Where Angels Tread, Civil War Hospitals In Images

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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McClellan Hospital, an officer's ward, number 12, photographed in the same manner as the famous ' Armory Hospital, Ward K ' and ' Alexandria Rest Home ', crowded ward- but a brand, new heart stopping and astonishing peek inside every day life at one of these. Some nurses, like Mary Keen ( she's coming.... ) spent from 1861 to 1865 in these quiet places, after the shooting stopped.

Researching where our Civil War nurses, ' Angels ' by too many descriptions to require a source ( much less 100's ) spent their war years, there is frustratingly little. And it is important. We have their words in the form of collections, journals, letters and a few, era newspaper articles. Louisa May Alcott barely survived her determination to volunteer in a Washington, DC hospital but wrote of her experiences so adroitly we almost do not notice the lack of illustrations. Of these there are few- war's aftermath, from inside hospitals. we have few photographs of hospitals themselves compared to how many many hospitals sprang up as first shots became first casualties- then first floods of wounded.

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Couldn't help a close up. It's a little mandatory when riveted inside History.

Some are brand, new to me and boy have I seen a few. Library of Congress must be adding to a digital collection already so valuable to this country we've mistakenly put guards around Fort Knox instead of guarding the real treasures.

SO Cont'd.......
 
Came across less sublime images, places nurses headed to before the shooting stopped. Smith's Barn, a fairly famous ' hospital soaked in the blood of men giving themselves by the hundreds and thousands at Antietam, was a ' front line ' hospital. Nurse accounts are terse and nightmarish- written by stalwart humanitarians driven by sheer force of will to drag life out of shambles.

Never came across these before, either- had only found ' Smith's Barn '- not the desperate straw huts thrown into place, somewhere, anywhere, to lay wounded wrecks.



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Isn't this crazy? You can see the farm's straw pile, put to a bizarre medical use


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Back to wards, of which we have few but are fortunate- there are these few. One is very famous- others perhaps less so. From stark to lush, by straw hut standards the difference in conditions for both nurse and patients was just staggering. ( hence the hospital transport services and a whole 'nother thread..... we have several )

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Carver's ward, albeit a close up of the original image
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Armory Square, Ward K
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Harewood, also a snipped close up. This ward was for men still quite seriously in need

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The massive camp at Alexandria held staggering amounts of recovering wounded transitioning either home or back to the war

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One of our Sisters is put into this sketch as nurse on a hospital transport. They served anywhere a wounded man laid his head
 
There's already a thread, if not more on Yellow Hospital. LoC has quite a few images of it- most replete with nurses, bursting tents and building at the seams. Putting nurses there, in era images is awfully valuable. Very few have been identified in any photos although I'm guessing some elbow greased research would identify quite a few. There's a terrific project and a great book.


https://civilwartalk.com/threads/finally-an-id-yellow-hospital-manassas-ladies-galore.110348/#post-1063233

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Just one- several others generated snips posted here

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There are more- our nurses were everywhere. They were also ' everyone '. Kept bumping into a 4 year veteran nurse on LoC, too good to ignore. Cont'd! How could it not?
I think those bundles used over the roof are grain sheaves carried from the barn. I have stacked enough of those myself working on the farm. Them were the good 'ole days!! Of course there were no wounded folks around then like the pictures.
 
Great photos, JPK. Someday we need a Hospitals II thread. I've found hospitals that don't get so much mention in looking for photos of nurses or pictures of communities.
 
Just found this again, having been able to dig up more Harewood images. Those odd shapes on the ceiling I think are balloons? Maybe the opening of this hospital? Someone better versed in this stuff would be able to say why some celebration would have been marked with a plethora of balloons?

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Harewood was just massive, sprawling over more acres of DC than I've been able to discover. It's here somewhere ( how large ). This is 1864, one of the wards.
 
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Cropped from the original photo, did a close up of the mess hall at Harewood because this worker, posing for the camera, seems obviously a patient/soldier, now allowed to work inside the kitchens. can you imagine setting all those places for the men? No cafeteria, get-your-own-plate, for the soldiers! There must be 200 in this section alone.

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Very close-up snip, in answer to ' So where are the nurses? '. Two women in the doorway of this ' panorama ' taken of Harewood Hospital. We do not know they are nurses. Wearing hoops, it's unlikely they'd be working wards in an Army hospital, may be wives of officers assigned there. Or, back to nurses, since this is obviously a posed photo, women dressed up, wishing to look their best.
 
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Wounded ended up here, or in Baltimore or Philadelphia- having made the train trek from field hospitals- like this, at Gettysburg. This tent? Luxurious compared to descriptions of men on straw, in barns.

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Still 3 weeks post battle, at the 2nd Corps hospital. In August heat.

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With the nurses, here in the background ( and maybe John Burns ).
 

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Wonderful thread! Thank you for posting and may we always remember the sacrifices of the nurses who served.
 
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