Confederate hospitals in Memphis

   Hospitals in the United States were few and far between in the 1860s. Most large cities would have some type of public hospital. These facilities, however, were usually for the poor, or for visitors. For locals, healthcare entailed calling a doctor who then visited the sick in their homes. However, between the riverboat men who might be carrying infectious diseases and locals combatting the “recurring maladies native to the lower Mississippi and its lowland,” residents early on saw a need for some type of medical care. As early as 1829, the state made “a half hearted effort to run a hospital exclusively for travelers.” The Memphis Hospital was the first hospital established in the state of Tennessee. The hospital was a three-story brick building, containing eight rooms and able to handle 200 patients.[1]

   Memphis was also home to the Botanico-Medical College and the Memphis Medical College, both established in 1846. And, in 1860, the Memphis Charity Hospital opened, occupying one of the old buildings at the then-defunct U.S. Navy Yard.[2] 

Irving Bloch Hospital, and later, prison.

   With Tennessee leaving the Union in 1861, several new hospitals sprang up. The Confederate government took over the Memphis (or State) Hospital and civilian patients were transferred elsewhere. Doctor James Keller was reported as in charge, with the Sisters of Charity, St. Agnes, as nurses.[3] Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and studied at the University of Louisville. He was practicing medicine in Memphis prior to the war. Women in Memphis organized the Southern Mothers’ Society and set up a hospital in a building at the intersection of Second and Union Streets. In July 1861, they were advertising for a hospital steward and a “competent, healthy, negro man to wait upon the rooms.”[4] This hospital moved to the “Irving Block, a large commercial building on Second at Court.” The larger structure had 400 beds and a Dr. George W. Curry was reported in charge.[5] The Edgewood Hospital Association converted Edgewood Chapel into a facility that could handle 50 sick and women soldiers. Following the battle of Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861, wounded soldiers were shipped via steamer to Memphis, and leaders of the city established a hospital in the new Overton Hotel, as well as opening private homes.[6]   

   Concerning the care of the Confederate wounded from Belmont, a committee resolved that “The people of Memphis are determined to leave nothing undone that is in their power to show their appreciation of the services of the gallant men who have taken up arms in the cause of the South.” As the Overton Hotel was fitted up as a hospital, Drs. Keller and Fenner were placed in charge, with R. Brewster as pharmacist. C.S. Penner was also listed as a surgeon at Overton Hospital.[7]   

   By the end of 1861, Memphis’s confederate hospital system had 1,000 beds. The hospital at Overton, along with the Southern Mothers’ Hospital or Irving Block Hospital were combined into an official Confederate hospital system with Dr. Claude H. Mastin as Supervisor of Hospitals. Mastin, born in Huntsville, Alabama, had studied at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the University of Edinburgh. He was practicing medicine in Mobile, Alabama, at the start of the war. He was in Memphis as early as November 1861.[8]

   Following the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, at least 1,200 wounded men were sent via train from Corinth to Memphis. This does not include wounded men placed in private homes. The cry of abuse soon surfaced in Memphis hospitals and General Beauregard sent Dr. David W. Yandell, Medical Director for the Western Department of Kentucky, to inspect the Confederate hospitals in the city. Yandell appointed a new chief surgeon, new contract doctors, and nurses. There were now three official Confederate hospitals: Overton, SMS Irving, and the State Army hospital. When Beauregard ordered the evacuation of Memphis in May 1862, the sick and convalescent soldiers were sent back to their regiments, while the wounded were sent to Grenada, Mississippi. Fifty soldiers too sick or wounded to be moved were left behind, and Dr. G.W. Curry returned to the Irving Hospital to look after these men. When the Federals took over the city, SMS Irving Hospital was converted into a prison.[9]

   Federal forces garrisoning the city assumed use of the other structures and greatly enlarged them, or appropriated other buildings and established new hospitals in the city. Although it was short lived, the Confederate Hospital at Memphis contributed to the overall Confederate war effort and to the lives of individual soldiers. 

