85 – The Court find that certain inmates of Mansion House Hospital at Alexandria, Va., furnished by Col. Porter felt he had been falsely accused of misdeeds by patients at the hospital, and he requested a hearing before a Court of Inquiry, as reported in the New York Times on March 22, 1862: The hospital became a battleground between doctors who oppose women working in hospitals and young women from the North and the South who were determined to be accepted as nurses. With 500 beds, it was the largest of the confiscated buildings used as military hospitals in Alexandria.
The Mansion House Hospital was opened Decemas a General Hospital – not assigned to any specific unit in the Union Army. In early November 1861, Green received a letter from Union officials that they intended to use his hotel as a hospital and he had three days to vacate the premises. The Mansion House Hotel, operated by Confederate sympathizer James Green, was considered one of the premier luxury hotels on the East Coast. Military officials established more hospitals as they were needed. New hospital complexes were built according to plans drawn up by the Quartermaster-General in Washington they featured long, ventilated barracks in which patients were divided into wards. Prepare to care for ten thousand wounded.” The first telegram received by me from the commanding general read, “Send to the front three carloads of ice. Lee, the quartermaster for a good part of the war, later recalled:īy rail at first, and afterward by steam boat, they poured in. It soon became obvious that many more medical facilities were needed in Alexandria. Surgeons, nurses, relief workers, ambulance drivers, and volunteers came to Alexandria to care for the wounded.
Churches, homes, and other buildings were used as medical facilities. The Union Army used the town as a base for supplies, troop transfer, and an important center for the care of the wounded and sick. Two wooden barracks ran parallel to Cameron Street. The main hospital on North Washington Street connected by a long narrow walkway to a building on N. It was called the Old Hallowell School Hospital and was eventually expanded to five structures.
The building served as a school from 1832 until the Surgeon General designated it as a hospital after the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. The spread of disease in hospital wards and army camps caused two-thirds of the deaths during the Civil War. Various infections coursed through the wards, as well as contagious diseases like typhoid fever. The Civil War took place just prior to the development of germ theory by European doctors therefore, medical professionals were unaware that instruments should be sterilized and wounds should be properly cleaned. Civilians and local officials criticized the Army’s poor treatment of the wounded and called for a system that would ease the suffering of the soldiers. When the routed Union Army came running back to Alexandria, no doctors or hospitals were waiting to tend to the one thousand men who had been injured. When the Union and Confederate armies clashed on the fields near Manassas, Virginia in July 1861, the opposing sides had made few preparations to care for the wounded. Alexandria was the first Southern city to be occupied by Northern troops. This occurred just one day after its citizens had voted to have their state join the Confederacy. On May 24, 1861, Union troops crossed the Potomac River and occupied Alexandria, Virginia – from the first days of the Civil War to the last.
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