242 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



or only after the fight is over; the number of men carrying off their comrades 

 is rarely limited to the number really necessary, and one may sonfetimes see 

 four or five or even six soldiers conducting to the hospital a man slightly 

 wounded and marching as well as his comrades. 



It is easily understod how serious to the plans of the commander 

 were such depletions of the ranks in the alleged interest of humanity, 

 but often with the real object of escaping danger. So crippling was 

 the disability under which the sanitary service labored that on Au- 

 gust 21, 1862, and again on September 7, 1862, Surg. Gen. Ham- 

 mond submitted plans for an independent sanitary organization 

 for use with mobile troops. In both instances these recommenda- 

 tions were disapproved by the War Department. In the Army of 

 the Potomac, however, Medical Director Letternian had convinced 

 Gen. McClellan of the need for special aid for the wounded, and 

 on August 2, 1862, he issued an order embodying Letterman's views. 

 His plan, in brief, called for independent ambulance corps for each 

 army corps. This corps was equipped with ambulances and litters, 

 a medicine wagon, and a mounted personnel of officers and sergeants. 

 The transportation was to be used for the carrying of sick and 

 wounded and for no other purpose. No persons except those duly 

 authorized were permitted to accompany sick and wounded to the 

 rear, either on the march or in battle. Subsequently Letternian 

 added plans coordinating the work of the ambulance corps and the 

 field hospital. The advantages of this system promptly became 

 manifest, and it gave admirable service at the battle of Antietam in 

 the month following its inception. Later Grant adopted the essen- 

 tials of Letterman's plan in the Army of Tennessee, and finally, 

 though very tardily, Congress passed an act, approved by the Presi- 

 dent on March 11, 1864, establishing a uniform system of ambu- 

 lance service throughout the military forces. The value of this 

 mobile independent sanitary organization in saving life and suffer- 

 ing, and in promoting tactical efficiency can not be overestimated. 

 The organization and plan worked out by Lctterman was so com- 

 plete and practicable that it remains to-day the foundation upon 

 which the mobile sanitary service in all armies is largely built, 

 though experience has taught that its personnel should be composed 

 exclusively of officers and men belonging to the medical department. 

 With the development of field hospitals and ambulance companies, 

 both being large, independent sanitary organizations, the need of 

 military rank, with authority to command, for medical officers has 

 become more evident, and the subject of sanitary tactics, as an im- 

 portant branch of the art of war, has become an established fact 

 recognized in all armies. 



As the organization needful for the handling <>f (he disabled 

 gradually emerged from the neglect and chaos of the middle ages, 