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[1] Stewart, History of Medicine in Memphis, 13, 84, 87.

[2] Stewart, History of Medicine in Memphis, 88.

[3] Memphis Daily Appeal, June 15, 1861.

[4] Memphis Daily Appeal, July 17, 1861.

[5] Memphis Daily Appeal, August 9, 1861.

[6] LaPointe, “Military Hospitals in Memphis”, 326-27; Memphis Daily Appeal, November 9, 1861.

[7] Memphis Daily Appeal, November 9, 1861, November 10, 1861, November 17, 1861.

[8] Claude H. Mastin, CMSR, Roll0165, M331, RG109, NA.

[9] LaPointe, “Military Hospitals in Memphis”, 332.

Wounded at Chancellorsville

   Diaries written by common soldiers provide the best insights into the day-to-day life of soldiers. They were not written for wide publication, nor to ‘set history straight,’ as post-war reminiscences. Lieutenant James M. Malbone chronicled his life in a diary that now resides in the collection of the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center in Saratoga Springs, NY.

   Malbone was born in 1828, probably in Princess Anne County, Virginia. Prior to the war, he served as a private tutor. He enlisted March 25, 1862, in Interior Line, Virginia. Malbone was mustered in as a private in Company B, 6^th Virginia Infantry. About six weeks later, Malbone was elected 2^nd lieutenant. He was reported as present until wounded at the battle of Chancellorsville, and remained absent until March 1864 when he was reported on light duty in Gordonsville, Virginia. It does not appear that he ever rejoined his company. Malbone passed away on February 20, 1917, and is buried in the Moore Family Cemetery, Virginia Beach, Virginia.[1]

   At the time of Chancellorsville, the 6^th Virginia Infantry was assigned to Mahone’s brigade. Mahone’s brigade led the advance of Anderson’s division on May 1, moving toward the Federals who were positioned west of Fredericksburg. Malbone’s company was on picket duty and rejoined the 6^th Virginia just in time. He mentioned in his diary advancing some two miles.[2]

   As Jackson launched his attack late on the afternoon of May 2, Mahone was busy holding the attention of the Federals on the eastern front. The skirmishers of the 6^th Virginia captured the flag on the 107^th Ohio. Chronicling a few days after the event, Malbone stated that he was wounded in the right arm about six that morning. As soon as he was wounded, he headed to the rear, “a bout two miles,” to the hospital to have his wound treated. On May 3, he started for Guinea Station, some twenty miles away, walking the entire distance. When he arrived, he found his captain, William C. Williams, mortally wounded.  Malbone stayed with his captain “in the depot house and on a few old bags close by my Capt.” until he died. Malbone then procured a coffin and had Williams buried. [3]

   Malbone found the hospital at Guinea Station “An awful place, for wounded men[.]” After Williams was buried, Malbone returned to Guinea Station, “sick & my wound was very painful.” Later that day, he set out on foot in the rain, looking for his regimental commissary. “[A]t last I found him after so long a time,” he wrote. He returned to Guinea Station the next day and attempted to board a train to Richmond. Federal cavalry had cut the rail lines and it was two days before Malbone could be transported South. During that time, he was able to “sleep in a negro kitching.” On May 8, he was transported to General Hospital No 10, “A regular officers Hospitals.”[4]

   The battle of Chancellorsville produced 9,233 Confederate wounded. Most did not leave accounts of their ordeal, but James M. Malbone did, and his account might represent the rest.

 

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[1] James M. Malbone, CMSR, RG109, M324, Roll#0442, NA.

[2] Sears, Chancellorsville, 198-99; Malbone, Diary, May 1, 1863.

[3] Sears, Chancellorsville, 282; Malbone, Diary, May, 4, May 5, May 8, 1863.

[4] Malbone, Diary, May 4, May 9, 1863.

