surgeons' keports — conn:ctuit — fouktii district. -239 



tricks lesorted to were uumeious, as practiced by the applicant as well a^s by his friends and the 



subs'Jtutebroker. The art deceptive was studied by tlie latter as a science, and taught to their 

 willing i)upils with variable success. Hernial tumors were iced ; discolored cicatrices were ingeni- 

 ously stained ; old, stiffened joints were rubbed or subjected to ecchyniosis by intentionally inflicted 

 blows, to give the ap])earance of recent and transient injury; drugging was frecjuently detected, 

 and exhilaraut intoxication was often a cause for sending a man from the room. Hubstitution has 

 been inacticed, I fear, in many cases, some of which have been detected. For instance, two men, 

 not unlike in general appearance but differently dressed, would present themselves; one would be 

 accepted and the other rejected. The rejected one goes out, puts on clothing similar to that of the 

 accepted man, and watches an opportunity to get in and let liis friend out; the impostor succeeds 

 in obtaining the bounty and goes to the dratt rendezvous, certain to be discharged in a few days 

 for manifest disability. An instance of deception, more curious than useful, perhaps, has come to 

 my notice. A mulatto of fair physique was rejected by me on account of umbilical hernia, very 

 manifest and formiug a tumor of the size of a hen's egg. The next day he was discovered in camp, 

 having been enlisted at another office. Upon inquiry, it was ascertained that the broker in whose 

 hands he was had bandaged the tumor by applying, over night, a compress of a metallic substance, 

 and a bladder of ice; on the following morning he fed him largely with boiled turniji, thus i)ro(lu(;- 

 ing a general distention of the abdomen, while the artificially corrugated region of the tumor was 

 thus brought out to a natural evenness and smoothness. 



The brokers have proved to be the greatest obstacle I have had to contend with, directly 

 or indirectly, although the want of rank in position, with sufficient authority to control the 

 surroundings of the office, and power to make arrests, &c., has been no inconsiderable drawback, 

 and has, I think, interfered with a full degree of efficiency. But of all the miseralile, ineflicicnt, 

 and, I may say, maddening methods of correcting these wrongs, the action of boards of inspection 

 at tije camps of rendezvous, as organized for a time, was singularly flagrant. For instance, an 

 assistant surgeon, or sometimes two, ])erhaps of no experience in service, were, so to speak, 

 stationed at the outer gate to cull the recruits over, selecting such as could make out a case 

 to them for further iuspection, and allowing all else to i)ass on with the general accepted 

 (!rowd. These selected men were to be re-examined by a board of inspection nearly, and in 

 some cases entirely, composed of non-medical members. With the assistant suigeon's recom- 

 mendation for discharge before them, they discharged men Irom the service who had fat boun- 

 ties in their possession — men who had practiced this ott-repeated swindle, and who should liave 

 been put at work on the Dry Tortugas. Between this board and the surgeons of the boards 

 of enrollment there was not even a pretense of an understanding, or a shadow of concert of 

 action, with a view to detect and punish the crimes of those professional swindlers, the im- 

 maculate " bounty -jumpers." Tlie board of inspection treated Ihe surgeons of the; enrollment- 

 districts as if they were necessarily a set of bribed and unprincipled knaves, thus forcing the 

 surgeons to watch the work of the boards of inspection to ascertain, firstly, wiiether said board 

 was not in the paid interest of some one ; and, secondly, whether their idea of patriotism or 

 their opinion of disqualification was not sometimes modified by the judicious and kindl.y offer 

 of a portion of the munificent bounty that the sufferer (?) had just received, it was soon dis- 

 covered that men who on one day could, under oath, declare that they knew of nothing the 

 matter with them, as per questions under section 5, could a few days later, by an entirely 

 different set of tactics, conxince the board of inspection that they were entitled to an honorable 

 discharge, and, behold, they stand out as innocent martyrs to tlie incompetency of the surgeons 

 of the boards of enrollment, and go scot-free, with no inconsiderable proportion of the bounty 

 in their possession; these innocent victims, it should be borne in mind, being extremely liable 

 to a repetition of a like experience. Surgeons of boards of enrollment have undoubtedly been 

 deceived, and it cannot be considered a stretch of the imagination to suppose that boards o' 

 insi)ection may have, in like manner, been imposed upon, for deception and errors will, at best, 

 occur. * # * 



As I view the matter, much less trouble and fraud, much less expense, much more efficiency 

 much mt)re equality, and many more efficient soldiers would be the result of a proper conscri|)tion 

 rigidly enforced, than is attained by the process of accepting paid substitutes and volunteers. There 



