Leaves from the diary of an army surgeon; or, Incidents of field, camp, and hospital life

Front matter

LEAYES FEOM THE DIAET

^_ OF AN

AllMY SUllGEON;

Introduction

A NATION that for many years has enjoyed the blessings of peace, and whose standing army, if it deserved that name, was scarcely sufficient to protect its frontier from intrusion, and keep in check the uncivilized tribes of Indians forming a part, though a troublesome element, of its population, could not be expected to possess the martial spirit, or knowledge of the profession of arms, rendered necessary to grapple with and subdue a rebellion or civil war of that magnitude which sprang into existence in 1861, by the secession of the slave-owning States of the South, the first overt act of which was the bombardment and reduction of Fort Sumter, in April of that year. Nor could it, with justice, be supposed that the machinery found sufficient for the management and direction of a few thousand troops, or the officials having its direction and government in their charge, and who for years had trodden in the beaten path of routine and old fogyism, would prove capable of organizing and equipping the vast army, recruited from an agricultural and commercial population, which was created on the call of the nation's chief magistrate ; many of whom were actuated by patriotism, but not a few responded from that necessity or want of employment which the interruptions of trade and total stagnation of commercial enterprise, through the war, had produced ; others, influenced by less worthy motives, adopted the life

8 INTEODUCTION.

of a soldier more from the facilities it was supposed to afford them to lead a life of idleness or dishonesty, than from the desire to aid their country in its hour of trying darkness, and the government in its often well-meant but imbecile efforts to crush the gigantic struggle that threatened the disruption of this vast and hitherto prosperous repubhc. Nor was the latter class confined to the rank and file, for many of the commissioned officers were men whose lives had been passed in gambling-houses, or bar-rooms, and who, from the supposed possession of political influence, had obtained from the Governors of their respective States commissions in the volunteer army, on which their ignorance, incompetency, and total want of honesty, has brought disgrace, and to which, in many instances, the defeats sustained by our troops, and their demoralized condition, can be traced. Among the many ingenious comparisons to which life has been subjected, and which, if we do not clearly understand, it is not for want of " reasoning by illustration," none among the resemblances which at moments to a quiet contemplator suggests so clearly the image of a whirhgig or roundabout, in which each participator of the pastime, seated on his hobby, is always pursuing some one before him, while he in turn is pursued by some one behind, as the efforts of these pseudo-politico oflicers, w^ho by every contrivance endeavored to supplant or overreach each other, that the successful one might obtain, as he hoped, a more extensive field for his thieving operations. In contradistinction to this too numerous class, there were many noble and striking exceptions — men who abandoned lucrative positions, and a well-paying occupation or com- Ibrtable homes, to rally round the flag of their country, and defend the government from its threatened annihilation and the Union undivided. Nor were these disinterested

INTRODUCTION. 9

gentlemen alone found in any one particular State or political party of the Union ; for I can recall to mind many from the agricultural West, the manufacturmg East, and the commercial Middle States of the Union, who, possessed of wealth, promptly and cheerfully resj^onded to the call, and willingly braved the rigorous and irksome duties of camp life, with the chances of that possible fatal future which has,^ been the lot of so many brave and unselfish heroes, who have become martyrs to a war that has entailed misery on thousands, and that appears as likely to continue to sap the life's blood of the nation as it did before the hundreds of thousands of lives, and the thousands of millions of money which it has cost, had been expended.

The writer's position having brought him in contact with most of the volunteer regiments raised, not alone in the State of New York, but in the Western and New England States, he is led to the conclusions here expressed, by an unlimited intercourse and exchange of sentiment with the ofiicers and men composing those regiments: and he does not hesitate to express the opinion, that the material of the army, both physically and in intelligence, has never been excelled, if it has been equalled, by any nation of the world ; and, if the government (at whose desire it was called into existence, as if by magic) had but evinced an ordinary amount of prudence or ability in the command or disposal of this mighty force, it would have, by concert of action, struck the death-blow to the rebelHon, and peace, now despaired of, would ere this have been restored to us. For the leaders of this rebellion — which has grown into gigantic dimensions, not so much from its own innate strength, as from the stupid blundering and guilty mismanagement of the Federal forces — would have been forced to lay down their arms and seek

1*

10 INTRODUCTION.

an early opportunity to renew their allegiance to this then united, but now disrupted nation.

The preponderating amount of testimony from whicli these opinions are formed, has been collected from the most intelligent officers of the army, very many of whom fell victims to that criminal ignorance and blind obstinacy which has characterized the conduct of the war, and which has made the military acquirements of the American peol^le a by-word and reproach.

The Southern people, who, by education and their peculiar state of social life, are eminently qualified to command, were not slow to take advantage of these Federal blunders ; and the unconstitutional inroads made on their institutions gave color, if not indorsement, to their ajDpeals, describing the war as one of invasion and extermination. Nor have those appeals been made in vain to the ablebodied population of the Southern States, who have responded with alacrity to the supposed defence of their rights, liberties, and firesides.

