Hospital ships.

major bill

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In the east, Union the wounded were usually transported by rail. However, in the west, many Union wounded were often transported by hospital ships. These hospital ships provided rapid transportation of wounded and probably slaved lives. The Union control of the river systems combined with the newer steam ships allowed a new method for moving wounded soldiers. In post Civil War conflicts, hospital ships became part of the medical evacuation system.
 
There was a difference between hospital ships and ships put into service as hospital transports. The famous Red Rover was apparently literally a floating hospital, read where " every imaginable luxury " was installed ( although that seems a stretch ) and they were huge- transports could be any steamer the government handed over to the Sanitary Commission. Some of those went back to regular service, frequently at all the worst times. I forget which battle, maybe Petersburg, where the SC expected one ship to be the wharf to take on wounded and discovered no one told them it had been sent elsewhere.

What surprised me was the number of hospital transports? We don't hear a ton about them and it's weird because the whole system was so massive. One thread on these, you can see how vital they were.

 
I have written another short story concerning an event taking place prior to the Wilderness campaign, 1864 by the Navy.
The Epilogue to this story follows. I am still in conflict concerning a Title to it; presently 'Ongoing Sounds of the Potomac'.
I may post it in Soldier's Tales after a final draft is proofread. Thanks;

EPILOGUE:

Acting Master's Mate William Tell Street was commended in the Official Records of the important action that took place in April of 1864. Commander Parker of the Potomac Flotilla wrote thusly;

"Acting Master W. T. Street, who had charge of this expedition, showed good judgment and proved himself a valuable and efficient officer. He speaks highly of Acting Ensign Roderick and Acting Master's Mate Borden, who accompanied him on shore."

Commander Parker also adds at a later date, that the full complement of thirty-five men and the Eureka crew returned without the loss of a single man. William Street was honorably discharged from the Navy at the close of the war. He served through the full duration of hostilities.

Stephen Clegg Rowan remained in the U. S. Navy, reaching the rank of Vice Admiral, and retired in February of 1889. He was a Commodore at the time this story takes place and was not involved in the expeditions or planning, mentioned here, belonging himself to a different squadron at this point in the war. He at first commanded the USS Pawnee in 1861 and knew Street at that time.

T. H. Eastman was mentioned also in the Official Records of this action, "....who had the detailing of the various expeditions, well sustained in the performance of this duty the reputation which he had already acquired as an officer of marked energy and ability."

He was promoted on March 10, 1864.

Lieutenant Ed Hooker was an Acting Volunteer Lieutenant during the Civil War.

Commodore Harwood was appointed to the Navy Yard and Commander Parker was appointed to head the Potomac Flotilla and took command on December 31, 1863.

With the expeditions sent into the Rappahannock river at this time, the men were able to clear numerous obstructions and torpedoes. They were able to critically hurt the enemy supply lines and finally helped secure Fredericksburg, while guarding the flank of the Union Army. By the time General Grant began using that town for evacuation of his wounded men from the Wilderness and Spotsylvania battles that took place, May 5-10, 1864, a shuttle fleet had been established and many wounded soldiers' lives were transported out and saved.

[The two commendations quoted in this Epilogue were found in the Official Records of the Navy; Series 1, Volume 5, beginning on page 411].

*This story was based on actual events and the men involved.

Lubliner © All Rights Reserved, civilwartalk.com
 
098618912.jpg

All images: NavSource Online; "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive / Harpers Weekly

The Red Rover Hospital Ship was a shining example of the medical advances that came out of the horrors of the Civil War. Nothing could symbolize that contrast more than the woodblock etching above. The Rover stands out white & shining amid the black, death dealing Western Flotilla gunboats.

098618907.jpg

Laid down as a luxury packet boat in 1859, the Red Rover began its wartime career as a barracks ship in New Orleans. Holed & left abandoned March 1862, she was salvaged by the U.S. gunboat Mound City in April. Her career as an army hospital ship began 10 June 1862. Assigned to the Western Flotilla above Vicksburg, the Red Rover was purchased by the Navy in September 1862. From that point the Red Rover served sick & wounded men of both sides until December 11, 1864. Decommissioned & sold November 1865.

