Not the Letterman Army Hospital of the Presidio of San Francisco Camp Letterman was an American Civil War military hospital, which was erected near the Gettysburg Battlefield to treat more than 14,000 Union and 6,800 Confederate wounded of the Battle of Gettysburg at the beginning of July 1863.Atkinson, Matthew. "'War is a hellish way of settling a dispute": Dr. Jonathan Letterman and the Tortuous Path of Medical Care from Manassas to Camp Letterman," pp. 101-113, in "Gettysburg Seminars 2010." Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: Gettysburg National Military Park, 2010.
History One of the most important military engagements of the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was waged over the first three days of July 1863 between the United States' Army of the Potomac, which was commanded by Major-General George Gordon Meade, and the Confederate States of America's Army of Northern Virginia, which had been marched north into Maryland and Pennsylvania by its commanding Major-General Robert E. Lee. Clashing near the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the conflict quickly escalated into an intense combat situation with multiple, memorable skirmishes and battles, including Seminary Ridge, Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge."History and Culture," in "Gettysburg National Military Park." Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online August 8, 2019. Meade's Union troops ultimately won the three-day, tide-turning engagement, which resulted in the deaths of more than 3,100 Union and 4,700 Confederate troops with wounded men totaling more than 14,500 (Union) and 12,600 (Confederate).Busey, John W., and David G. Martin. Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg, 4th ed, pp. 125, 260. Hightstown, New Jersey: Longstreet House, 2005. .
In the aftermath, when Union military leaders realized that the farms, private homes, churches, and other buildings in and around the town of Gettysburg which had been pressed into service as makeshift regimental hospitals were so overwhelmed by the numbers of dying and wounded, and that many of the soldiers who had been unable to find shelter were being cared for in gardens and other outdoor spaces, they quickly secured approval from their superiors to create a new general hospital. Built sometime after July 8, 1863,Atkinson, "'War is a hellish way of settling a dispute": Dr. Jonathan Letterman and the Tortuous Path of Medical Care from Manassas to Camp Letterman," p. 101, U.S. National Park Service and Gettysburg National Military Park. it opened on July 22,Stanton, Samuel Cecil, ed. The Military Surgeon: Journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, Vol. 33, pp. 422-429 ("Camp Letterman"). Chicago, Illinois: Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, 1913. and was named Camp Letterman in honor of Jonathan Letterman, M.D., the "Father of Battlefield Medicine" who created medical management procedures which transformed not only Civil War-era medicine, but the medical care for thousands of soldiers in subsequent wars, the tents of the hospital complex were erected east of Gettysburg. Union Army surgeons, nurses and members of the U.S. Sanitary Commission then began rendering care to soldiers from both sides of the conflict, ultimately evaluating and treating all of the wounded who had been transported from the various battle sites around Gettysburg. Meals were prepared for the men by a sizeable force of cooks while guards kept the peace among those who were ambulatory. Those needing more advanced treatment or who were doing well enough to be moved out for convalescent care were subsequently sent on to the Union's larger hospitals in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C."History and Culture," in "Gettysburg National Military Park," U.S. National Park Service.Tooker, John. "Antietam: Aspects of Medicine, Nursing and the Civil War," in Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 2007: Vol. 118, pp. 215-223. El Paso, Texas,: American Clinical and Climatological Association, retrieved online August 11, 2019.
Henry Janes was the physician in charge of this Union Army hospital.Tracey, Jonathan. "Camp Letterman - The Inhumanity of War," in The Gettysburg Compiler. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: Civil War Institute, Gettysburg College, April 20, 2018.
On 3 October 1863, this hospital's namesake, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, penned a report to his superiors, which provided key details regarding the "operations of the medical department of the Union Army's with respect to the Gettysburg campaign. Among Letterman's key points:Dr. Letterman's Gettysburg Report, in "In Their Words." Columbus, Ohio: Department of History, The Ohio State University, retrieved online August 8, 2019.
".... It is scarcely necessary to say that if the transportation [of wounded men] is not sufficient to enable the officers of the department to conduct it properly, the effect must fall upon the wounded.
In the autumn of 1862, I investigated the subject very carefully, with the view to the adoption of some system instead of the irregular method and want of system which prior to that time was in vogue, to limit the amount necessary, and to have that amount always available. The transportation was one wagon to each regiment and one to each brigade.... This system worked well....
