770 



TENNESSEE. 



known as the prostitution of women. Its ef- 

 fects upon the army were so bad as to require 

 the interference of military authority. This 

 authority was exercised to restrict and regulate 

 the evil. 



Early in the summer of 1863, Gen. R. S. 

 Granger, then commanding this post, was 

 " daily and almost hourly beset by the com- 

 manders and surgeons of regiments urging him 

 to devise some method (in order to preserve 

 the health and efficiency of their troops) to 

 rid the city of this class of women." The first 

 arrangement that suggested itself was expulsion. 

 They were collected together, and put on 

 board a steamer. " On the 8th of July the 

 boat, with her remarkable crew, shoved off from 

 her moorings. On reaching Louisville, Ky., 

 where they were directed to discharge their 

 freight, the authorities refused to receive any 

 such commercial articles. The manager of the 

 boat then took them to Cincinnati, where a 

 similar fate awaited them. By an order from 

 Washington, the boat was directed to return. 

 She arrived and discharged her miserable cargo 

 on Aug. 3, 1863." 



Sickness among the soldiers increased at once, 

 and again the officers renewed their complaints 

 and demands for a remedy. The Provost Mar- 

 shal, Col. Spaulding, of the 18th Michigan in- 

 fantry, subsequently of the 12th Tennessee 

 cavalry, proposed, with Gen. Granger's permis- 

 sion, to institute a plan for the preservation of 

 the health of the city in this particular. The 

 General endorsed his scheme, and it was put in 

 operation at once. He proposed that these 

 persons should be compelled to report to a 

 medical officer for examination, and if found 

 to be free from contagious diseases, permitted 

 to pursue their vocation; on condition, first, 

 that they should pay a fee for this license, and 

 secondly, that they should submit at stated pe- 

 riods to a medical inspection. \Yhenever they 

 were found to be diseased, they were to be sent 

 to a hospital and not permitted to leave it until 

 they were cured. 



For the first certificate of health one dollar 

 was charged ; for the license five dollars ; for 

 every subsequent certificate one dollar. This 

 money was to be applied to the support of a 

 hospital. 



On the 20th of August a notice was served 

 on every public woman to report, under penal- 

 ty of arrest and imprisonment in the workhouse 

 for not less than thirty days. 



After a trial of some months, the plan 

 was completed ; and now, every ten days, 

 these people are obliged to report to the sur- 

 geon. Two special hospitals were established 

 at Nashville ; one for unfortunate females and 

 the other for their male counterparts in the 

 army. These were placed under the charge of 

 Surgeon W. M. Chambers, U. S. volunteers, 

 with Surgeons Fletcher and J. J. O'Keilly as 

 assistants. 



Up to the 1st of Jan., 1864, sixty patients 

 had been placed in the hospitals and restored to 



health. Had no such institution existed, it is 

 probable that there would have been many 

 hundreds of other patients in the military hos- 

 pitals alone, not to speak of citizens and their 

 innocent victims in private life. 



Eleven have been reformed, and are now 

 living virtuous unmarried lives; and at least 

 thirty-two have forsaken their old mode of ex- 

 istence, and are married women. And this, too, 

 Avithout any special effort at their reformation ; 

 for the hospital is simply a medical institution, 

 established solely for the purpose of preserving 

 the health of the army. 



Of 126 women, of whose biographies Dr. 

 Chambers has taken notes, only four were edu- 

 cated, and they were driven, they say, to a 

 vicious life, by the mistreatment of friends and 

 husbands. 



The majority of the women, he believes, are 

 led to adopt this deplorable expedient for sup- 

 port by the cruelties of friends. The majority 

 of them were left without parents, and the mis- 

 treatment of guardians drove them to the 

 streets. One in six are impure from choice, or 

 are the victims of the inherited malady, known 

 in medical science as nymphomania. A very 

 large majority the doctor thought four-fifths 

 could be restored to a virtuous life, if the 

 proper efforts were made for their rescue. 



The number of patients in the hospital aver- 

 ages from five to ten ; it has been as high as 

 twenty-eight; every arrival of troops from the 

 front or the North invariably increases the sick 

 list. Excepting at such times, sickness is very 

 seldom contracted in the city ; it is imported. 

 The statistics show that officers are more im- 

 moral than the enlisted men ; yet hardly once a 

 month now (whereas formerly it was a daily in- 

 cident) is a prescription made for them. The 

 plan has saved thousands of men from the sick 

 list, thereby promoting the efficiency of the 

 army. One report concludes in these words : 



The method adopted in the army at this post has 

 met with the hearty approval of all classes of society, 

 commencing with the lieutenant-general commanding 

 the armies of the United States, and of all citizens 

 who have had the subject before them, together with 

 the unfortunates themselves ; and I will add, that if a 

 similar plan had been adopted at the various cities 

 North, where the troops went to or passed through 

 them veteranizing, there would not have been one 

 case of sickness where now there are twenty. The 

 facts of this hospital bear me out in this conclusion. 



The most noteworthy of these facts is the 

 startling announcement that out of nineteen 

 hundred and two soldiers, patients at the mili- 

 tary special hospital, only twenty-four of them 

 contracted their maladies in Nashville. Com- 

 plaints from officers have entirely ceased. 



After an experience of one year, Dr. Cham- 

 bers wrote : 



From carefully kept statistics I am more than ever 

 impressed with the opinion that the system is attend- 

 ed with the very best results to the army, and hope 

 now soon a like plan shall be adopted in all the cities 

 where troops are stationed. Alreadv surgeons have 

 been sent here from Memphis and Louisville to ex- 

 amine into the working of the plan in the city, and I 