098618908.jpg


The Red Rover was unlike any ship that ever sailed before. During the Crimean War, British ships crammed with sick & wounded men had been hellish places to die. They were anchored in a warm, shallow bay. In an unspeakably grotesque scene, the dead who had been put over the side sewn into hammocks with iron shot at their feet bobbed to the surface. Standing vertically like a nightmarish army of ghouls, ranks of shrouded bodies were swept back & forth by the wind. Deaths by disease outnumbered battle casualties 10-1.

098618909.gif


This very small image is of the Medical Officers & Paymaster of the Red Rover 1864-65. They were led by a man with an unusual name, Fleet Surgeon Ninian Pinkney. Not pictured, the women who revolutionized the nursing profession.

098618914.jpg

This image is a woodblock engraving from Harpers Weekly January-June 1863 page 300

Four Sisters of the Holy Cross joined the crew of the Rover.

"We were not prepared as nurses, but our hearts made our hands willing & our sympathy ready, & so with God's help, we did much toward alleviating the suffering."

The sisters did more than alleviate suffering, they were the first members of what would become the Naval Nursing Corps. Before the Civl War the nursing profession, as we understand it, did not exist. The lessons the sisters learned under extreme circumstances were the beginning of a revolution in medical care.

On December 26, 1862 Alice Kennedy, Sarah Kinno, Ellen Campbell, Betsy Young, Dennis Downs & Anne Bradford Stokes were mustered into the U.S. Navy as "First Class Boys", the grade given to 'loblolly boys' who assisted nautical doctors. They were the first women to officially join the U.S. armed forces. All of them were self-liberated. All of them had been midwives & were accustomed to blood.

Ann Bradford Stokes, a woman who had self-liberated from her owner in Murfreesboro TN joined the crew of the Red Rover on January 25, 1863. She was illiterate, but she was a quick study. She took the Sisters of the Holy Cross' lessons to heart. She was promoted from laundress to nurse & earned her first class boy rating as a nurse. She would be the first woman to receive a military pension based on her service on the Rover.

The self-liberated laundresses & nurses of the Red Rover wielded a miracle of Civil War medical care, lye soap. The Rover had excellent laundry facilities designed to provide crisp white sheets & table clothes daily for first class travelers. Put to the service of hospital patients, the simple use of lye soap to clean hands, clean shirts, clean sheets, clean towels & regular baths radically reduced in hospital infections. The doctors & nurses were intelligent observant people, they didn't know why rigorous cleanliness worked. It was obviously very effective & that was all that mattered. Liberally applied, lye soap was the wonder weapon of Civil War medicine.

098618901.jpg


Not only did the Red Rover have an extraordinary crew, but her original design as a luxury packet boat was a blessing. In the image above she is pictured tied up with a purpose built ice barge. Ice was cut on lakes in New England, shipped to New Orleans on special built schooners & transferred to barges for distribution up river. Folks in Nashville enjoyed their juleps all through hot Middle Tennessee summers thanks to New England ice. The Red Rover was built to take advantage of the ice trade.

The packet boat had been built with an insulated ice storage room, there was a dumbwaiter to bring it up to the saloon & private cabins on the upper decks. Imagine lying in a hospital bed upriver from Vicksburg during July while having a kindly nurse bring you a cold compress or cool drink. An elevator (vertical rail road) lifted patients from the main deck up to the hospital decks. Kitchens intended to service the refined tastes of first class travelers were ideal for cranking out nutritious meals for the patients. The right thing for the wrong reason in the form of wire mesh over the windows kept out flying bugs. The mesh was there in the mistaken belief that sunlight somehow caused disease. All in all, the Red Rover was an ideal hospital ship.

Wounded & diseased men from North & South received the same care aboard the Red Rover. That was a condition of the financial support received from the Western Sanitary Commission. Cleanliness, kind attentive nursing & advances in medicine combined to give the Red Rover an almost perfect survival rate. It was a template for all the hospital ships, the American Red Cross & members of the nursing profession that followed.

Note:

The ice trade was serious business. At one point during the investment of Vicksburg, General Grant put 40 barges of ice under the command of Mary Livermore of the U.S. Sanitary Commission.

Clipper ships in the tea trade did not want to contaminate their holds with cargo on the way out to China. Rather than using stone for ballast, their holds were filled large blocks of ice were packed in straw. In China, the clean New England ice sold for a premium price.
 
