Day 68. May 7, 1862.
68
this is almost the last report of the final flight of these birds….
May Wensday 7 1862
Frosty this morning and quite cold and the day is fine. We are in camp near the Battaries on the left. We have fine weather. I’ve received a letter from brother Jacob today. The report was that Richmond was taken by our forces and I hope that its true. We have been waiting for them to follow us up again so we may have a fight. No telling how soon we might have an attack. We was fixing up things some today. I repacked the medicines and have to cut our baggage down to a small bulk as we are expecting to have a long march somewhere I don’t know where. But there is something in the wind we know what not. It looks for rain this evening some little but of no account and it is quite cool tonight
Muskets and Medicine; or, Army Life in the Sixties Charles Beneulyn Johnson P. 129-131 (excerpt)
“EQUIPMENT, WORD, and SOME ATTACHES of OUR REGIMENTAL HOSPITAL
In the field the Regimental Hospital department was allowed two small tents for the officers, medicines, etc.; another small tent for the kitchen department and supplies, and a larger one for the sick. This last, known as the hospital tent, was about fourteen feet square and was capable of containing eight cots with as many patients.
In the field we almost never had sheets and white pillow cases, but made use of army blankets that were made of the coarsest, roughest fiber imaginable. In warm weather the walls of the tent were raised, which made it much more pleasant for the occupants.
However, the policy that obtained was to send those who were not likely to recover quickly to the base hospitals, though this was not always to the patient’s best interests, for these larger hospitals were oftentimes centers of infection of one kind or another, especially of hospital gangrene, which seldom attacked the wounded in the field.
During the campaign our stock of medicines was necessarily limited to standard remedies, among which could be named opium, morphine, Dover’s powder, quinine, rhubarb, Rochelle salts, Epsom salts, castor oil, sugar of lead, tannin, sulphate of copper, sulphate of zinc, camphor, tincture of opium, tincture of iron, tincture of opii, camphorata, syrup of squills, simple syrup, alcohol, whiskey, brandy, port wine, sherry wine, etc. Upon going into camp, where we were likely to remain a few days, these articles were unpacked and put on temporary shelves made from box-lids; and, on the other hand, when marching orders came, the medicines were again packed in boxes, the bottles protected from breaking by old papers, etc.
Practically all the medicines were administered in powder form or in the liquid state. Tablets had no yet come into use, and pills were very far from being as plentiful as they are today. The result was that most powders were stirred in water and swallowed. In the case of such medicine as quinine, Dover’s powder, tannin, etc., the dose, thus prepared, was a bitter one. The bromides, sulfonal, trional and similar soporifices and sedatives, had not come in use, and asafetida, valerian and opium and its derivatives were about all the Civil War surgeon had to relieve nervousness and induce sleep.
Among the surgical supplies were chloroform, ether, brandy, aromatic spirits of ammonia, bandages, adhesive plaster, needles, silk thread for ligatures, etc. there were, also, amputating cases well supplied with catlins, artery forceps, bone forceps, scalpels, scissors, bullet probes, a tourniquet, etc. But while all the instruments were washed in water and wiped dry to keep from rusting, such an idea as making them aseptic never entered the head of the most advanced surgeon.
There was an emergency case, about the size of a soldier’s knapsack, and, indeed, intended to be carried on an attendant’s back like a knapsack. In this emergency case were bandages, adhesive plaster, needles, artery forceps, scalpels, spirits of ammonia, brandy, chloroform, ether, etc. This emergency case, or hospital knapsack, was always taken with the regiment when the firing-line was about to be approached, and where the First Assistant Surgeon was in charge and was ready to render first aid to any who might be wounded.
This first aid, however, never went further than staunching bleeding vessels and applying temporary dressings. Thus attended to, the wounded were taken to an ambulance, and in this conveyed to the field hospital in the rear, generally out of musket range, but almost never beyond the reach of shells and cannon balls.”
Note: The contents named above are but a partial list. Obviously much has evolved, including the scalpels with ivory handles that spread germs. The knapsack was a large case, nothing resembling a contemporary one. The knapsack weighed roughly 6 pounds empty, and 20 pounds full, and had drawers. According to the website below, in 1862 the dimensions were 16 inches high, 12½ inches wide, and 6 inches deep. Four different field cases were used by the Union Army. For further description, see medicalantiques.com/civilwar/Articles/Collidge_field_case_companion.htm. For the Confederate Medical Department’s “Standard Supply Table for Field Service” and “Supply Table for Hospitals,” see the 12 page detailed list in the book “Regulations for the Medical Department of the C.S. Army” published in April, 1862, at Richmond (collections.nlm.gov)
Note too: “Blue mass” was a mercury pill Lincoln took for “melancholia” until he noticed it made him “cross.” Besides actual mercury, it contained dead rose petals, sugar, honey, licorice. (As kids, 100 years later, we would break thermometers in order to get the mercury out then roll the ball around on our tongues then on the pavement.)
