The mortality in our army from camp sickness is probably more than double the casualties of war, and there is now an amount of sickness in the camps that it would be almost impossible to estimate. There are regiments on the Potomac that have not enough well men to take proper care of the sick. Out of 5,000 troops in General Crittenden’s Federal brigade at Calhoun, Ky., fully 1,000 are sick. The surgeons of the regiments at Port Royal report about one-tenth of their force as unfit for duty. There are 2,600 sick soldiers (principally typhoid fever) in the hospitals at Louisville. The Government, on account of the pressure upon its Washington hospitals, has opened hospitals at Philadelphia, with accommodations for about 1,200 patients. These are only instances of the extent of sickness in the army. A fair proportion being one in twenty, would give for our grand army of half a million men in the field at least 25,000 men as the number unfit for duty, from causes more or less serious.
Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, IL