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In the east, Union the wounded were usually transported by rail. However, in the west, many Union wounded were often transported by hospital ships. These hospital ships provided rapid transportation of wounded and probably slaved lives. The Union control of the river systems combined with the newer steam ships allowed a new method for moving wounded soldiers. In post Civil War conflicts, hospital ships became part of the medical evacuation system.
I don't know about the Eastern Theater. As I recall,in the Western Theater the Battle of Shiloh necessitated the institution of that system. It's some very somber reading. There were so many casualties,they had to load wounded on transports and ship them to medical facilities elsewhere.
 
View attachment 342556
All images: NavSource Online; "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive / Harpers Weekly

The Red Rover Hospital Ship was a shining example of the medical advances that came out of the horrors of the Civil War. Nothing could symbolize that contrast more than the woodblock etching above. The Rover stands out white & shining amid the black, death dealing Western Flotilla gunboats.

View attachment 342554
Laid down as a luxury packet boat in 1859, the Red Rover began its wartime career as a barracks ship in New Orleans. Holed & left abandoned March 1862, she was salvaged by the U.S. gunboat Mound City in April. Her career as an army hospital ship began 10 June 1862. Assigned to the Western Flotilla above Vicksburg, the Red Rover was purchased by the Navy in September 1862. From that point the Red Rover served sick & wounded men of both sides until December 11, 1864. Decommissioned & sold November 1865.

View attachment 342555

The Red Rover was unlike any ship that ever sailed before. During the Crimean War, British ships crammed with sick & wounded men had been hellish places to die. They were anchored in a warm, shallow bay. In an unspeakably grotesque scene, the dead who had been put over the side sewn into hammocks with iron shot at their feet bobbed to the surface. Standing vertically like a nightmarish army of ghouls, ranks of shrouded bodies were swept back & forth by the wind. Deaths by disease outnumbered battle casualties 10-1.

View attachment 342558

This very small image is of the Medical Officers & Paymaster of the Red Rover 1864-65. They were led by a man with an unusual name, Fleet Surgeon Ninian Pinkney. Not pictured, the women who revolutionized the nursing profession.

View attachment 342559
This image is a woodblock engraving from Harpers Weekly January-June 1863 page 300

Four Sisters of the Holy Cross joined the crew of the Rover.

"We were not prepared as nurses, but our hearts made our hands willing & our sympathy ready, & so with God's help, we did much toward alleviating the suffering."

The sisters did more than alleviate suffering, they were the first members of what would become the Naval Nursing Corps. Before the Civl War the nursing profession, as we understand it, did not exist. The lessons the sisters learned under extreme circumstances were the beginning of a revolution in medical care.

On December 26, 1862 Alice Kennedy, Sarah Kinno, Ellen Campbell, Betsy Young, Dennis Downs & Anne Bradford Stokes were mustered into the U.S. Navy as "First Class Boys", the grade given to 'loblolly boys' who assisted nautical doctors. They were the first women to officially join the U.S. armed forces. All of them were self-liberated. All of them had been midwives & were accustomed to blood.

Ann Bradford Stokes, a woman who had self-liberated from her owner in Murfreesboro TN joined the crew of the Red Rover on January 25, 1863. She was illiterate, but she was a quick study. She took the Sisters of the Holy Cross' lessons to heart. She was promoted from laundress to nurse & earned her first class boy rating as a nurse. She would be the first woman to receive a military pension based on her service on the Rover.

The self-liberated laundresses & nurses of the Red Rover wielded a miracle of Civil War medical care, lye soap. The Rover had excellent laundry facilities designed to provide crisp white sheets & table clothes daily for first class travelers. Put to the service of hospital patients, the simple use of lye soap to clean hands, clean shirts, clean sheets, clean towels & regular baths radically reduced in hospital infections. The doctors & nurses were intelligent observant people, they didn't know why rigorous cleanliness worked. It was obviously very effective & that was all that mattered. Liberally applied, lye soap was the wonder weapon of Civil War medicine.

View attachment 342557

Not only did the Red Rover have an extraordinary crew, but her original design as a luxury packet boat was a blessing. In the image above she is pictured tied up with a purpose built ice barge. Ice was cut on lakes in New England, shipped to New Orleans on special built schooners & transferred to barges for distribution up river. Folks in Nashville enjoyed their juleps all through hot Middle Tennessee summers thanks to New England ice. The Red Rover was built to take advantage of the ice trade.

