Camp sanitation

[atlantis]

Sickness killed many on both sides the first year, the union seem to learn and improved camp conditions. Question did the confederates improve conditions to cut down death by disease. This was a huge loss of fighting strength as many who died had been healthy men of prime service age. Have read accounts of local company gg grandfathers unit hit heavy, measles I think, not long after deployment.

 

[debwallsmith]

Well, I was hoping for replies that were a bit more insightful and informative. Still, statements of the obvious are helpful.

There are lots of articles on the subject.

 

[debwallsmith]

How does camp sanitation in ACW compare to say Crimean war or Mexican war. Was it a case of building on lessons learned or was it more of a start from scratch, I am struck by the thoroughness of the regulations being issued.

There are plenty of articles on the subject. You can google them. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/sickness-ranks

 

[James Brenner]

I metal detected on a property on the Bonnard Line near Fort Duncan. The owner had dug out an old latrine looking for bottles and found quite a few. He discovered when washing them up that reconstituted poop still smells like poop . I know there has to be one for the camp that was by my spring but have never located it while out metal detecting. YMMV

That was sort of what I was getting at with my question about mercury. If you can use mercury to find the latrines, that will help tell you if the camp was laid out according to any sort of system, which is an indication of discipline. Similar traces of mercury elsewhere may indicate picket posts or smaller camps, Privies are well known places of deposit (!) for all sorts of things to include personal items, bottles, containers, broken pieces of kit, etc. which can provide evidence of daily routine. The amount of mercury found can suggest the prevalence of disease, particularly if there is more than one privy. If copralite is found, the diet and digestion of the soldiers can be determined. All of this coupled with written accounts can add to the historical record.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

There were no dentists, apparently the only recourse for toothache was a visit to the smith or the farrier, a few shorts, and then get it pulled out.

During the US civil war it appears there were dentists - one diary I read mentions the regiment being camped around Washington and preparing to muster out. The writer says the camp was swarmed with hucksters trying to sell everything from civilian clothing to teeth cleaning to the men getting ready to go home again. This was the first I had ever heard of teeth cleaning to be a thing in the 1860s, but @NH Civil War Gal mentions it in her OP in the thread linked below.

"It would be next to impossible to form an idea of the wretched condition of the teeth of Confederate soldiers."

Years after the Civil War William Leigh Burton, the the first dentist appointed to the Confederate Army, sounded exhausted:
"A day's work consisted of from twenty of thirty fillings, the preparations of the cavities included, the extraction of fifteen or twenty teeth, and the removal of tartar ad libitium!"

Source:
Burton, W. Leigh, "Dental Surgery as Applies in the Armies of the Late Confederate States," The Dental Quarterly," Vol. 6, No. 3, Philadelphia, September 1867, page 87, via Google Books, accessed April 6, 2022, <https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hettingers_Dental_News/RqkRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0>.

Thread 'Confederate Dentists (and Union ones too)'

Jun 20, 2022

From the National Museum of Civil War Medicine (with permission)

I can't imagine having my teeth worked on like this. Notice this is completely poised and the patient is hanging onto the dentist's working arm!

To put a bit into context - my mother, in the 1930s went to an old WW1 dentist that used a drill that had no water cooling system - no dentist in the Manchester, NH area did. It was foot-pedaled operated. The pain was intense and the heat from the drill was awful. So only 70 years after the CW, dentistry had progressed to foot-pedaled drills and they knew about germs. But my...

• NH Civil War Gal
• Replies: 27
• Forum: Medical Care

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[Old Soldier]

I see a chimney was it heated, on my grandparents farm the outhouse[privy] was just a wood shack hot in the summer cold in the winter.

My first two homes were old terraced houses with a backyard leading out into an 'alley' that went between the back of two rows of houses. The toilet was outside at the other end of the backyard, against the outer wall. Next to it was the 'coal hole' - coal for the coal fire. If you looked on the outside wkll from the alley, there were often two holes in the outer wall - originally occupied by a small wooden door One was at shoulder height and went into the coalhole. The other was at ground level and was there for the nightsoil man to take the bucket and empty it into the horse-drawn 'soil tank'. The years went by and by the time we moved in, a high cistern water flush toilet was fitted and the hole bricked up. Winters were cold, so we put a parafin heater in there. A wooden seat was de rigeur as it was much more pleasant to sit on! On this photo, the chimney was there for a fire, but it may have been for a washhouse boiler, as there was no running hot water in those days - and no washing machines!

 

[Old Soldier]

How does camp sanitation in ACW compare to say Crimean war or Mexican war. Was it a case of building on lessons learned or was it more of a start from scratch, I am struck by the thoroughness of the regulations being issued.

Exactly the same for the Crimean War. and , I will persume for US Army latrines. The Romans built them too. Try this:

https://www.stwater.co.uk/content/dam/stw/about_us/education/history_toilet_PDF.pdf