Through These Doors..

[JPK Huson 1863]

Through these doors? Our women of the war flocked, literally, to do something, anything, to ease suffering. Through these door came suffering men. Some would leave, body and soul together. Some, a now-quiet body while soul moved on through portals unknown and unseen by mortals, opened by angelic hands welcoming bewildered warriors- Home.

Nurses, a few frustrated women doctors, Christian Commission and Sanitary Commission workers, wives, sisters, mothers, daughters, friends- strangers who simply could no stay away. It's far too easy reading of accounts 150 years without putting oneself there- try it. A war in one's back yard or 200 miles away. Jenny Wade's sister handed her new baby to her mother three days after the birth and her sister's death, walked through the door where an accidental bullet had entered and did not return until the wee hours. And the next and the next. Why? She couldn't stand it. Union and Confederate- men were screaming in pain. In her town, in the fields, in her streets. So she left to help. It was her job.

Some people call it a moral imperative. These women did not pause to christen the gesture. Tens of thousands.

Hopefully the thread will continue to grow. This will be tough. In many place, Richmond, Washington, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Sharpsburg, Bull Run, Antietam, every structure became a hospital. Some, you go on tours and present owners will somewhat proudly point to blood stains on old, wooden floors. Bet there are stains on floors in homes in these towns and others, owners have no idea where on earth they came from. Lost to Time, sentinel to a war the house witnessed, Time forgot.

Through These Doors- post photographs or sketches or paintings of hospitals, tents, ships, a darn tree, anywhere our wounded lay their heads, hopefully were attended. A tribute, not informational. We'd be here another 150 years filling in the blanks on that.

Beaufort, South Carolina

Confederate Hospital, Yorktown

Just one of the hospitals, Fredericksburg

Harvey Hospital ( think Cordelia ), Wisconsin

Rogers Hospital, Charleston

The Red Rover, famous hospital ship for a reason

' Mrs. Allen's House ', a hospital for Kearny's Brigade, wish I knew where

Philadelphia's Reading terminal was turned into a hospital

The 2nd Corp Hospital at Brandy Station

Gettysburg's 2nd Corp Hospital

Cliffburne Hospital, Washington

Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fredericksburg

Hospital, City Point

Hospital Ship, USS Woodford on the Mississippi

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Douglas Hospital Washington, one of the larger, more famous hospitals. Sickles, Slocum, Harewood- of course all these are so well known it is easy to almost over look what occurred there.

Just one shot of Harewood- it was so large it's impossible to find a photograph encompassing all of Harewood.

Camp Carver, again Washington


Moore Hospital, Richmond. I have a much better photo of this somewhere.

Union Hotel Washington- all the hotels and living quarters were pressed into service following Bull Run as Hospitals.

Mt. Pleasant, Washington again

Chesapeake, Hampton, Va former female seminary

Having trouble posting photos here- will try again in a few minutes.

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

Thanks for such a wonderful thread! This past summer I visited the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg and toured the museum and grounds. Excellent museum to visit for those interested in the care wounded soldiers and the harrowing experiences by brave nurses.

This is from Pinterest, but I checked and it's from a museum display depicting the simple calico dress worn by many nurses. And yes, that's real blood staining the skirt. http://cwnurses.tripod.com/how.html

This is a painting of Fannie Beers from the battle of Brown's Mill. The oil painting is based on her memories as a nurse that afternoon. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/79446380899015872/

A photo I took of the rear of the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg that acted as a hospital from the afternoon of the first day until mid-September 1863 when he last patient left. Many local women worked tirelessly in its walls for months, feeding, cleaning and dressing wounds. And of course comforting men not long for this world and easing them into the next world.

Another shot from the Seminary. The dormitory rooms had been converted into hospital rooms. Here a wife and her children are visiting their father who is convalescing. Many women often feared their wounded loved ones would not receive the proper care with strangers and so many made arduous journeys hundreds of miles to tend to their husband, father or brother, often finding themselves compelled to care for others as well in the woefully understaffed hospitals.

Nurses used cups like this one to feed beef tea to wounded soldiers.

