It is with much regret that we have to announce the continual ill health of our troops in this department of our army. There is now prevailing in camp, mumps and fever from both of which, many valuable lives are lost. It is useless to consider the cause of disease among our troops, or to enquire why so large a proportion of the sick die.
It should be kept before the public however, that there is in our army not a single ambulance except those taken at the battle of Manassas, which are far from sufficient, to transport the sick. For want of other conveyances they are crowded into common wagons, jolted over rough roads, left, frequently, for twenty four hours, without protection from the weather and without medical attention at railroad depots awaiting transportation to some hospital. The consequence is, that when the hospital is reached the disease has progressed too far for medical relief, and the poor sufferer dies. There is a wanton disregard of life in our army for which some one must be responsible, and it is time that the public had found out to whom this responsibility attaches. It is heart-sickening to witness the scenes which we have witnessed daily, for the last three months. Our patriotic young men are being murdered by a heartless policy.—There are thousands of graves in Virginia, containing the remains of gallant youths, who have fallen victims to the neglect and indifference of the Confederate government and its agents.
It is time this wholesale system of murder had ceased.—Darlington Flag
The Lancaster Ledger, Lancaster, SC
This is a good one! We see many articles from embedded corespondents writing mournfully about the white crosses on the hill outside of camp, young men dead of measles. But this article is on fire. He passionately hates the wanton disregard of means to preserve the lives of men who dropped everything and came to Virginia to defend their country. I suspect the writer is a doctor serving in one of the regiments stationed in the Potomac area during the fall and winter of 1861-1862, probably in a company full of his own kinsmen.
The Lancaster Ledger reprinted the article from the Darlington Flag. I have a book named “The Doctors of Darlington County.” I’ll take a stab at finding the possible writer.
Another point of interest in this article is in the headline: “Health of the Army of the Potomac.” During the fall of 1861, the Confederate troops stationed in the region under General Joseph Johnston used this name very proudly. Some months later a switch had occurred; the Federal army under General McClellan took the name, and Robert E. Lee finally renamed his troops the Army of Northern Virginia. But the switch may not have gone down easily with the soldiers in the field. In his letters, my ancestor Pvt Thomas Jeffers with the Hampton Legion Cavalry continued to use the Army of the Potomac moniker as late as May of 1863.