There has been a few cases of the scurvy or something very similar here among the boys, but nothing very serious,” he wrote. Additionally, he mentioned rumors of smallpox and that “The drs. have been vaccinating the troops all through the army by a general order. I had it tried upon my arm, and it is just about as sore now as there [is] any use being.”
Measles and smallpox threatened both armies during the winter of 1863-64. From his camp on the Rapidan River, Corp. Benjamin Freeman for the 44th North Carolina noted in mid-February 1864, “One of my messmates was taken with the measles and is sent to the Hospital . . . there is but little sickness now[.] sometimes Small pox brake out in the Regt there was a case of small Pox out of the Co F . . . and Co E.”
During the late winter of 1864, Chester K. Leach, 2nd Vermont Infantry, wrote his wife from Brandy Station that his comrades were all well except one, his older brother William, who was “quite sick & I am rather afraid he is going to have a run of fever before he gets over it.” William told Leach he was not well when they went out on a recent march, so Leach “told him to go to the Surgeon & get excused & stay in Camp which he did, but when we got back I found him quite sick.” Leach explained, “He stays in his tent yet but if there was room in the Hospital I think it would be best for him to go there for he could have better care.” Whether William felt he could better care on his own or in the hospital went unstated. A day later Leach provided William’s diagnosis. “The Dr says he has the Typhoid Fever, & I am afraid he is not going to wear it out. He has very bad spells, when he can hardly breathe, or talk, & wants water to drink all the time,” Leach wrote.
A few days later Leach provided an update on his brother. “William I must say in no better, & yesterday . . . he was much worse, not resting but very little, & last night or late in the day was taken with Hemorrhage of the bowels, & by his looks & actions . . . I should not have been surprised if he had not lived till morning.” A hospital steward told Leach that William had been resting easier on March 14, but the previous evening “three pints of blood came from him. . . .” William finally took a turn for the better on March 18, and by March 20 Leach wrote that he had stopped by and found “him on the gain, & I think he will get along now all right.” However, unfortunately, on March 26, Leach wrote his wife, “I have not such news to tell as I could wish I had, but probably before this reaches you you will learn of William’s death” on March 24. Leach had his brother’s body sent home for burial. In the same letter Leach mentioned that “[Samuel or George] Crown has got better of his measles & got back to the Co, but [Charles] Spaulding & Edgar [Montague] are in the Hospital now with the measles. . . .”
On March 5, while working in the field hospital at Orange Court House, John S. Apperson noted, “We had a very interesting case of diphtheria in hosp’t to-day. The patient came in yester-day. His throat eventually showed some enlargement. To-day the organs of respiration seemed to be impeded in their action so much as to require an operation to prevent asphyxia. Dr. Wilkerson opened the trachea but there was not life or sensibility enough in the parts to produce any evidence that it would be of any use. No coughing symptoms or irriation was produced.” The soldier “died in a few hours afterwards” and an autopsy found that the “Larynx and appurtenant of the trachea entirely covered with pseudo membrane” that Apperson described as “whitish with red blotches.” The thick membrane coating prevented the patient from breathing and he suffocated.
Camp of the 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry
Despite the army's best efforts, sanitary conditions were less than ideal in large camps like those at Brandy Station where thousands of men, horses, and mules lived in close confines.
(Library of Congress)
Soldiering without adequate rations and proper equipment increased one’s chances of becoming ill. The 48th North Carolina Infantry’s Pvt. Edward Sowers wrote his wife on March 7, 1864, explaining that he “had to march the first day of the month barefoot and I wore the skin off my feet and frose them and my toe nailes will come off and they paine me all most to death you never see sich feet [as] I got.” One can only wonder if these afflictions did not contribute toward his death by disease two months later.
Describing the conscripts that came into the army during the spring of 1864, Surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood of the 3rd North Carolina Infantry remembered: “Bad water, badly cooked food, unventilated quarters (in Winter) always disturbed their bowels and they were in majority upon the sick list. Coming from the country, where most of them had lived with out ever haven seen a town larger than the ‘store town,’ the cross road village with a hundred inhabitants, remote from railroads therefore uncommunicable with the outside world, the trials which usually come to children, they escaped, and measles and small pox were usually their fate.” Wood recalled that “almost the entire 57th North Carolina (conscripts), to be sick at one time with the measles, and it was so with most of the regiments enlisted from the country as most of them were in N.C.”
