| From the Richmond Examiner |
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| August 23, 1861 |
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| Many of our sick soldiers have
been subjected to great suffering and distress on account of inattention
and carelessness, if not, indeed, want of feeling, with respect to the
transportation of them from the hospitals to their homes. The evil is so
enormous and unnatural as to call, not only for exposure, but to demand
the promptest correction. |
| It will be recollected that
some time ago several railroad companies in the State made the patriotic
and generous offer to Congress to transport, free of charge, all
soldiers on furlough or leave by reason of sickness. To protect
themselves against imposition, it was required that the soldier, to
avail himself of the privilege, should be furnished with a certificate
from the surgeon of his regiment, countersigned by the regimental
commander, stating the reason of the furlough. |
| We learn that owing to
inattention in the hospitals, this very proper and necessary certificate
is not usually given, or is signed by unauthorized persons, thus leaving
the soldier dependent upon the charity or discretion of the railroad
officers to reach his home. At one of the depots in this city we are
informed that in the multitude of cases of sick soldiers returning home
but one certificate properly signed had been presented there, and in
that case the party stated that he had been occupied two days in the
"circumlocution office" to procure it. |
| But the evil does not stop
here. In the Transportation Office in the Quartermaster's Department, a
system prevails of issuing "requisitions" for through tickets for the
sick soldiers. These requisitions require a good del of writing to fill
up the blanks, and are of as much use as "Red-Tape" usually is in its
indirect ways of doing things. Why not let the office issue through
tickets at once, which the Railroad companies will furnish them, with
some simple mark, such s "soldier's tickets," to distinguish them from
regular passenger tickets? |
| We are assured that these
"Red-Tape" expedients for effecting the transportation of soldiers have
resulted in the greatest misfortunes to them, frequently throwing the
sick and houseless upon the charities of communities on the way. Easily
mistaking these "requisitions" to be sufficient, the soldiers neglect to
provide themselves with tickets, and the consequence is that as each
road is positively required to take vouchers for every passenger, the
requisition can only carry him over one road, and leave him then to
prosecute his way home as best he can. |
| For instance, a requisition is
issued in the transportation office here for a sick soldier from
Richmond to Augusta. The soldier neglects to get the through ticket with
the usual coupons for the stages of the route, and finds after he has
left Richmond that his requisition cannot take him further than
Petersburg, as it only furnishes a voucher, and has necessarily to be
retained as such, for the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad. |
| The consequences of these
inattentions over that numbers of sick soldiers have been abandoned on
their way home, dependent upon the charities of railroad companies for
the prosecution of their journey, and often left at the depots without
food or shelter, except such as is provided by the kindness of the
railroad officers, and citizens who may probably be attracted to their
cases. |
| We do not exaggerate the
general subject of inattention on the part of hospital and
transportation officers to our sick soldiers. We know of cases where
they have been abandoned at the depots to the kindness of strangers. At
one of the depots in this city, that we visited yesterday, we found four
sick soldiers lying on the floors of the office, who had been without
food or attention for twenty-four hours, except such as had been kindly
given by the Railroad Superintendent. Application had been sent from the
depot for their admission into the hospitals, and refused for want of
accommodation; and this, although but a few days ago, application was
made by the citizens of the little town of Chester, on the
{Richmond &} Petersburg railroad, to
relieve our hospitals of a portion of the sick by nursing them in their
own homes, and was refused by the Surgeon-General. The most remarkable
and noble circumstance of the spectacle of suffering which we saw
yesterday was, that the brave fellows prostrated by sickness on the
floors of the railroad office, in a state of want and abandonment which
there is not a negro in Virginia but would have resented, never uttered
a single word of complaint. |
| There is not a citizen of
Richmond, worthy of the name of a Virginian, whose home is not open to
the sick and worn soldier. The suffering, the abandonment, the neglect
of which we have written is not with them, but in a bad and careless
management in the Quartermaster's Department of which the sick soldiers
are to often the unnoticed victim, from the noble circumstances of their
forbearance to complain. |
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