The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 2. Page: 236
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CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.
method of getting these men into the field and keeping them there in
the most serviceable condition and with the highest attainable economy
of life and health. After studying for fifteen months the sanitary
interests of our great Army, we have arrived at definite conclusions as
to measures necessary to protect these new levies against certain of
the dangers which threaten them, and it is our plain duty, as a " com-
mission of inquiry and advice in regard to the sanitary interests of
the U. S. forces," to submit these conclusions, most respectfully, to
the consideration of yourself, their Commander-in-Chief.
The careless and superficial medical inspection of recruits made
at least 25 per cent. of the volunteer army raised last year not only
utterly useless, but a positive incumbrance and embarrassment,
filling our hospitals with invalids and the whole country with exag-
gerated notions of the dangers of war that now seriously retard the
recruiting of the new levies we so urgently need. The wise and
humane regulations of the U. S. Army that require a minute and
searching investigation of the physical condition of every recruit
were, during the spring and summer of 1861, criminally disregarded
by inspecting officers. In 29 per cent. of the regiments mustered
into service during that period there had been no pretense even of a
thorough inspection. Few regiments have thus far taken the field
that did not include among their rank and file many boys of from
fourteen to sixteen-men with hernia, varicose veins, consumption,
and other diseases, wholly unfitting them for duty, and which could
not have escaped the eye of a competent medical officer-and others
with constitutions broken by intemperance or disease, or long past the
age of military service. Each of these men cost the nation a certain
amount of money, amounting in the aggregate to millions of dollars.
Not one of them was able, however well disposed, to endure a week's
hardship or render the nation a dollar's worth of effective service in
the field. Some regiments left 10 per cent. of their men in hospitals
on the road before they reached the seat of war. No national crisis
can excuse the recruiting of such material. It increases for a time
the strength of the Army on paper, but diminishes its actual efficiency.
It is a mere source of weakness, demoralization, and wasteful expense,
and of manifold mischief to the Army and to the national cause. The
frequent spectacle of immature youth and men of diseased or enfeebled
constitutions returning to their homes shattered and broken down
after a month of camp life, destructive to themselves and useless to
the country, has depressed the military spirit and confidence of the
people. How can we escape a repetition of this manifest evil, except
by a more vigilant and thorough inspection of our new levies, and
how can such inspection be secured ?
We respectfully submit that no new recruits should be accepted
until they have been examined by medical officers of the U. S. Army,
entirely without personal interest in the filling up of any regiment.
And these medical men should have had some experience in the hard-
ships and exposures of military life. No one, in short, should be
allowed to serve as a medical inspector of recruits who has not passed
a Regular Army board named by the Surgeon-General himself, and
convened at some one of the great centers of medical science. A large
percentage of the disease and weakness of our armies up to this time
(in other words, the waste of many millions of our national resources)
has been due to the inexperience of medical and military officers alike
as to the peculiar dangers and exposures that surround the soldier in
camp and on the march, and which render the money the nation has236
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The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Additions and Corrections to Series 3, Volume 2. (Pamphlet)
Errata sheets for the Records of the War of the Rebellion include additions and corrections to the text and the index for Series 3, Volume 2.
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United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union And Confederate Armies. Series 3, Volume 2., book, 1899; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth139264/m1/245/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.