The Ambulance-To-ER System

The End of Drunks and Cowards

From: MentalFloss.com

The Union went into the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, expecting a mere skirmish. The rebels brought a war. Although 1,011 Union soldiers were wounded, empty ambulances led the retreat to Washington, D.C. Most of the civilian drivers at the time were untrained and “of the lowest character,” according to Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, an activist whose son died after lying wounded for hours following a charge. Many were cowards or drunkards, he added.

It took Jonathan Letterman, the medical director of the Army of the Potomac, just six weeks to implement a brilliant system to evacuate and care for the wounded, becoming the model for the ambulance-to-ER system we know today. On September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam left 2,108 Union soldiers dead and nearly 10,000 wounded. Letterman established caravans of 50 ambulances, each with a driver and two stretcher bearers, to ferry the injured to field hospitals. He hired private wagons to carry medical supplies to circumvent enemy damage to railroad lines. He even introduced spring suspensions to ambulances and added a lock box under the driver’s seat to make it harder for soldiers to steal protein, bedsacks, and morphine reserved for the wounded. The rest is history.

Posted in: Civil War Ambulances