Similarly on the other side, from his camp near Culpeper, the 7th Wisconsin’s Capt. Henry F. Young wrote to his wife Delia on March 12 that his regiment had received some new recruits and his responsibility was drilling them. “Some of the[m] have the mumps & and others the measles but all are doing well,” Young wrote. However, about two weeks later, Capt. Young told Delia that yet another of his new charges, Henry L. Sprague, “has been sent to the hospital with the mumps.” That spring, Young himself, complained that “This bad weather has given me the Rheumatism in my neck and right shoulder. It troubles me most at night after i go to bed.” He hoped “a few days of good weather will set me aright again.”
Soon after returning to camp at Orange Court House, Lt. Lewis Warlick, 1st North Carolina Infantry, wrote his newlywed wife Cornelia on March 29. In his missive he wrote “I have taken severe cold since I returned; for three or four night after my arrival it was very cold and being rather scarce of bedding the consequence was I slept cold therefore I think is the cause of my having such a cold.”
Starting on April 2, 1864, and lasting almost a month, the diary of the 116th Pennsylvania’s Daniel Chisholm is an almost daily listing of sick misery at Brandy Station. That day he wrote, “My jaws are swelled up like a lager beer Dutchman’s, I cannot eat with any comfort at all. This has been a very bad day, snow and slush over the shoe mouth. I am afraid I will get [a] cold.”
April 3 – “My jowls are very sore. This morning I went over to the Surgeon’s he examined my jaws and pronounced my ailment the mumps, and excused me from all duty.”
April 4 – “My jaws are bad, I have an old stocking tied around my neck. I am running around all the time.”
April 5 – “‘Oh Jeminee.’ My jaws are still bad, swelled out even with my face. I am still off duty, and yet it rains.”
April 6 – “My jaws are still sore.”
April 7 – “Mumps are better, can eat very well and have plenty to eat.”
April 9 – “My jaws are still swelled, but not painful.”
April 10 – “My Jaws are a little better.”
April 11 – “This is a beautiful day, mumps about the same.”
April 14 – “My jaws are better, I have taken the stocking off
April 16 – “I had a bad head ache to day, laid in my tent nearly all day, as it rains nearly all the time.”
Finally, on April 25, Chisholm noted, “I feel first rate, and my mumps are entirely gone.”
Quarters of the US Sanitary Commission at Brandy Station
The Sanitary Commission worked hard to prevent and treat sicknesses like typhoid fever in the
Union camps at Brandy Station.
(Library of Congress)
The 5th Alabama’s Henry Beck jotted in his diary on April 10, 1864 that he “was taken sick today. Dr. Hill gave me order to go to hospital for treatment.” Apparently the hospital’s care worked or Beck recovered quickly as he also penned that “At the request of Col. Hobson, we sang hymns.” Beck also apparently felt well enough to write to his brother. The following day Beck mentioned, “Was on the sick list today,” but still he “Went to see the 3rd Ala. Regt. hold dress parade.” How closely regimental surgeons and hospital staff monitored soldiers who reported themselves as sick seemed to fluctuate from regiment to regiment.
Writing to his family on April 21, 1864, from Orange County, Alvira B. Taylor of the 31st North Carolina Infantry explained, “John had a very sick day yesterdy he was sick when M H started but had got a little better but soon after he took hemorage of the bowels but the Doctor give him something that checked it.” Taylor included that “t[h]is evening he has not had it any more [but] he is very sick now . . . . I hope he wil get well and go home with me.”
In preparation for the beginning of what would be the Overland Campaign, on May 3, 1864, many of the Union sick in their Brandy Station camps were sent to hospitals in Alexandria and Washington D.C. Daniel Holt, assistant surgeon of the 121st New York penned in his diary: “Went to-day with sick from Division Hospital, on the grounds of J[ohn] M[inor] Botts, to Brandy Station. Had a rough time of it generally. Got down there at 2 P.M. and remained until 11 P.M. Saw all [of the sick] off upon the last train which left the depot. Had a case of small pox with them.”
Dr. Spencer Glasgow Welch
Welch served as the surgeon for the 13th South Carolina Infantry.
(Find A Grave)
Anticipating the upcoming fights and knowing what that would bring, Surgeon Spencer Glasgow Welch of the 13th South Carolina Infantry wrote on May 4, 1864, from Orange Court House that one of his fellow doctors went to Richmond and another had not returned, “so I am alone. I have very little to do, as there is scarcely any sickness.” However, he explained, “If we get into a battle soon I will have a tight time, but I hope to have someone with me before then.”
For Pvt. James Pickens, who briefly served in the 5th Alabama, the Wilderness was his first experience in battle. Pickens, unlike his brother Sam, was not cut out for soldering. He wrote in his diary on May 5, “Sam got a permit for me signed by Capt. Williams and Col. Hall, to leave & go to the hospital, as I was very unwell.” The following day James wrote, “Got a signature to my permit from Major Whiting, to pass guard & set out for hospital getting here about or before sun-rise.” At the hospital Dr. Hill advised James to remain there, which was about 2 ½ miles from the front lines. There James witnessed the damage of war. “Oh the horrors of war! no one knows until he sees for himself how much suffering & distress there is in battle. Would to God the strife were over & that peace again blessed our land!,” he scribbled down.
