The Wounded and the Dying
Life for Louisa at Union Hotel Hospital was as far from her situation in Concord as it possibly could be. “I never began the year in a stranger place than this” she wrote in her journal, “five-hundred miles from home, alone, among strangers, doing painful duties all day long…surrounded by three or four hundred men in all stages of suffering, disease, and death.”[15] Upon arrival at Union Hospital, Louisa immediately set to work. The majority of the soldiers at the hospital at that time were suffering from various serious diseases, including pneumonia, diphtheria, and typhoid.
Louisa was not eased into the horrors of war as she witnessed the death of a soldier on her first morning at the hospital. Louisa soon was put in charge of a ward of forty beds located in a former ballroom of the hotel. She worked to clean patients, provide medicines, and maintain a professional and motherly manner. It is amazing to think of what Louisa must have seen and smelled at Union Hospital: “unspeakable odors, sight of men without arms and legs, the sound of heavy feet, and the urgent shouts of doctors, nurses, and orderlies.”
The situation at Union Hotel Hospital aligned with historians’ reports that disease was the main cause of death for Civil War armies, and that while there were many failures with Civil War health care, a good standard of care was frequently provided.[16] Further, Louisa’s descriptions of the work of a nurse, and the conditions for soldiers at Union Hotel Hospital bring a strong humanity to the subject of disease and medicine in the Civil War.
Louisa was not eased into the horrors of war as she witnessed the death of a soldier on her first morning at the hospital. Louisa soon was put in charge of a ward of forty beds located in a former ballroom of the hotel. She worked to clean patients, provide medicines, and maintain a professional and motherly manner. It is amazing to think of what Louisa must have seen and smelled at Union Hospital: “unspeakable odors, sight of men without arms and legs, the sound of heavy feet, and the urgent shouts of doctors, nurses, and orderlies.”
The situation at Union Hotel Hospital aligned with historians’ reports that disease was the main cause of death for Civil War armies, and that while there were many failures with Civil War health care, a good standard of care was frequently provided.[16] Further, Louisa’s descriptions of the work of a nurse, and the conditions for soldiers at Union Hotel Hospital bring a strong humanity to the subject of disease and medicine in the Civil War.
"In They Came:" The Wounded of Fredericksburg
Within days of Louisa’s arrival at Union Hospital, the wounded of Fredericksburg arrived. Forty ambulances (or carts) overflowing with wounded (and some dead) soldiers had arrived at three o’clock in the morning. The wounded, including men with missing limbs, dirty bandages, and many who were in terrible pain, would immediately need hospital beds, washing, dress, food, and care as they were fresh from the harsh loss at Fredericksburg where they had fought in the rain and mud. As Louisa described, “In they came, some on stretchers, some in men’s arms, some feebly staggering along propped on rude crutches, and even one dead.” Hustled to work, Louisa was to wash the soldiers, a task that tried her strong sense of modesty.[17] Working from morning until night Louisa did all she could to help.