Hospital transports : $b A memoir of the embarkation of the sick and wounded from the peninsula of Virginia in the summer of 1862Olmsted, Frederick Law
History
Hospital transports : $b A memoir of the embarkation of the sick and wounded from the peninsula of Virginia in the summer of 1862
Olmsted, Frederick Law
Hospital ships -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Hospital ships -- Virginia -- History -- 19th century; Medical personnel -- United States -- Correspondence; Peninsular Campaign, 1862; Transports -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Transports -- Virginia -- History -- 19th centur
I have repeated the whole of this story as I heard it, while we were
floating slowly down the river, because the poor man who told it me died
soon after we got on board, kindly attended in his last moments by our
Sisters of Mercy. A letter to his mother was found in his pocket, and
one of the ladies is writing to her.
This morning we returned to Yorktown, and took on the _Elm City_ thirty
more sick from a steamboat which had brought them from Cumberland on the
Pamunkey.
At ten o'clock the _Elm City_ left for Washington with 440 patients....
After noon I went ashore, called on the surgeon in charge of the
hospitals and the Military Governor, made our arrangements for a trip up
the river to collect scattered sick, and to tow our _Wilson Small_ up to
West Point for repairs. She has been knocked into and run against by all
the big boats till she is completely disabled. Returning on board for
this purpose, was met by an officer with a telegram, begging that a boat
might be immediately despatched to Bigelow's Landing, where an
ambulance-train master had reported that "a hundred sick had been left
on the ground in the rain, without attendance or food, to die."
Bigelow's Landing being up a narrow, shoal, crooked creek, we ran about
the harbor looking in vain for a boat of sufficiently light draught to
send there. At length we determined to take our whole Sanitary fleet to
the mouth of the creek, and, leaving the _Alida_ and _Knickerbocker_
outside, try to get up with the _Elizabeth_, for we had no single
vessel, large or small, in itself, suitably provided.
We ran to the _Knickerbocker_, but before we could get her under way a
steamboat, in charge of a military surgeon, came along-side, and a
letter was handed me, begging that I would take care of one hundred and
fifty sick men who had been taken on at West Point early in the morning,
and who had had no nourishment during the day. It was sunset, stormy and
cold. I at first hesitated, on account of the greater need of those at
Bigelow's Landing, but the surgeon in charge having induced me to take a
look into the cabin, I changed my mind. The little room was as full as
it could be crammed of sick soldiers, sitting on the floor; there was
not room to lie down. Only two or three were at full length; one of
these was dying,—was dead the next time I looked in. It was frightfully
dirty, and the air suffocating.
We immediately began taking them on board the _Knickerbocker_.... It is
now midnight. B. and Dr. Ware started with a part of our company and the
two supply-boats, five hours ago, for Queen's Creek, with the intention
of getting them to the sick at Bigelow's Landing, if possible; if not,
to go up in the yawl and canoe with supplies and firewood, and do
whatever should be found possible for their relief. Two of the ladies
went with them. The rest are giving beef-tea and brandy and water to the
sick on the _Knickerbocker_, now numbering three hundred.
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