The packet boat had been built with an insulated ice storage room, there was a dumbwaiter to bring it up to the saloon & private cabins on the upper decks. Imagine lying in a hospital bed upriver from Vicksburg during July while having a kindly nurse bring you a cold compress or cool drink. An elevator (vertical rail road) lifted patients from the main deck up to the hospital decks. Kitchens intended to service the refined tastes of first class travelers were ideal for cranking out nutritious meals for the patients. The right thing for the wrong reason in the form of wire mesh over the windows kept out flying bugs. The mesh was there in the mistaken belief that sunlight somehow caused disease. All in all, the Red Rover was an ideal hospital ship.

Wounded & diseased men from North & South received the same care aboard the Red Rover. That was a condition of the financial support received from the Western Sanitary Commission. Cleanliness, kind attentive nursing & advances in medicine combined to give the Red Rover an almost perfect survival rate. It was a template for all the hospital ships, the American Red Cross & members of the nursing profession that followed.

Note:

The ice trade was serious business. At one point during the investment of Vicksburg, General Grant put 40 barges of ice under the command of Mary Livermore of the U.S. Sanitary Commission.

Clipper ships in the tea trade did not want to contaminate their holds with cargo on the way out to China. Rather than using stone for ballast, their holds were filled large blocks of ice were packed in straw. In China, the clean New England ice sold for a premium price.
Sorry, she was built in 1857 in Louisville, KY, not laid down in 1859.
 
Sorry, she was built in 1857 in Louisville, KY, not laid down in 1859.
The NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive.
Built 1859 at Cape Girardeau MO, launch date unknown. Purchased by the Confederacy 7 November 1861. Commissioned CSS Red Rover. Seized by USS Mound City at Island #10. Converted to hospital ship at Mound City IL. Commissioned USS Red Rover 26 December 1862. Decommissioned 17 November 1865. Sold at public auction to A.M. Carpenter 29 November 1865.
 
And that's incorrect. That's apparently all based on Admiral Kenny's 1963 article in the Missouri Historical Review and that statement was undocumented. I've checked with the Navy and they don't have a clue where the information came from. I suspect he got it from Midshipman Dennis M. Davidson's February 1960 Annapolis research paper but there is no way to tell. Davidson also does not document the Cape Girardeau build. Way's Packet Directory has it correct as Louisville. Below is what I came up with:

The Steamboat Red Rover was contracted for in Louisville, Kentucky by Captain John D Taylor around 19 June 1857 after he purchased the Buckeye State for $9000 to use her engines in the new boat. Captains William Strong and Taylor had John Cunningham of Louisville construct the new boat. The Red Rover was launched in Louisville as the following newspaper articles show:
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Wednesday, June 17, 1857, p. 1, col. 4
The Tennessean, Nashville, TN, Sunday, June 21, 1857, p. 3, col. 2
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Wednesday, September 16, 1857, p. 3, col. 1
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Monday, October 26, 1857, p. 3, col. 4

The only problem with this article is that they stated her length at 355 ft but later corrected it to 255 ft.
Nashville Union and American, Nashville, TN, Saturday, September 19, 1857, p. 3, col. 1
Times Picayune, New Orleans, LA, Tuesday Afternoon , November 3, 1857, p. 1, col. 5
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Tuesday, December 22, 1857, p. 4, col. 1
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Friday, December 25, 1857, p. 4, col. 1


According to the John Julius Guthrie papers as listed in the ORN, the Red Rover was purchased for $30,000 and Guthrie was to take command 7 November 1861 at New Orleans, LA. He was then to proceed with her to Memphis, TN on 25 November 1861, or wherever the floating battery New Orleans was . According to the same source she arrived at Columbus, KY 11 December 1861.

However the owners of the Red Rover, William Strong, John D. Taylor, W. Wyatt, Frank Shackleford, and Ammon L. Davis were not paid the $30,000 until 6 March 1862 by Commander John K. Mitchell at New Orleans, LA. That was only one month before she was captured at Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River on 8 April 1862. Strong was Owner and Master and Shackelford her Owner and Clerk when she was purchased by the Confederacy.
Ref: M1090 Confederate Navy Subject File - AY Frame 63

There was only one steamboat built here in Cape Girardeau and that was the Alfred T. Lacey and she was built in 1857 and burned in 1860.
 
