Ambulance Corps  "Transporting The Wounded"

How to collect and transport the wounded was a major problem during the first part of the Civil War. The failure of the medical services to provide for moving the wounded to hospitals set up in the rear of the battlefields caused unnecessary suffering and death. Reportedly, after the 1st Battle of Bull Run, no casualties reached Washington in ambulances, although some wounded walked 27 miles to reach the city.

After 1st Bull Run, Surgeon General Charles S. Tripler, commanding the Army of the Potomac Medical Department, began a series of reforms to remove casualties from the battlefield more safely and efficiently. After his efforts failed to ease needless suffering, Tripler was replaced by Dr, Jonathan Letterman on July 4, 1862.

Letterman organized ambulance service into corps and division units, staffed by soldiers chosen by Medical Department officers. Drills were intensified and done more frequently. By the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, the performance of Letterman's ambulance corps had improved significantly. Stretcher-bearers first carried the wounded to primary stations, then loaded them into ambulances to be transported to the field hospitals on a fixed schedule with regular stops en route.

After several attempts, the Ambulance Corps Act was finally passed on March 11, 1864. It established the corps as a regular army unit and gave the Medical Department the right to train and examine men for duty. Corps members wore an inverted green chevron.

The Union Medical Department received much support in its upgrading of the ambulance corps from the U.S. Sanitary Commission. The situation in the Confederacy was much worse. With no equivalent to the Sanitary Commission, the Confederate doctors relied for help on local soldiers' relief societies and ambulance committees.

Fascinating Fact:  The situation was grim in the beginning of the Civil War, but by the end, the ambulance organization developed by the Union had become the model most armies of the world would follow through World War I.


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