During the May 6, 1864, Wilderness fight, while attempting to hold off Confederate Gen. James Longstreet’s assault, Maj. Thomas Halsey, 11th New Jersey, penned, “We had two officers & 19 men wounded. Col. McAllister had two horses shot [from] under him & was slightly wounded himself.” Halsey expressed his wish that all was well at home and hoped that “I may come out all right, as I have so far.” Battle stress and physical exhaustion could potentially increase the sick lists, too. “I am sick, tired, and dirty and my hand trembles,” so Halsy asked to be excused for his “hasty scrawl as it is the best I can do.”
Capt. William Henry Harrison, 31st Georgia, echoed much of what his counterpart Maj. Halsey noted above. On May 12, 1864, he wrote, “I am by God’s will still unharmed . . . We have done more fighting since May the 4th than we did the whole of last year. The wonder is that I have any body [left] at all. I draw rations for twenty-seven men . . . On the 5th I carried 52 men in the engagement on that day. On the 10th I had 39 left; on the 12th I had 39 and lost 8 wounded and 8 prisoners . . . Several have been unable to do duty at time from sickness and sore feet.”
As mentioned in Part I, battle induced stress could create mental health issues as well. Pvt. Richard Allen of the 13th Virginia Infantry wrote from Spotsylvania Court House on May 19, “We have been in line of battle ever since the 5th of this month. We has had a hard time. There hasn’t been no rest night or day. I never saw such hard fighting in my life as we had down here, and I am afraid the hardest fighting hasn’t come off yet.” “I would be so glad if they Yankees would go back across the river so we could get some rest, for I feel like I am exhausted.” “You all must write to me. I has lost so much sleep. I am so nervous I can’t write and I can’t compose my mind to write this morning. . . .” Please excuse this bad letter as . . . I did not sleep any last night.”
Similarly, the 11th Georgia Infantry’s Pvt. John Everett wrote his mother right after the Battle of the Wilderness explaining his mental anguish at not knowing what happened to his brother during the fight: “it Seames to me lik I Can heare Him Calling me. I hear his voice all the time. ma, you will have to Excuse me for not writing along letter, for my tears air blinding my Eys and I Cant Half See and my mind is in trouble. you have no idia how much truble I am in. I dont See any peace at all.”
Conclusion
"Caring for the Sick"
(New York Public Library)
Experiencing sickness and disease in the mid-nineteenth century was usually an extremely anxiety-producing event for both soldiers and their loved ones at home. Even under the best circumstances, with a caring family at hand and a knowledgeable and attentive physician seeing to one's symptoms, people feared the power of illnesses. It was rare if families or individuals had not observed first-hand the pain, suffering, and death of loved ones due to some sickness. At a time before germ theory, antibiotics, and a much more complete understanding of disease transmission and vaccinations, people usually dealt with illness with time-proven remedies, faith, and hope.
In the Union and Confederate armies that camped in Virginia during late 1863 and into the spring of 1864, thousands of soldiers became sick suffering from everything from the common cold to scurvy to venereal diseases to typhoid fever to dysentery to diphtheria to mental issues, and just about every other ailment. As seen above, soldiers were concerned about their health, that of their comrades, and loved ones at home. They knew all too well how precarious a soldier's life could be, on or off the battlefield.
Some Sources and Suggested Reading
James A. Davis. Music Along the Rapidan: Civil War Soldiers, Music, and Community during Winter Quarters Virginia. University of Nebraska Press, 2014.
Frank R. Freemon. Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care during the Civil War. University of Illinois Press, 2001.
Clark B. Hall. "Season of Change: The Winter Encampment of the Army of the Potomac, December 1, 1863 to May 4, 1864." In Blue and Gray Magazine, April 1991.
Donald B. Koonce, editor. Doctor to the Front: Confederate Surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood. University of Tennessee Press, 2000.
Spencer Glasgow Welch. A Confederate Surgeon's Letters to His Wife. Neal Publishing Company, 1911.
Parting Shot
"Done Up"
(Public Domain)
“Our Reg[iment] fought some day before yesterday & yesterday we were fighting all day. We had one of the most terrific battles yesterday I have seen, but we fought behind Breast Works & did not lose many men. I was exhausted last night & this morning at three o’clock had a hard chill. I am now at the Hospital & am some better.”
Maj. Thomas Halsey, 11th New Jersey Infantry, May 7, 1864, excerpt from a letter to his wife.
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