Greetings to all,

This is my third dissertation video. My dissertation began when I read a report by Dr. Phelps of the United States Volunteers on the medical care at the Battle of Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), April 6–7, 1862.

He wrote, “The sufferer [wounded] had not the alternative of choosing between transportation North (steamer) and death, and remaining upon the field with a reasonable chance of recovery, even though it were under the rudest shelter that the bedding found would have afforded.”[1]

Dr. Phelps believed that hospital tents offered superior chances of survival because they provided better ventilation than ships or brick-and-mortar hospitals. In his view, being cared for on a steamer or in a permanent building too often meant death, whereas even the rudest tented shelter on or near the field could give a wounded man a more reasonable chance of recovery.

This video introduces my dissertation topic:

Civil War Medicine at Shiloh (April 6–7, 1862): A Comparative Study of the Quality of Care Delivered by the Army Medical Services and Medical Steamers of the Western Sanitary Commission

This study examines whether army medical care—both Union and Confederate—provided better or worse treatment than that offered on the medical steamships deployed to Shiloh. In particular, it compares the quality of care delivered by the official army medical services with that provided by the civilian-run Western Sanitary Commission of St. Louis, Missouri, and by the hospital ships sent by the governors of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio to tend to their sick and wounded soldiers.

My dissertation asks, in its most basic form, which of the two types of medical care produced better outcomes and higher survival rates for soldiers wounded at Shiloh. While this appears straightforward, it becomes considerably more complex once we account for the many factors that shaped Civil War medical practice. These include the logistics of how the army ordered, transported, and received medical supplies in the field; the types and quantities of medicines available; and the methods by which those medicines were prepared and administered. They also include environmental variables such as weather, terrain, and river conditions; the availability of telegraph communication and transportation; and the state of camp and hospital sanitation in an era before the acceptance of germ theory (Koch, Pasteur, and Lister in the mid to late 1860s). From these considerations flow several more specific research questions:

1. Which form of medical care—army medical services or the various medical steamers—created a healthier physical environment for the wounded? In particular, how did they differ in the provision of shelter, ventilation, and protection from exposure at Shiloh?
2. Which system provided cleaner water and more effective waste disposal? To what extent did differences in sanitation practices shape infection rates, complications, and overall recovery?
3. Which group had access to greater quantities and a wider range of medicines, and how consistently were those medicines available at the point of care? How did patterns of supply and resupply differ between the Army Medical Department, the Western Sanitary Commission, and state-sponsored hospital ships?
4. How did the two systems compare in terms of personnel—numbers and skill levels of doctors, nurses, stewards, apothecaries, and pharmacists? Did the steamers, including those operated by the Western Sanitary Commission and by the governors of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, field a different mix of professional and volunteer caregivers than army hospitals on shore?
5. What was the overall physiological impact of these two types of medical care on soldiers’ well-being?

In other words, when we consider survival rates, complications, convalescence times, and soldiers’ own descriptions of their experiences, which system appears to have supported better short-term outcomes and longer-term recovery?

Together, these questions move beyond a simple tally of deaths and survivors to a more nuanced comparative analysis of how institutional structure, logistics, environment, and personnel shaped the quality of medical care at Shiloh.

This video does not cover everything. It is an introduction to my topic. There will be more videos as I continue researching and drafting my dissertation.

In October 2022, after a week-long research trip to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and the Illinois State Archives, we stopped at the Shiloh battlefield—the site of Pittsburg Landing, April 6–7, 1862—and recorded this unscripted video on October 30, 2022. It is unscripted, and yes, I make mistakes. But that is fitting, because part of my argument is that we must stop thinking of Civil War medicine as simply medieval—barbaric, cruel, and ignorant—and instead place it in its broader historical context. When we do, we find many well-meaning, intelligent, and well-educated doctors and staff working alongside less competent practitioners, all of them facing immense obstacles to saving lives. Neither the nation nor the medical profession was fully prepared for the scale of slaughter unleashed in 1861–1862. In war, it is always simpler to kill soldiers than to save them.

The answer to my thesis question is complex.

Dr. Phelps, a surgeon with the United States Volunteers, stated, “The medical department had no organized structure, especially for the battlefield… relief for the wounded was slow, operations were unjustifiable, and supplies were lacking.”

Yet, he believed that hospital tents offered better chances of survival, even though during and immediately after the battle, there were more wounded men than available tents and a shortage of army medicines, including only a scant supply of chloroform.

Stats on The Battle Of Pittsburg Landing:

Confederate and Union soldiers: 103,000 Combined Forces –

3,477 killed

16,420 wounded

3,841 missing.

Confederates:                                                     Union

40,335 engaged                                                   42,682 engaged

8012 wounded                                                     8408 wounded

1723 killed                                                             1754 killed

959 missing.                                                          2885 missing. [2]

[1] Austin Flint, M.D., ed., United States Sanitary Commission. Sanitary Memoirs Of The War of The Rebellion…Causation And Prevention Of Disease, An To Camp Diseases. (New York: Hurd And Houghton, 1867), p. 47

[2] Thomas L. Livermore, Numbers and losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-1865. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901), 102,103.