 

Halifax County

    Formed in 1758 from Edgecombe County, Halifax County was named for George Montague, second earl of Halifax (England) and President of the British Board of Trade and Plantations. At times, Halifax County has been called North Carolina’s “Cradle of History.” It was in the community of Halifax that the Halifax Resolves were drafted, debated, and signed in April 1776 by the delegates at the Fourth Provincial Congress. These resolves authorized North Carolina’s delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence. The resolutions were unanimously adopted. The county seat, also named Halifax, was established in 1757 and became the county seat in 1759.

   In 1860, Halifax County boasted a population of 19,442 people, including 10,349 slaves and 2,450 free people of color. In the 1860 presidential election, local voters cast 757 votes for John C. Breckinridge, 545 votes for John Bell, and 22 votes for Stephen Douglas. No votes were recorded for Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln (he failed to garner enough support to get on the ballot in North Carolina).

   During the February 1861 call for a convention to consider the question of secession, 1,049 cast their votes for the call, with 39 against. Only Edgecombe, Warren, and Martin Counties had fewer votes against the convention. Considering the population of Halifax County, two delegates were selected. An early history of Halifax County considered both men “union men.” Those two were Richard H. Smith and Littleberry W. Batchelor. Smith was born in 1810 in Scotland Neck and graduated from the University of North Carolina, later reading law. He was a member of the House of Commons in 1852 and 1854. He was in favor of the Union until the inauguration of Lincoln “when he became an ardent supporter of [the] war.” Batchelor was born in Halifax in 1823. He attended the Bingham School and later studied medicine in Philadelphia. He practiced medicine and was a Justice of the Peace. Batchelor “was a devoted Southerner and firm believer in the right of a State to secede.”

   There were several companies that enlisted in Confederate service during the war. These included: Companies I and K, 1^st North Carolina Volunteers; Company K, 1^st North Carolina State Troops; Company F, 2^nd North Carolina Artillery; Companies G & I, 12^th North Carolina State Troops; Company A, 14^th North Carolina Troops; Company D, 24^th North Carolina Troops; Company D and F, 43^rd North Carolina Troops; Company G, 3^rd North Carolina Cavalry; and Company K, 2^nd Regiment North Carolina Junior Reserves. There does not seem to be an adequate list of men from the county who served in the Federal army. However, based upon the 1890 Veterans Census, several men served in the 14^th United States Colored Heavy Artillery. There are four African Americans who applied for Confederate pensions after the war. 

Lawrence Branch

   Several high-ranking Confederate officers were born in Halifax County. Lawrence O’Bryan Branch was born near Enfield in 1820. He was brought up by his uncle, U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Branch. Lawrence was tutored by Salmon P. Chase, and in 1838, graduated from Princeton University. Branch practiced law, living in Tennessee and Florida before returning to North Carolina. He was a banker and served as president of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad. From March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1861, Branch represented his district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Branch served as North Carolina’s quartermaster early in the war. He then accepted a position as colonel of the 33^rd North Carolina Troops in September 1861. In November 1861, he was appointed brigadier general. Branch commanded on the coast, losing a battle at New Bern in March 1862. He was assigned command of the Second North Carolina brigade about three days after the battle and sent to Virginia the first of May 1862. Branch would again lose a battle at Hanover Court House on May 27, 1862. He and his brigade were then assigned to the Light Division under A.P. Hill, and Branch became a dependable brigade commander. At one point, he led the division and was complimented by Stonewall Jackson. On September 17, 1862, Branch was killed during the battle of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Branch is buried in the Old City Cemetery in Raleigh.

 Also from the area was Junius Daniel. He was born in Halifax in 1828 and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1851. He resigned from the army in 1858 and lived in Louisiana for a time, but he was back in North Carolina by 1860. Daniel was colonel of the 14^th North Carolina State Troops, then colonel of the 45^th North Carolina Troops. He was appointed brigadier general in September 1862 and commanded a brigade in the Second Corps until mortally wounded at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia, on May 12, 1864, dying the same day.