Every patriotic lover of his country must deplore the course j)ursued by the President's constitutional advisers in sending forth the firebrands of emancipation proclamations, which have proved barren of all good results, and has but served to inflame and intensify the hatred of the Southern people, and divide irrevocably the population of the loyal States ; nor can it be claimed for these injurious pronunciamentos that they have, in the smallest degree, benefited the slaves, for whose amelioration they were ostensibly issued, as from their very tenor and spirit they are alone intended for that portion of the Southern States over which the Federal Government has no control, nor ability to enforce them. The Southern slave, too, if we may judge from the experience of this rebelUon, has but mXEODUCTION. 11

little desire to avail himself of this unexpected liberty; and the fact is incontrovertible that no attempt at a servile insurrection has been made, though the facilities for producing it must in many places have been ample. Whether we are to attribute this to the generally mild form of slavery, the fitness of the African for a life of bondage, and his unfitness for an independent state, or to the distrust of the negro in the philanthropic exertions of the advocates of abolition in his behalf, the writer does not pretend to decide; but the fact remains patent, that the negro, for whose emancipation this war is now avowedly carried on, has proved himself but a poor auxiliary in its prosecution, and often an unwilling participator in its boasted benefits.

The writer deems it fitting here to state that on an impartial comparison, drawn from extended personal observation of the condition of the African in his native land, in the ISTorthern free States, and Canada, or in the Southern States now in rebellion, he has become convinced that in none of these conditions are the negroes as happy or well cared for, taken as a body, as in the cotton and sugar growing States of the South. ISTor are these convictions hurriedly made or recently arrived at — tliey are the growth of years of reflection ; for the writer, when he left his English home in 1842, was as warm an advocate of the doctrine of anti-slavery as ever left the shores of happy and free Albion.

These introductory remarks are made to show the reader that the facts and thrilling incidents related in the following pages are not dictated by any political or party spirit, but are, as they profess to be, leaves from the diary of

An Army Sxjkgeojs".

LEAVES FROM THE DIAM

OF AN

ARMY SURGEON.

Chapter I

In the month of October, 1861, pursuant to the orders of the commandant of New York, I commenced the discharge of my duties as surgeon of the post, which inchided the medical supervision of the several camps in the city and on Staten Island. Camp Washington, at the latter place, first claimed my attention. It is situated on an inclined plane of the northern end of the island, well suited for the purpose, and on which the State authorities had erected a wooden barracks, capable of accommodating 1000 men, with the necessary buildings for officers' and surgeons' quarters. This station had been occupied by the Sixth New York, known as " Billy Wilson's Zouaves," and at this time contained a portion of the Volunteer Engineers and the nucleus of two or three other military organizations, as yet in a state of infancy, but which had not reached the number entitling them to the exclusive services of a surgeon ; and as the medical officers of the two first mentioned regiments had no interest in the condition of the camp beyond its sanitary condition while occupied by their regiments, I was not surprised to find it in a disordered state ; but neither was I prepared to meet with the absence of all regard for the health, cleanliness, and comfort of the troops, that presented itself on my first visit, which the natural position of the ground, from its proximity to the w^ater, had made a matter of easy accomplishment. My first care was to inspect and reform the cook-house and mess-room, hitherto totally disregarded, and to make daily examination of the cooked rations, supplied by the contractors, the quality of which was of the poorest kind, and had given just cause for repeated complaint and dissatisfaction among the men ; and here, at the outset of my duties, I was met with the most- determined hostiUty by the contractors, who dreaded that the threatened inspection of the food would oblige them to supply a better and more wholesome article, and put a stop to the shameless frauds practised on the soldier in their department. The sum paid by the government — 40 cents a day — was liberal, and enabled the contractors to realize a handsome profit while supplying a good and wholesome quality of food. But the temptation was too strong, and the representations I made to the head of the subsistence department of the unfitness of the food, and the unclean and ill-arranged mode of cooking and issuing it, was met with the most determined and systematic opposition, backed by false statements of the interested parties; but perseverance and the judicious use of the power I possessed, succeeded, and I soon had the gratification to see that my daily visit during dinner to the mess-room, secured for the soldiers a clean and wholesome meal. The alternate ofiers of threats and bribes were alike unavailing to turn me aside from the plain path of my duty, in this first essential step to promote the health of the troops. The contractors themselves, after some time,

DIARY OF AK ARMY SURGEON. 15

finding it of no avail to continue their opposition, became reconciled to the change, as they learned that the improved discipline of the men put a stop to the frequent outrages committed on their cooking house and utensils by disorderly or drunken soldiers, who, in this way, revenged themselves on the contractors for the inferior quality of the provisions.