There was even an elevator for transporting patients between decks. In the rebuilding of the USS Red Rover an operating room was installed, also a galley with separate kitchen facilities for patients and staff, an icebox of 300 ton capacity, an open cabin aft for better air circulation, gauze blinds placed over windows to reduce cinder and smoke, and a steam boiler in the laundry room. With the financial assistance of the Western Sanitary Commission and civilian efforts, the concept of a fully equipped and efficient medical ship became reality. An agent of the Governor of Indiana said after the Battle of Shiloh, “From what I have already seen I think the sick need better attention.” 3 Sanitation was of great concern, and the need for a hospital ship such as the USS Red Rover was great. Sanitation and hygiene were very poor, and by the time the war ended, “more men had died from diseases as malaria, measles, small pox, cholera, typhoid fever, typhus and dysentery than died of gunshot wounds.” 2 Most patients hoped to just make it to port for better facilities. 1Īt the beginning of the war the Army used steamers and transports as makeshift hospitals to carry casualties upriver. In 1862 it was bombarded and captured on the Mississippi River by a Union gunboat and later refurbished as a floating summer hospital, this at a time when medical care was very limited. The USS Red Rover was commissioned on December 26, 1862, by the Union as the first US Navy hospital ship. It had been built in 1859 as a commercial use wooden side-wheel river steamer and purchased in 1861 by the Confederate States of America. The unique journal of the USS Red Rover February 22, 2017
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