And that's incorrect. That's apparently all based on Admiral Kenny's 1963 article in the Missouri Historical Review and that statement was undocumented. I've checked with the Navy and they don't have a clue where the information came from. I suspect he got it from Midshipman Dennis M. Davidson's February 1960 Annapolis research paper but there is no way to tell. Davidson also does not document the Cape Girardeau build. Way's Packet Directory has it correct as Louisville. Below is what I came up with:

The Steamboat Red Rover was contracted for in Louisville, Kentucky by Captain John D Taylor around 19 June 1857 after he purchased the Buckeye State for $9000 to use her engines in the new boat. Captains William Strong and Taylor had John Cunningham of Louisville construct the new boat. The Red Rover was launched in Louisville as the following newspaper articles show:
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Wednesday, June 17, 1857, p. 1, col. 4
The Tennessean, Nashville, TN, Sunday, June 21, 1857, p. 3, col. 2
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Wednesday, September 16, 1857, p. 3, col. 1
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Monday, October 26, 1857, p. 3, col. 4

The only problem with this article is that they stated her length at 355 ft but later corrected it to 255 ft.
Nashville Union and American, Nashville, TN, Saturday, September 19, 1857, p. 3, col. 1
Times Picayune, New Orleans, LA, Tuesday Afternoon , November 3, 1857, p. 1, col. 5
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Tuesday, December 22, 1857, p. 4, col. 1
Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY, Friday, December 25, 1857, p. 4, col. 1


According to the John Julius Guthrie papers as listed in the ORN, the Red Rover was purchased for $30,000 and Guthrie was to take command 7 November 1861 at New Orleans, LA. He was then to proceed with her to Memphis, TN on 25 November 1861, or wherever the floating battery New Orleans was . According to the same source she arrived at Columbus, KY 11 December 1861.

However the owners of the Red Rover, William Strong, John D. Taylor, W. Wyatt, Frank Shackleford, and Ammon L. Davis were not paid the $30,000 until 6 March 1862 by Commander John K. Mitchell at New Orleans, LA. That was only one month before she was captured at Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River on 8 April 1862. Strong was Owner and Master and Shackelford her Owner and Clerk when she was purchased by the Confederacy.
Ref: M1090 Confederate Navy Subject File - AY Frame 63

There was only one steamboat built here in Cape Girardeau and that was the Alfred T. Lacey and she was built in 1857 and burned in 1860.
Well... far out. What is your particular interest in the Red Rover?
 
Being from Cape I became interested in her when we had an article in the local paper a long time ago. After about 50 years working in St. Louis we moved back to the Cape and I set out to find out where she was built and by whom. One thing led to another and we even have a marker down by the levee that is wrong. I've contacted several people about it but no one seems to want to tackle the subject. I included a pic of the marker. It can be found on the web at https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=58928. The same group put up another marker with the wrong date for the Battle of Cape Girardeau.
I also did research on a nurse that was on the Red Rover and came to Cape after the war and died and is buried here, Julia Gill.
1604527776403.png
 
Being from Cape I became interested in her when we had an article in the local paper a long time ago. After about 50 years working in St. Louis we moved back to the Cape and I set out to find out where she was built and by whom. One thing led to another and we even have a marker down by the levee that is wrong. I've contacted several people about it but no one seems to want to tackle the subject. I included a pic of the marker. It can be found on the web at https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=58928. The same group put up another marker with the wrong date for the Battle of Cape Girardeau.
I also did research on a nurse that was on the Red Rover and came to Cape after the war and died and is buried here, Julia Gill.
View attachment 380750
One of the contraband women who became a nurse & was enlisted in the Navy aboard the Red Rover was from here in Murfreesboro TN where I live.
 
My g-g-gfather Charles Newton Lindsay died 3-18-1863 of dysentery aboard the hospital transport ship "City of Memphis". He was buried in Mound City IL. Tragically a little over one month later his son Clark Lindsay died of the same ailment at the Van Buren hospital in Millken's Bend LA. His final resting place is unknown. Margaret Ann (Burton) Lindsay was notified in the same communication of the deaths of her husband and son. Both men were members of the 83rd Infantry, Indiana Volunteers. Any additional information anyone can provide on these men or the circumstances of their deaths will be greatly appreciated. Note that I have looked online for the unit, the hospital, the ship, Milliken's Bend, etc. so I have the most basic information about each. Thanks!
 
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