This colorful print pays homage to Civil War nurse Cornelia Hancock who was turned away by Dix as being too young at 23 to nurse soldiers and too pretty! She took it upon herself after the battle of Gettysburg to travel there by herself and tend to the wounded anyway and continued nursing afterwards when the need for nurses far out weighed the rules.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Thank you very much, Anna Elizabeth!! It's exactly what is needed! I've been trying to think how to present some of this from the zillions of pieces of input we have. All our nurses we have information on deserve their own thread as do the hospitals- thought it would be great to have somewhere for even these slight rumors of hospitals we tend to get. Some, like my grgrgrandparent's boarding house/hotel in Washington, DC had it dropped on them after Bull Run- or, like the citizens of any town, wounded were scooped up and brought in literally from the streets. Some stayed until there was room elsewhere, they died or sometimes until their army moved on. Chaos.

For some reason my lap top earlier stopped functioning, thought I'd take some time and come back for a few more. Nothing brings this stuff home so to speak like photographs- no idea why. It's why I'm so involved with them. I don't know. Like stepping out of the flow for a moment before being swept back into Time's inexorable current.

Washington Hotel, Vicksburg

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

This is looking down the hill from Libby Prison. Liggons Prison/Hospital and Howard is there- Liggons being the long building, Howard the shorter one on the far side. " Ligon's Factory Hospital, Liggon Factory Hospital, Ligion Factory Hospital, Prison Depot,Prison No. 1 "

Winder Hospital, Richmond, this is a 1912 photo, one of the wards used a house by then

 

[Private Watkins]

Thank you for this thread... I recently finished reading Widow of the South, and while laced with fiction, the book gave me a whole new perspective on the horrors faced by those trying to care for the wounded, and a much greater appreciation for those, North & South, who had the war thrust on them in ways I'm sure they never imagined, but yet nobly sacrificed to give relief to unimaginable suffering...

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Ross Factory Hospital, Tobacco factory of W. B. Ross. Northwest corner of 26th and Main Streets, LoC

Ruins of Kalamora Hospital, Washington

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Wanted to use a separate post for Beaufort, SC hospitals, although I do not think these are all the hospitals- somewhere is the hospital devoted to the care of ex-enslaved who managed to make it to Union lines. I have tried to research this hospital and while it seemed to me it must have been a segregated affair, maybe not? Many of the people making it that far were in terrible shape. Of course they were. Fleeing, some from deplorable conditions, malnutrition, disease, exposure- medical care was badly needed. I could be proven wrong and it was indeed what it seemed- will continue looking.

There were also black Union troops mustered in South Carolina. Discovered frequently they had to at the expense of families- wives and children promised shelter not received. Wonder if some also ended up at the hospital.

Three military hospitals, Beaufort, SC

All Library of Congress, you can find them by either refining a search to ' Civil War hospital ' or ' Beaufort South Carolina ', pretty cool.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Ah HA!

Labled ' Contraband Hospital ", including the LoC info on this, for some reason just can't stand the whole ' contraband ' thing. Yes, I know that's just the way it was.

Title: Contraband hospital, Beaufort / Sam. A. Cooley, photographer Tenth Army Corps

• Creator(s): Cooley, Sam A. (Samuel A.), photographer

• Date Created/Published: [ca. 1864]

• Medium: 1 photograph : albumen silver print ; 8 x 17 cm. (stereograph format)

• Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-stereo-1s03872 (digital file from original stereograph, front) LC-DIG-stereo-2s03872 (digital file from original stereograph, back)

• Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.

• Access Advisory: Served by appointment (Unprocessed). To make a request, see "Access to Unprocessed Materials,"(http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/info/022_unpr.html)

• Call Number: Unprocessed in PR 13 CN 2013:109 [P&P]

• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 

[FarawayFriend]

Thank you for this thread... I recently finished reading Widow of the South, and while laced with fiction, the book gave me a whole new perspective on the horrors faced by those trying to care for the wounded, and a much greater appreciation for those, North & South, who had the war thrust on them in ways I'm sure they never imagined, but yet nobly sacrificed to give relief to unimaginable suffering...