   David Clark was born in Scotland Neck in February 1829 and attended the Episcopal Male School of Raleigh. He was colonel of the 15^th North Carolina Militia, then brigadier general of the Ninth Brigade, North Carolina Militia, in March and April 1862. He died in Halifax County in October 1882.

   William Ruffin Cox was born in Scotland Neck in March 1832. Four years later, he moved to Tennessee. He attended Franklin College and then Lebanon Law School. In 1852, Cox returned to North Carolina. In 1861, he was a member of the North Carolina Militia, then elected major of the 2^nd North Carolina Infantry in June 1861. Cox was wounded at Malvern Hill in July 1862. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on September 17, 1862; promoted to colonel on March 20, 1863; wounded at Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863; and wounded in the right shoulder and face at Rappahannock Station, Virginia, on November 7, 1863. On May 31, 1864, Cox was promoted to brigadier general. He led a brigade in Ewell’s Second Corps. On April 9, 1865, Cox was paroled at Appomattox Court House. After the war, he returned to the practice of law and later served as a judge. Cox represented North Carolina in the US House of Representatives from 1881 to 1887 and was Secretary of the US Senate from 1893 to 1900. He passed in 1919 and is interred in Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh.

   James R. McLean was also born at Enfield in September 1823. He attended Bingham School and the Caldwell Institute, later reading law under John A. Gilmer. He practiced law in Greensboro, and later, in Rockford. He represented Surry County in the General Assembly in 1850-1851 but then moved back to Greensboro. In November 1861, McLean won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. In Congress, he usually supported the Davis Administration. McLean did not seek re-election due to poor health and later served as major in the senior reserves. He died in 1870 and is buried in Greensboro.

   Halifax County played a major role in the war. M. Fannie Whitfield of Enfield actually sent Vice-President Alexander Stephens five flag proposals early in the war. These were found after Richmond was captured in April 1865. The community at Weldon was an early mobilization and training camp for Confederate soldiers. The railroad that ran through Weldon also played a major role in the war, moving supplies from the Wilmington area to Virginia and transporting troops. Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes made his headquarters in Weldon early in the war, as did Brigadier General L.S. Baker later in the war.  A Wayside Hospital opened in Weldon Methodist Church in December 1862. Near Scotland Neck, at Edwards’ Ferry, the ram Albemarle was constructed beginning in the spring of 1863. The Albemarle helped to capture the town of Plymouth in April 1864. In November 1863 there was a skirmish near Weldon. Between March 25 and April 11, 1865, there was a Federal expedition from Deep Bottom, Virginia, towards Weldon, North Carolina. On April 12, 1865, the Confederates abandoned Weldon and moved toward Raleigh. What was left, like trains and engines, were driven onto the bridge over the Roanoke River and set fire. 

War Memorial in Enfield recently bulldozed. 

   After the war, Halifax County became home to at least two United Confederate Veterans camps. The Cary Whitaker Camp 1053 was established in Enfield, while the Bill Johnston Camp 1275 was in Weldon. Halifax had the Halifax Chapter 1232, Enfield had the Frank M. Parker chapter 1096,  and Weldon had the Junius Daniel Chapter 600, United Daughters of the Confederacy. There is no recorded post for a Grand Army of the Republic Post in Halifax County. A monument to Confederate and World War I soldiers was erected in Enfield in June 1929. It was later expanded to honor soldiers of other wars. In August 2022, the mayor of Enfield bulldozed the monument. Another monument was dedicated in Halifax in 1929. There are North Carolina Highway Historical Markers near Scotland Neck and in Halifax denoting the ram Albemarle. There are North Carolina Civil War Trail Markers at Roanoke Rapids concerning the Roanoke Canal and in Weldon concerning the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad Trestle. There is also a war memorial at the Weldon Confederate Cemetery with the names of those who died at the hospital and are interred nearby.