On June 19, while the army was on the march … from before Fredericksburg to some unknown point north of the Potomac River, the headquarters being near Fairfax Court-House, Va., the transportation of the department was cut down by Major-General Hooker on an average of two wagons in a brigade, in opposition to my opinion.... This reduction necessitated the turning in of a large portion of the supplies, tents, &c., which were necessary for the proper care of the wounded in the event of a battle. Three wagons were assigned to a brigade of 1,500 men, doing away with regimental wagons. This method in its practical working is no system at all … and proved to be, what I supposed at the time it would be, a failure to give the department the means necessary to conduct its operations.
The headquarters left Fairfax Court-House on June 26 ultimo, for some point as yet unknown in Maryland or Pennsylvania. On the 25th of that month, I directed Assistant Surgeon [Jeremiah B.] Brinton, U.S. Army, to proceed to Washington, and obtain the supplies I had ordered the medical purveyor to have put up....
On the 26th, he was ordered to proceed with them to Frederick. This step was taken to obviate the want of supplies consequent upon the reduction of transportation. At this date it was not known that the army would be near Frederick ... the event justified the order, Dr. Brinton arriving at Frederick on June 28, the day after the arrival of headquarters there, with twenty-five army wagon loads of such supplies as would be most required in case of a battle. The train with these supplies followed that of headquarters until we reached Taneytown.
On July 1 … it was ordered that "corps commanders and the commander of the Artillery Reserve will at once send to the rear all their trains (excepting ammunition wagons and ambulances), parking them between Union Mills and Westminster."
On the 2d, these trains were ordered still farther to the rear, and parked near Westminster, nearly 25 miles distant from the battlefield. The effect of this order was to deprive the department almost wholly of the means for taking care of the wounded until the result of the engagement of the 2d and 3d was fully known.... In most of the corps the wagons exclusively used for medicines moved with the ambulances, so that the medical officers had a sufficient supply of dressings, chloroform, and such articles until the supplies came up, but the tents and other appliances, which are as necessary, were not available until July 5.
The supply of Dr. Brinton reached the field on the evening of July 4. This supply, together with the supplies ordered by me on July 5 and 6, gave more than was required. The reports of Dr. Brinton and Dr. [John H.] Taylor show that I ordered more supplies than were used up to the 18th of July, when the hospitals were taken from under my control. Surgeon Taylor, medical inspector of this army, who was ordered on July 29 to Gettysburg, to examine into the state of affairs there, reports to me that he made "the question of supplies a subject of special inquiry among the medical officers who had remained with the wounded during and for a month subsequent to the battle. The testimony in every instance was conclusive that at no time had there been any deficiency, but, on the contrary, that the supply furnished by the medical purveyor had been and still continued to be abundant." This is, perhaps, sufficient to show that not only were supplies ordered in advance, but that they were on hand when required, notwithstanding the difficulty in consequence of the inability of the railroad to meet the requirements made upon it, until after General Haupt took charge of it on July 9.... The chief want was tents and other appliances for the better care of the wounded. I had an interview with the commanding general on the evening of July 3, after the battle was over, to obtain permission to order up the wagons containing the tents, &c. This request he did not think expedient to grant but in part, allowing one-half the wagons to come to the front; the remainder were brought up as soon as it was considered by him proper to permit it. To show the result of the system adopted upon my recommendation regarding transportation, and the effect of the system of field hospitals, I may here instance the hospital of the Twelfth Corps, in which the transportation was not reduced nor the wagons sent to the rear at Gettysburg.
Surgeon [John] McNulty, medical director of that corps, reports that "it is with extreme satisfaction that I can assure you that it enabled me to remove the wounded from the field, shelter, feed them, and dress their wounds within six hours after the battle ended, and to have every capital operation performed within twenty-four hours after the injury was received. I can, I think, safely say that such would have been the result in other corps had the same facilities been allowed -- a result not to have been surpassed, if equaled, in any battle of magnitude that has ever taken place.
A great difficulty always exists in having food for the wounded. By the exertions of Colonel [Henry F.] Clarke, chief commissary, 30,000 rations were brought up on July 4 and distributed to the hospitals. Some of the hospitals were supplied by the commissaries of the corps to which they belonged. Arrangements were made by him to have supplies in abundance brought to Gettysburg for the wounded; he ordered them, and if the railroad could have transported them they would have been on hand.