Storm over the Land: A profile of the Civil War Carl Sandburg 1939 P. 147-148
Note: About Antietam (9/17/62):
“In the fields lay men by thousands. Flat corn leaves fallen over some of the bodies were spattered and and blotched with blood drying and turning rusty. On a golden autumn Sabbath morning three-mile lines of men had faced each other with guns. And when the shooting was over the losses were put at 12,000 on each side.
Lee crossed the Potomac, back into the South again. McClellan did not follow. Lincoln had telegraphed him: “God bless you, and all with you Destroy the rebel army, if possible.” But McClellan had again won a victory and did not know it. He still believed the enemy outnumbered him.
McClellan’s chances of wiping out Lee’s army were estimated by Longstreet: “We were so badly crushed that at the close of the day ten thousand fresh troops could have come in and taken Lee’s army and everything it had. But McClellan did not know it.” He had two soldiers to the enemy’s one, completely superior cannon, rifles, supplies. He had failed when it lay in his hands to “destroy the rebel army if possible,” as Lincoln urged. He had 93,000 men answering roll call as Lee was fading down the Shenandoah Valley with less than 40,000. He might have brought the war shortly to a close. But his fate lay otherwise.”
P. 129
“Surgeon Daniel W. Hand of the 1st Minnesota Volunteers told of a day of work at amputations in a field hospital: “It was late in the night before my own cares allowed me to rest, and then, where should I lie down? A cold wind was blowing, and we shivered in our scanty clothing. Every foot of sheltered ground was covered with sleeping men, but near the operating table, under a tree in the house-yard, there lay a long road of dead soldiers. My steward, Cyrus Brooks, suggested we make a windbreak by piling them up against the remnants of a fence. We did so, and then lying down behind them, we slept soundly until morning.’”
THE ARMIES RETURNING. (excerpt)
“May 7.—Sunday.—To-day as I was walking a mile or two south of Alexandria, I fell in with several large squads of the returning Western army, (Sherman’s men as they call’d themselves) about a thousand in all, the largest portion of them half sick, some convalescents, on their way to a hospital camp. These fragmentary excerpts, with the unmistakable Western physiognomy and idioms, crawling along slowly—after a great campaign, blown this way, as it were, out of their latitude—I mark’d with curiosity and talk’d with off and on for over an hour. Here and there was one very sick; but all were able to walk, except some of the last, who had given out, and were seated on the ground, faint and despondent. These I tried to cheer, told them the camp they were to reach was only a little way further over the hill, and got them up and started, accompanying some of the worst a little way, and helping them, or putting them under the support of stronger comrades.” Whitman Poetry and Prose Walt Whitman Penguin Putnam Inc. P. 768-769
An Excerpt from Elliot Daingerfield’s Autobiography (The following is an excerpt from the unpublished Autobiography of Elliot Daingerfield, which was written in 1892.)
nccivilwarcenter.org/an-excerpt-from-elliot-daingerfields-autobiography
“An incident which should be of general interest is this. One afternoon, rather late, a great roaring sound seemed to overwhelm everything. On looking out the sky was blotted out, and for fully a mile nothing in the heavens could be seen but birds—thousands and thousands of them flying not very high, and with the noise of great winds as they swerved just over our house and settled in the young oaks at the rear. What a noise they made, and we soon knew they were pigeons, that rarest and most wonderful bird the American passenger pigeon, now quite extinct and I believe this is almost the last report of the final flight of these birds in these numbers. They were migrating and flying South, and this was probably the very drove which was totally lost in a storm over the Gulf.
When it grew dark, the negroes who were on starvation diet took torches and bags and went into that scrub oak forest and slaughtered hundreds, knocking the poor, dazed birds into the bags. Starvation knows no ethics and the humane may become cruel when starving. I wish I could give the exact date of this incident but I can not.”
Note: Incredible.
Note: Lincoln is the first & last President who orchestrates a military attack. Today, 1862, he directs an amphibious landing via canal boats tied up at Fort Monroe. Norfolk & Gosport are taken.
Note: President Lincoln travels to the rear of McClellan’s army in hopes of meeting with him. ‘Little Mac’ wires Secretary Stanton, “I regret that my presence with the army at this particular time is of such vast importance that I cannot leave to confer with the President and yourself.” It was just 30 miles. The two will meet only a handful of times during the war. But they sure will wire back & forth.
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there is something in the wind we know what not….
After Antietam McClellan wears out in the Spanish moss even though he’s got 3 to 1 on them– a grandmother with a flyswatter– yet it’s like Marse is Mars, hidden in the glare of sunrise. Lee’s back was to the Potomac, too, the scent of them out there in blood, sharpening knives with their teeth as they cross the the river, winning the scratch off yet again. Lee & thee busking on down to Virginny while McClellan, et al., sit at Yorktown “reorganizing,” until, after a full moon’s time, he ratfucks his way in the opposite northeasterly direction toward that Mason-Dixon like a simian line in a hand, the line slashed across a palm when you go to grab the knife in self-defense.
Due to this, the war continues another 2½ years.
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