Famous Confederate Nurses

Drew Gilpin Faust, in Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in American Civil War, writes that it was “not the Confederacy’s ladies but its African Americans who care for the South’s fallen heroes. In the domain of nursing, as in the domestic world of cooking and washing, many Confederate ladies would prove themselves less able and less effective than their supposed inferiors.”[1] If Faust has any background research that examines the numbers of White verses Black hospital workers, it is seems to have been left out of her end notes. Of course, part of the problem with Mothers of Invention is that it focuses too much on women from slaveholding families, and not the other 99% of the Southern population.

The work of those mostly silent voices of Black hospital workers I cover in a post that you can read here. They were vital members of the staffs of Southern hospitals during the war. But to say that White Southern women were “less able and less effective” is a stretch. There were undoubtedly some African-American women who balked at the sight of the wounded and sick. Their voices are just silent, unrecorded then as they are now. There were many Southern women who did answer the call to serve as nurses and matrons in hospitals, and countless others who took soldiers into their homes to care for them when the hospital system became overwhelmed.

Others have pointed out conflicting evidence regarding Faust’s assumptions. In Susan Barber’s thesis “Sisters of the Capital: White Women in Richmond, Virginia, 1860-1880,” she found “that more upper class women worked as matrons than Faust suggests in Mothers of Invention.”[2] Elise A. Allison in her thesis, “Confederate Matrons: women who served in Virginia Civil War hospitals,” argues that Faust (and others) “focus their analyses on the writings left by a few prominent matrons and draw generalizations about all matrons based on this unrepresentative sample.”[3]

The Hospital Bill, passed into law in September 1862, stated that each hospital could employ two chief matrons, two assistant matrons, and two ward matrons for each ward. The chief matrons “exercise a superintendence over the entire domestic economy of the hospital.” The assistant matrons supervised the “laundry. . . the clothing of the sick, [and] the bedding of the hospital, to see that they are kept clean and neat.” The duties of the two war matrons were “to prepare the beds and bedding of their respective wards, to see that they are kept clean and in order, that the food or diet for the sick is carefully prepared and furnished to them, the medicine administered, and that all patients requiring careful nursing are attended to.”[4]

Ada Bocot was born in South Carolina in 1832. A widow by the time of the war, she volunteered as a nurse and in December 1861, arrived in Charlottesville, Virginia, working in the Monticello Hospital. She continued nursing through 1863 when she returned to her home in South Carolina. Her diary was published in 1994 and offers glimpses of her life while in Charlottesville. Berlin, ed., A Confederate Nurse: The Diary of Ada W. Bacot, 1860-1863.

Emily Mason was born in Kentucky, but by the time of the war was living in Virginia. Mason helped establish the hospital at White Sulphur Springs, and later worked at hospitals in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Richmond. Her war-time accounts were also published in The Atlantic Monthly: “Memories of a Hospital Matron,” 90, No.1039 (September 1902).  

Kate Cumming, born in Scotland, came to the United States with her family, settling in Mobile, Alabama. She volunteered as a nurse in Corinth, Mississippi, in April 1862, and went on to serve in several different hospitals throughout the war, including those in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Her diary was published in 1866: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Juliet Opie Hopkins was born in present-day West Virginia, and after her marriage, relocated to Mobile, Alabama. During the war, she helped establish Alabama hospitals in Richmond, Virginia, and earned the title “Florence Nightingale of the South.” She was wounded twice in the left hip while supervising the removal of wounded soldiers during the battle of Seven Pines in May 1862. Hopkins died in 1890 and was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.[5]

Sallie Chapman Gordon Law was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, and later moved to Georgia, and then to Tennessee. In April 1861, she helped organize a hospital in a home in Memphis. Later, Law worked at Overton Hospital in Memphis, and then Law Hospital (named for her) in La Grange, Georgia. In 1892, her story was published in Reminiscences of the War of the Sixties between the North and South.  