I do 100 % second that. And I think caring for the wounded maybe eased the tension in these women a bit. At least the could do something and did not have to sit at home reading the lists of casualties and praying that they will not find that one name... I have quoted that sentence from "Gone with the Wind" already, but it is exactly what I think: "Everyone of them.could be Ashley!" Nowadays, when only professional nurses are allowed to care for the wounded, military spouses or siblings are denied that opportunity to do something. And everything is better than to sit and wait...

 

[LoyaltyOfDogs]

Here are views of two of the several churches in Gettysburg that served as hospitals. The first is St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church on High Street, where nuns of the Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg, Maryland, tended the wounded. The second is an interior view of Christ Lutheran Church on Chambersburg Street. At the time of the battle, Christ Lutheran had a center aisle instead of the two side aisles shown today. As in churches elsewhere, boards were placed across the pews to serve as beds for the wounded.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Thank you for this thread... I recently finished reading Widow of the South, and while laced with fiction, the book gave me a whole new perspective on the horrors faced by those trying to care for the wounded, and a much greater appreciation for those, North & South, who had the war thrust on them in ways I'm sure they never imagined, but yet nobly sacrificed to give relief to unimaginable suffering...

It's one of the reasons for the thread- gosh, tough for all of them. Recently was poking around narratives from Gettysburg civilians, had already read quite a bit on nurses, Sanitary Commission workers and workers different states sent to the battlefield. Unnamed hundreds of civilians poured in, North and South looking for any possible sign of loved ones, too- if found wounded they stayed. For every story written there are mute thousands between 1861 and 1865. We could stretch that well beyond the war.

There's a great book in Public Domain " Our Army Nurses ". Asked to send photographs of themselves and write accounts taken from their experiences during the war some simply could not. What they saw, had to do, the horrors passed through on behalf of suffering men was just too traumatic.

https://archive.org/details/ourarmynursesint00holl

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

I think you mean Clara Barton. What did she do? I don't know but I think she was nice.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Here are views of two of the several churches in Gettysburg that served as hospitals. The first is St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church on High Street, where nuns of the Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg, Maryland, tended the wounded. The second is an interior view of Christ Lutheran Church on Chambersburg Street. At the time of the battle, Christ Lutheran had a center aisle instead of the two side aisles shown today. As in churches elsewhere, boards were placed across the pews to serve as beds for the wounded.

View attachment 87653


View attachment 87654

Whoa, another Gettysburg hospital, thank you!

Isn't it crazy, looking at them today and knowing what happened right there? Thanks very much for the photos- little kooky on the topic because 1,000 words are not sufficient, up against what a photo contains by way of History, meaning and connection. The caretakers coming here left one day, you just know having been the last face on Earth witnessed by Blue and Gray clad soldiers. Read a lot of accounts from Gettysburg- women there making no distinction, stripping off bloody uniforms to get at horrific wounds, then leaving the war where it was, outside those doors.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

I think you mean Clara Barton. What did she do? I don't know but I think she was nice.

Clara? She did everything. If ever a word was invented around a person ' indefatigable ' would have had its genesis the day Clara Barton drew breath on this planet.

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

Clara? She did everything. If ever a word was invented around a person ' indefatigable ' would have had its genesis the day Clara Barton drew breath on this planet.

I agree with you. But I was recently enjoying watching a Seinfeld rerun and I had a good laugh at that quote from Jerry and George. Whenever I think of women during the war that comes up for me.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Lincoln General

Lyceum Hall Hospital

One of the Mound City Hospitals

I think this is the Mound City Hospital, on the shore, past USS Daisy

Rochester, NY( 1864 )

Sickles Hospital

Stanton, Washington

Another of the Brandy Station, 2nd Corp Hospital, nurses are in this photo

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

I agree with you. But I was recently enjoying watching a Seinfeld rerun and I had a good laugh at that quote from Jerry and George. Whenever I think of women during the war that comes up for me.

Ohhhh noooooo! What a yutz I am!! How funny to fall for that, so sorry!!