The Medical Department at Chickamauga was inefficient and displayed lack of both professional and executive ability. There was an unnecessary shortage of medical supplies and hospital attendants. No provision was at first made for general hospitals. The sick were cared for in regimental hospitals, and later when these were abolished, in Division Hospitals. Division hospitals are organized to accompany troops in the field, and serve as a collecting station, where the injured receive temporary treatment and are transferred as soon as practicable to general hospitals.
The field hospitals at Chickamauga were swarmed with the sick, and were forced to become general hospitals, as no other provision had been made. The accommodations were inadequate. Hospital tents were insufficient in number, and were not supplied with proper furnishings. There was a lack of medicine and nourishing food. The nurses were enlisted men detailed from the various regiments, and were ignorant of their duties, and without experience.
The quarters and grounds were dirty, and the service was undisciplined, disorganized and demoralized. Until taken firmly in hand by General Sanger and reorganized, the Third Division Hospital was a monument to the ignorance and incapacity of the Medical Department.
This Department was thus described in an inspection report:--
"I found quite a number of sick in each regiment, and was informed by the regimental surgeons that they could not get from the medical depot those medicines and other supplies needed for the sick, and was also informed that, in reply to their request, they were told that no issue of medicine or medical supplies could be had from the depot until the field cases were filled; that, although the medicines were on hand, it was not the intention to make issues until everything could be done in the order required by the Army Regulations, resulting in unnecessary discomfort and suffering to the sick. The different aid societies did a great deal toward helping out the unfortunate conditions, but on the whole, the administration of the affairs of this department was a dismal failure. Those regimental medical officers bought a great deal of medicine with their own funds and from funds furnished them by their friends at home. There were no cots, blankets, pillows, nor sheets. The medicine and medical supplies were entirely inadequate for many days after my reporting for duty. There were no floors in the tents where the sick were. They were crowded together in dangerous proximity to each other, and those gentlemen of the medical profession of the volunteer service were very bitter in their denunciations of our miserable system."