Vicksburg: "Hospital Accommodation"

The following editorial article appeared in the Vicksburg Daily Whig on February 14, 1863, questioning the use of homes as military hospitals.

Hospital Accommodation.

Recently, orders have been issued to take for hospitals a large number of the best residences in the city. At the same time, owing to the imminence of a severe engagement, a storming of the city by the enemy, the ladies are advised to depart and seek shelter and safety in the interior. It does not seem much safe for the sick to be placed in these residences than for the owners to remain in them. Both are equally exposed, but with this difference in favor of the citizens: that in case of such assault, as will greatly expose to danger either party, the ladies and their protectors can walk, run or ride out of the reach of immediate peril, but the sick would be compelled to endure and suffer without the possibility of removal unless it were at the peril of life itself. We saw this tested in the bombardment by the Yankee fleet last summer, in this city.

We are reliably informed that, at Manassas and at Richmond, the Government, on the suggestion of the Surgeon-General, had several hundred temporary houses erected for hospitals, outside of the immediate bustle, business and noise of those localities. They were about eighteen feet wide, and from eight to one hundred feet long and some of them double the width, with a temporary partition running through the center of the house. Those buildings are represented to have been economical, quickly put up, and the best hospitals in the country. One surgeon could attend to more in such a building than many could in our common residences. Besides, they do not require a fourth part of the number of nurses, stewards, cooks, wood, etc., etc.

The facility of building such houses here is very great. The railroad could transport any amount of lumber from the saw mills in the interior, and fifty carpenters, detailed from the camps, could soon furnish room far superior to the residences of the city; and they could be located out of the reach of the enemy's shells and shot, on or near the railroad, so as to make it an easy matter to transfer their inmates to Clinton, Jackson or Brandon, if necessary. Besides, the convalescents would be out of the reach of the unavoidable temptation that beset them in the city, and by which great numbers relapse and die, after having been nearly restored to health and fitness for duty. In two weeks, more and better hospital accommodations can be supplied in the manner indicated, than by taking any ten houses in the city. Is it not worth the consideration of those charged with the great responsibilities of the Medical Department of this vicinity?

Source:

Vicksburg Daily Whig, "Hospital Accommodations," February 14, 1863, Page 1. (Accessed through Newspapers.com)