Ella King Newsom was born in Mississippi and, after marrying, moved to Tennessee. She worked on the Southern Mothers’ Home Hospital and the Overton Hospital, both in Memphis. Newsom also organized or worked in hospitals in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Corinth, Mississippi, the Crutchfield House Hospital in Chattanooga, and in Marietta and Atlanta. The Newsom Hospital, originally organized in Chattanooga, was named for her. Newsom was also called “The Florence Nightingale of the South.”[6]

Phoebe Yates Levy Pember was born to a Jewish family in Charleston, South Carolina. She was widowed and living in Georgia when, in December 1862, she began working at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. Pember was chief matron of one of the five divisions at Chimborazo, the largest military hospital in the world, and left some remarkable and often quoted details of her experience in A Southern Woman’s Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, published in 1879.

Kate Mason Rowland was born in Detroit, Michigan, and moved to Richmond, Virginia, prior to the war. During the war, she worked in several hospitals and was matron at the Marine or Naval Hospital at the end of the war. Her diary has never been published.

Sally Tompkins, from Matthews County, Virginia, ran the Robertson Hospital in Richmond during the war. When the Confederate government began consolidating small hospitals in the summer of 1861, the Robertson Hospital, due to its efficiency, remained open. To circumnavigate the regulation requiring hospital administrators to be commissioned, Jefferson Davis appointed Tompkins a captain of cavalry. Her hospital had the lowest death rate of any hospital in Richmond, although many serious cases were sent there. Tompkins’s hospital remained open until June 1865.[7]

Joanna Fox Waddill was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Mississippi when young. When the war came, she served in hospitals in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, eventually becoming a matron in a hospital in Lauderdale, Mississippi.

Augusta Jane Evens Wilson was born in Columbus, Georgia, and lived in Russell County, Alabama, and San Antonio, Texas, prior to the war. In 1860, she was living in Mobile, Alabama. She worked at a hospital in Mobile during the war and corresponded with Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard.[8]

These are just a few of the many women who were clearly able and effective in their roles as caregivers for the injured and sick, regardless of their stations in Southern society.  

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[1] Faust, in Mothers of Invention, 112.

[2] Barber, “Sisters of the Capital,” 103-104.

[3] Allison, “Confederate Matrons,” 7.

[4] Official Records, Series IV, Vol. II, 199.

[5] Schroeder-Lein, Civil War Medicine, 138-39.

[6] Schroeder-Lein, Civil War Medicine, 229-30.

[7] Schroeder-Lein, Civil War Medicine, 303-04.

[8] http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1072

North Carolina’s Hospitals in Charleston

   Samuel Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector General of the Confederate armies, issued General Order No. 95 on November 25, 1862. The twelve-point order dealt with the administration of Confederate hospitals, items such as the hospital fund, the requisition of clothes for the wounded, the duties of matrons, etc. Point number 10 specified that “Hospitals will be known and numbered as hospitals of a particular State. The sick and wounded, when not injurious to themselves or greatly inconvenient to the service, will be sent to the hospitals representing their respective States, and to private or State hospitals representing the same.”[1]

   It is not clear to what extent this order was adopted. In Richmond, the Confederate city with the best book on Confederate hospitals, there were several state hospitals. Many of these had more than one name or were later absorbed into the Confederate hospital system. These include the Mississippi Hospital (General Hospital #2); Second Georgia (General Hospital #14); First Georgia (General Hospital #16); Fourth Georgia (General Hospital #17); Third Georgia (General Hospital #19); First Alabama (General Hospital #20); North Carolina Hospital (General Hospital #24); Texas Hospital (General Hospital #25); Louisiana Hospital; South Carolina Hospital. There were at least 140 hospitals in Richmond.[2]

   Charleston, South Carolina, also became a hospital center for the Confederacy, with at least twenty-five hospitals. The war-time history of Charleston is well known. Many consider the bombardment of Fort Sumter to be the beginning of the war. The battle of Secessionville was fought in June 1862. Naval bombardments of the city and surrounding fortifications began in 1863, and the first and second battles of Fort Wagner were waged in 1863 as well.  There were numerous regiments that were assigned to duty in Charleston over the course of the war. The majority of soldiers who were there were, of course, from South Carolina, but there were troops from Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina there as well. 

