In the early days of the _War of Secession_ (1861-65) the arrangements for the conveyance by rail of the sick and wounded from the battle-fields of the Eastern States to the hospitals in the large cities were still distinctly primitive. Those who could sit up in the ordinary cars were conveyed in them. Those who could not sit up, or would be injured by so doing, were carried to the railway, by hand, on the mattresses or stretchers they had occupied in the hospitals to which they had first been taken. At the station the mattresses were placed on thick layers of straw or hay strewn over the floors of the freight cars in which supplies had been brought to the front. Large window spaces were cut in the sides or ends of the cars to provide for ventilation. On some occasions, when hay or straw was not available, pine boughs or leaves were used instead. As only the floor space was occupied no more than about ten patients could be carried comfortably in each car, though as many as twenty were occasionally crowded in. The wide doors of the box cars readily permitted of the beds being lifted in or out. Medical officers, with supplies, accompanied each train. On arrival at New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, or other destination, the sufferers were taken out and carried, still on the same mattresses or stretchers, to the hospitals there. Large numbers of sick or wounded were conveyed by rail under one or other of these conditions, and the work was done with great expedition. Between the morning of June 12 and the evening of June 14, 1863, over 9,000 wounded, victims of the Federal disaster at Chancellorsville, were taken by the single-track Aquia Creek railroad from Aquia Creek to Washington. Many even of the severely wounded declared they had suffered no inconvenience from the journey. After the battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863, more than 15,000 wounded had been sent by rail from the field hospitals to Baltimore, New York, Harrisburg or Philadelphia by July 22. An even more rapid distribution was effected after the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania when, with a few exceptions, the transfer to the hospitals in the cities mentioned was effected in the course of a few days. Following on the battle of Olustree (February 20, 1864), the serious cases were removed on the Mobile Railway by freight cars bedded with pine boughs, palmetto leaves and a small quantity of straw, each patient having a blanket, in addition.