Hospitals on the Pamunkey

Interior of a Union hospital ship

An interesting Wikipedia article on a little known aspect of the Civil War- the hospital ships of the United States Sanitary Commission. The Commission was a privately funded and led relief organization run out Washington during the war. Some notable members of the organization include Frederick Law Olmsted and George Templeton Strong.

The Commission created and ran the Hospital Transport Service, a network of dozens of converted steamers that transported ten of thousands of Union wounded to hospitals out of the war zone.

Some of the vessels that operated specifically on the Pamunkey River were, the Elm City, Commodore, Louisiana, State of Maine, Kennebeck, Daniel Webster No. 2, John Brooks, Whilldin, Knickerbocker, St. Mark, and the Euterpe.*

Some other sites of interest on this topic:

Civil War Nurses on Hospital Ships at Civil War Women

Beyond "Red Rover," Our Nurses Afloat at Civil War Talk

*Note from A MEMOIR of the Embarkation of the Sick and Wounded from the Peninsula of Virginia in the Summer of 1862.-Compiled and Published at the request of the Sanitary Commission. 

"The St. Mark arrived about this time, a splendid clipper East-Indiaman, and, after her, the Euterpe, both first-class new sailing vessels, entirely reconstructed interiorly by the Commission, as model hospital-ships, and having their own corps of surgeons, dressers, &c. Drawing too much water to come up the Pamunkey, they anchored at Yorktown, and the sick were taken down on steamboats to them, and they made the voyage round to New York in tow of steamers."

From Cold Harbor to the Pamunkey- 1864

Procession of the Maimed.

The army was particularly well placed for the prompt dispatch of the wounded to the rear, as it was only twelve miles from its water base at White House, on the Pamunkey River. Here sufficient transports were assembled to take the wounded to Northern hospital. There not being enough ambulances to transport all promptly to the rear army wagons had been brought into use. On the morning of June 3, a train of wagons and ambulances was organized, including a total of 2,177 vehicles, which in single line would have reached to White House. On June 4 forty-three new ambulances arrived.

Many of the slightly wounded started for White House on foot rather than go to the field hospitals. Thus all day on June 4, a melancholy procession of blood- stained men kept pace with the jolting wagons with their maimed burdens that filled the road to White House. No such cortege had ever before passed through, the pine thickets, past the silent swamps and over the black streams of that part of Virginia. Although a Federal army had fought there in 1862, its losses had not been nearly as great.

The road being sandy and heavy from rain, progress of the procession of the maimed was slow. As the rough wagons jolted in ruts or over corduroy of logs in marshy places, the sufferers lyng In them, on beds of straw or boughs, groaned In agony.

Arriving at the river, they were borne aboard the transports and laid in rows in cots or upon the decks.

In the course of the day 1,254 men were placed on transports, which started for Washington. At night there remained in the hospital tents near the shore 1,460 more, ready to depart as soon as they could be loaded on the boats.

The labors of the army’s medical officers and their helpers at this time were ceaseless. Some of the surgeons had slept but an hour or two in three nights. At first there had been a shortage of nurses, but willing volunteers had been supplied by the Sanitary Commission. The nurses, like the doctors, worked unceasingly. Their experiences in this labor were such as could not be forgotten.

- The Washington Herald (Washington, D.C.) June 04, 1914