The John Marshall Stone Chapter, Chapter 394 met at the Iuka Public Library September 26th at 2 p.m. We completed the UDC rituals and each officer gave their report and all was approved. Dues were collected and letters sent out to members that didn’t attend. Old and new business discussed was how to improve and grow our membership. We signed cards and sent out to those having birthdays. We also voted for Vicky Durham to buy a book of stamps when needed. We had four members present.
Our September program was presented by President Sharon Hairrell. The topic was “Caring for the Soldiers - Wayside Hospitals, Field Hospitals and Receiving Hospitals.” The beginning of the war for the South brought confusion and disease. Many caught pneumonia, tuberculosis, scurvy, measles, chicken pox, yellow fever, scarlet fever, typhoid fever and rheumatism fever. More died from diseases than wounds.
The camps were neither clean nor sanitary, and the water was not clear or fit to drink. They were lucky to get a complete bath once or twice a month. They did wash face and hands daily but with contaminated water. Food was another source of a health issue. They had very little if any fresh vegetables and fruit.
Samuel Preston Moore was born in Charleston, SC, in 1813 and graduated from the Medical College of the State of South Carolina in 1834. While serving in Texas during the Mexican War (1846-1848), Moore met Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederacy.
When South Carolina seceded from the Union, Moore resigned his commission as surgeon in the U.S. Army and returned to Little Rock to open a private practice. Soon after returning to Arkansas, Moore began receiving requests from Jefferson Davis to join the Confederate army. In his correspondence to Moore, Davis described the deplorable conditions caused by the overwhelming number of casualties and a lack of Southern physicians trained in military medicine. Moore accepted the position of acting surgeon general on July 30, 1861, and was confirmed by the Confederate Senate in November of that same year.
Moore’s job was to organize personnel, start hospitals, and secure medical supplies and equipment. This was not easy and he had to deal with shortages of everything. He needed trained medical personnel and they were hard to find. There were many that were not properly trained. He formed a board to help weed out the quacks and the incompetent.
Women would smuggle supplies in under their hoop skirts and in doll heads. They used blackberry wine to fight fatigue, many plants were used for drugs.
There were many different hospitals. A yellow flag marked the hospital as one with smallpox. Wayside locations cared for the sick and Field care for the wounded and sick, before being transferred to the general hospital. Receiving had 32 beds wards connected to groups of 45 beds to form a general hospital.
Women begin doing nursing duties and so did some soldiers as they got better until they rejoined their troops. Nursing carried a wide range of duties including custodial duties, bathing soldiers, cooking, laundry, and dressing wounds. If hospitals were overcrowded, home care was given.
Hospitals not only needed drugs and equipment, but also dishes, spoons, bottles, straw for beds, and milk and fresh food. Many of those that did not given supplies gave money to help buy supplies.