White House, Charleston, SC

   North Carolina regiments assigned to the defenses of Charleston include the 8^th North Carolina, 31^st North Carolina, 51^st North Carolina, and 61^st North Carolina. Those four North Carolina regiments, part of the brigade commanded by Thomas L. Clingman, were assigned to the defenses of Charleston in February 1863 and remained in the city through the end of the year. The 8^th and 31^st participated in the battle at Battery Wagner on July 18, 1863. The 1^st North Carolina Hospital in Charleston was established in August 1863 on one of the city wharves, but it was forced to relocate when the bombardment commenced. The new location was a “fine dwelling” at the intersection of Mary and American Streets. A chimney fire destroyed this building in January 1864.[3] It is unclear if during one of their moves if the hospital was redesignated the 2^nd North Carolina Hospital. The 3^rd North Carolina hospital was established at the White home on Charlotte Street. It was a large brick home that served as Daniel Sickle’s headquarters after the war.[4] Artilleryman Daniel E.H. Smith was taken to the hospital on Charlotte Street at one point during the war. “I was carried to the very top of the house and put to bed in an attic room. The Matron, or head nurse, was Mrs. Lining, a lady of good birth, who was very kind to me.” Smith mentions that a Dr. Meminger was in charge of the hospital.[5] It is not clear who Doctor Meminger was. 

The Charleston Daily Courier August 10, 1863. 

   More information about these North Carolina hospitals in Charleston is sparse. The Charleston Daily Courier advertised on August 5, 1864, that two good cooks were wanted at the “North Carolina General Hospital on East-Bay Street and Fraser’s Wharf.” The Soldier’s Relief Association of Charleston donated fifty shirts, fifty pairs of drawers, twenty-four fans, linen, and arrowroot, along with fifteen chickens, one bag of meal, three dozen eggs, potatoes and tea in August.[6] T. Player Edwards, hospital steward, acknowledged the receipt of cash from churches in Wilmington and the Ladies’ Aid Society in Asheville, along with items like potatoes, eggs, blackberry and catsup, shirts, drawers, socks, and six bottles of Calisaya bitters from individuals.[7] W. H. McDowell, assistant superintendent of the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, informed the people of Wilmington that the railroad would transport food and other provisions to the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston for free.[8]

   Finding a list of those treated at the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston is difficult. It appears that most of the records were lost. One newspaper informs us that there were eight South Carolina soldiers at the hospital in September 1863, while there were several North Carolina soldiers at the Citadel Square Hospital.[9] C. F. Townsend, Co. E, 51^st North Carolina Troops, was sent to the North Carolina Hospital after being struck by a shell at Sullivan’s Island.[10]

   The Rev. E. T. Winkler, the Senior Chaplain of Hospitals in Charleston, wrote to the Biblical Recorder in late September, telling the editor that the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston was “thronged with the sick and wounded from” North Carolina and asked for fifty copies of the Biblical Record for the convalescing soldiers. Winkler wrote of one patient from North Carolina whom he considered one “of the bravest men whom I have ever met. . . who told me with his dying breath, ‘Tell my wife that when I fell in the field, I fell in the arms of Jesus.’”[11]

   In November there was an advertisement for two white male nurses, “recommended for sobriety and honesty” to work at the hospital. Not only was it a paid position, but rations were also furnished.[12]

   While Clingman’s brigade of North Carolina Troops was transferred in late 1863, the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston remained open. In June 1864, an article mentioned the new location and that surgeon J. G. Thomas was in charge.[13] This is undoubtedly Dr. James G. Thomas. A native of Kentucky. Thomas served in several hospitals in Oxford and Jackson, Mississippi, then as surgeon of the 39^th Alabama Infantry before being assigned to Charleston. While in Charleston, he not only worked at the North Carolina Hospital, but also in the South Carolina and Georgia hospitals as well. Doctor Thomas was reassigned to Macon, Georgia, in June 1864. Thomas’s listing as surgeon seems to be the last time the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston is mentioned. Just when the hospital closed is unknown.

