MISSING.

TH

HERE are thousands in our land who have had, and who still have, friends sick and wounded in the general hospitals of the United States. Many a patriotic father has his heart torn with anguish as he reads the name of his own son in the list of the wounded. Many a heroic mother, who girded her son with her own hand for this most holy war for human rights, can not sleep at night as she thinks of her loved boy, bleeding, languishing, far away from friends, in the wards of a hospital. It is indeed a sad lot. And yet few of these sorrowing ones have any conception of the abounding comforts which the Government has provided for its stricken soldiers-comforts generally vastly greater than could possibly be enjoyed at home. The writer, having had the opportunity to visit many of our hospitals, and having become thoroughly acquainted with the vast hospitals established at Old Point Comfort, has thought that he would render humanity a service in giving in this widely-circulated Magazine a detailed account, with full illustrations, of the treatment which a grateful nation has provided for its sick and wounded defenders.

Its

ed forever memorable by the casualties of war. The land is generally a fertile plain, beneath sunny skies, and enjoying a genial clime which neither Tuscany nor Florence can rival. winters are just cool enough to invigorate the frame, but never to impede the movements of the plow. There are few spots on the globe more attractive. When the energies of freedom shall have felled its forests and drained its marshes, and spread over its beautiful expanse villages and schools and churches, it will not be easy to find upon our continent another region more desirable for a home. At the end of this peninsula, jutting out into the majestic bay, there is an almost island of about a hundred acres, connected with the main land by two narrow strips of sand. This island is the site of Fortress Monroe, the strongest and most capacious fortification of our country, embracing, with its massive walls, its moat, and its water batteries, about seventy acres. Its ramparts frown with the most formidable enginery of war which military art has as yet constructed. At the present writing General Butler, commandant of this department, has his head-quarters in one of the fine mansions within the fort. And in this connection I can not refrain from saying, that, after The James and York rivers, running nearly having spent several weeks in exploring this parallel to each other for a distance of about whole department, and seeing every where the forty miles, and emptying into Chesapeake Bay impress of General Butler's administrative ennear its mouth, form a peninsula, now render-ergy, I must regard him as one of the most ex

I.-LOCATION.

traordinary executive officers which any age has produced.

Crossing the narrow sand bar from the fortress, along the plain for the distance of a mile and a half, through a wilderness of tents, and swarming soldiers and cavalry encampments, and groups of happy contrabands, with horsemen galloping to and fro, and enormous wagons drawn by six mules, and bursts of music from bugles and martial bands, and floating banners, and rattling musketry from young troops learning the art of war in all the varieties of battle, one comes to a large and splendid edifice called the Chesapeake Hospital. It rises three stories above a high basement. Its lofty dome, surmounted by the hospital flag, can be seen from far. Its broad veranda, massively pillared, looks out upon a harbor which has scarcely a rival on this globe, where our whole navy might ride safely, and which God made not for a petty State but for a majestic nation. In the distance are seen the estuaries of the James and the Elizabeth rivers, and the heavily-wooded shores of Newport News and Sewall's Point. A quarter of a mile beyond, their spacious gardens joining, is the United States General Hospital, Hampton. These two spacious hospitals, recently united under the same Surgeon-in-charge, Dr. E. M'Clellan, may now be regarded as essentially one. Still they are in some respects so dissimilar as to require individuality of description.

II.-BUILDINGS.

The Hampton Hospital consists of a very picturesque village of about thirty cottage houses, each 125 feet long and 25 feet in width. These buildings are placed, as soldiers would say, en échelon, forming a triangle, embracing within its spacious area a lawn of many acres, traversed by walks and lined by young shade trees. The hand of taste has scattered here and there beds of blooming shrubbery and of flowers. Most of these cottages are called hospital wards, containing fifty beds each. These spacious rooms are open to the ridge, which is 18 feet high, and are well warmed and thoroughly ventilated by ridge ventilation. Each one is lighted by twenty-four windows, and is kept in a state of perfect neatness which the most accomplished New England housewife can not excel.

accustomed to the most social life known upon earth, would be very lonely in separate rooms. In the ward they are company for each other. The vast majority of them are not seriously sick. They are continually getting well and leaving. The hospital ward is by no means ordinarily that scene of suffering and of misery which many suppose. The annexed view is not a fancy sketch, but was taken on the spot by photography. This hospital has held eighteen hundred men in its tents and wards. Perhaps two or three hundred may be able to be sauntering over the grounds. Some are sitting up in their beds reading; others talking or singing, or playing chess or checkers. Several hundreds may sit down together at the dining-table. The wounded man, whose honorable wound is healing, and who is soon to be discharged to go home to his friends, is often the happiest of men. The sick man, who is getting well, sees a smile in every blade of grass, and hears a song of joy in every whisper of the breeze.

A general hospital is indeed a little city by itself, containing all the choicest appliances of civilized life. In addition to the wards for the patients we have here another long cottage edifice, 175 feet long by 25 feet wide, called the Medical Officers' Quarters. This building is cut up into a series of compartments 10 feet wide, and extending across the edifice 25 feet. The apartment thus formed is divided into a bedroom and sitting-room, with a central door. Here many of the officers connected with the hospital have their homes.

This building also contains a kitchen and dining-room for the occupant families. There is another building, of the same size, called The Non-Commissioned Officers' Quarters, where the stewards, female nurses, and other attendants reside. This also contains, besides the general steward's store-house, a kitchen, and a diningroom for the non-commissioned officers. Just in the rear of these, at the base of the triangle, there is another long building, containing the hospital office, which consists of the private office of the surgeon in charge; the general office, where the patients come if they wish to see the doctor; the linen room; the hospital post and express office; and the printing-office. In the centre of the triangle are two long commodious buildings occupied as kitchens and dining-rooms for the patients. There is also a camp of hospital tents just outside of the triangle, containing one hundred beds. These tents, which are much sought for by the convalescents, are floored and warmed, and in all respects rendered exceedingly comfortable. This pleasant little cluster of eleven tents is called The Convalescents' Camp. In addition, to make up the tout ensemble of this compact little hospital village, we have the Dead-house, the Coal-yard, the Negro Quarters, There are also many advantages in having the Bathing-houses, the Store-houses, and the the sick collected together. It is only on some Stables. The sketch at the head of this paper momentous occasion, as after a great battle, that will give the reader a very clear idea of the genthese wards are entirely full. There may be usual-eral appearance and arrangement of the buildly ten, fifteen, or twenty in a room. The soldiers, ings. A little to the left of the scene represented

The advantages of the cottage form of the wards are manifest. There are no stairs to climb. The ventilation is perfect. There are no impure exhalations ascending from the rooms below to those above. The patients from their cots can look out from the numerous windows upon the verdant lawn, the foliage, the flowers, the sparkling sea. The convalescents can easily reach the grass, and the rose-buds, and the shade. In case of fire the sick and the wounded can instantly be removed.