The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
A few details need to be added. Where the distance from the battle-field
to the base of supplies is great, what are called feeding-stations are
established every few miles, and here the wounded on foot or in
ambulances can stop and take the refreshments or stimulants necessary to
sustain them on their painful journey. At the steamboat-landing the
Commission has a lodge and agents, with crackers and beef-tea, coffee
and tea, ice-water and stimulants, ready to be administered to such as
need. Relief agents go up on the boats to help care for the wounded; and
at Washington the same scene of active kindness is often enacted on
their arrival as at their departure. This is the general plan of action
everywhere, modified to suit circumstances, but always essentially the
same. It will apply just as well West as East,--only for the names
Baltimore, Washington, and City Point, you must put Louisville,
Nashville, and Chattanooga.
When I was at City Point, the base of operations had been established
there more than two months; and though there was much sickness, and the
wounded were being brought in daily by hundreds from the prolonged
struggle for the Weldon Road, everything moved on with the regularity of
clock-work. As you neared the landing, coming up the James, you saw, a
little farther up the river, the red flag of the Sanitary Commission
floating over the three barges which were its office, its storehouse,
and its distributing store for the whole Army of the Potomac. Climbing
up the steep road to the top of the bluff, and advancing over the
undulating plain a mile, you come to a city,--the city of hospitals. The
white tents are arranged in lines of almost mathematical accuracy. The
camp is intersected by roads broad and clean. Every corps, and every
division of every corps, has its allotted square. Somewhere in these
larger squares your eye will be sure to catch sight of the Sanitary
flag, and beneath it a tent, where is the corps station. You enter, and
you find within, if not as great an amount, at least as varied a supply,
of hospital stores as you would find anywhere, waiting for surgeons'
orders. To a very great extent, the extra diet for all the sick and
wounded is furnished from these stores; and very largely the cooking of
it is overseen by ladies connected with the Commission. In every corps
there are from five to fifteen relief agents, whose duty it is to go
through the wards once, twice, three times in each day, to see what the
sick need for their comfort, to ascertain that they really get what is
ordered, and in every way to alleviate suffering and to promote
cheerfulness and health.
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