   It is possible that more information about the hospital might be difficult to obtain. Rebecca Calcutt tells us that many of the military records from Charleston were moved to Columbia towar the end of the war for safe keeping, and then lost in the fire in February 1865.[14] While there is a history of Clingman’s brigade, there are no histories of the 8^th, 31^st, 51^st, of 61^st North Carolina regiments. Maybe by looking into these regiments and others in the greater Charleston area, we can learn more about the North Carolina Hospital.

 

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[1] Official Records, Series 4, Vol. 2, 199-200.

[2] Calcutt, Richmond’s Wartime Hospitals.

[3] The Charleston Mercury January 5, 1864.

[4] Calcutt, South Carolina’s Confederate Hospitals, 24, 27.

[5] Smith, A Charlestonian’s Recollections, 91.

[6] The Charleston Daily Courier August 2, 1864.

[7] The Charleston Mercury August 15, 1863.

[8] The Daily Journal August 19, 1863.

[9] The Charleston Daily Courier September 8, 1863.

[10] The Greenville Enterprise September 10, 1863.

[11] The Biblical Recorder October 7, 1863.

[12] The Charleston Mercury November 27, 1863.

[13] The Charleston Mercury June 7, 1864.

[14] Calcutt, South Carolina’s Confederate Hospitals, 1.

Confederate Hospitals in Alabama

 

Marker for the Confederate Hospital in Greenville, Alabama

   In the past, I have written about Confederate Wayside and General Hospitals (read here), Confederate Hospitals in North Carolina (read here), and Support Staff at Confederate Hospitals (read here). The information about Confederate general and wayside hospitals outside those in Virginia is rather slim.

   Cunningham, in his foundational 1958 book Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service, lists only four wayside hospitals: Demopolis, Eufaula, Selma, and Talladega. Wayside hospitals were usually located beside railroads and were charged with feeding soldiers, re-dressing their wounds, and providing other services for wounded men in transit. They were usually staffed by women, with a doctor, surgeon, or assistant surgeon in charge.

   Cunningham goes on to list the regular Confederate hospitals in Alabama. Added to this is an article from the Mobile Daily Advertiser, January 9, 22, 1861.  The list of Alabama hospitals includes:

 

Auburn             Texas Hospital (Old Main Hall), Asst. Surgeon L. A. Bryan

                          Langdon Hall, East Alabama Male College

                          Chapel, East Alabama Male College

Greenville         Miller Hospital, Surgeon G. Owen, 170 beds

                          General Hospital, Surgeon R. B. Maury, 150 beds

Mobile              Heustis Hospital, Surgeon J. M. Paine, 90 beds

  Nott Hospital, Surgeon G. A. Nott, 51 beds

                          General Hospital (Ross), Surgeon S. L. Nidelet, 250 beds

                           General Hospital (Moore), Surgeon W. C. Cavanaugh, 123 beds

                           General Hospital (Cantey). Surgeon W. Henderson, 150 beds

                           General Hospital (Le Vert), Surgeon R. H. Redwood, 30 beds

Montgomery       Ladies Hospital, Surgeon T. F. Duncan

                            Madison House, Surgeon C. J. Clark

                            Stonewall Hospital, Surgeon W. M. Cole

                            St. Mary’s Hospital, Surgeon J. H. Watters

                             Concert Hall Hospital, Surgeon W. J. Holt

                             Watts Hospital, Surgeon F. M. Hereford

Notasulga            General Hospital (Camp Watts), Surgeon U. R. Jones

Selma                    General Hospital, Surgeon A. Hart

Shelby Springs     General Hospital (Camp Winn), Surgeon B. H. Thomas

Spring Hill           General Hospital, Surgeon G. Owen

Tuscaloosa          General Hospital (University of Alabama), Surgeon R.N. Anderson

Uniontown         Officer’s Hospital, G. C. Gray

   Are there others? Over time, I hope to flesh each of these places out with descriptions and possibly photographs.