OUTDOOR VIEW OF CIVIL WAR RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL BUILDING

$150.00

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 160-364

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Image is an outdoor view of a large wooden building with several soldiers posed by the front door. The building is well ventilated with a large open door, windows on either side and above the door. Another two windows are visible on the side of the building. Just visible is the background is a similar structure.

Contrast and clarity are good. Paper and mount have quite a bit of surface dirt and some staining.

Reverse has printed information that reads “FROM LOVELL GENERAL HOSPITAL U.S.A. PORTSMOUTH GROVE, R.I. ADDRESS J. A. WILLIAMS…”

On May 19, 1862, the surgeon general of the U.S. Army authorized Governor of Rhode Island William Sprague IV to "provide suitable accommodations for wounded and sick soldiers". Sprague appointed a commission which selected Portsmouth Grove in the Melville section of the town of Portsmouth as the location for the hospital.

The first patients arrived on July 6, 1862. Over the course of the war thousands patients were cared for by the hospital.

As a number of patients at the hospital were Union soldiers convicted by court martial and others were Confederate prisoners of war, it was necessary to have guards posted at the hospital. In the early months of the hospital's operation security was provided by units of the Rhode Island Militia - first by the Artillery Company of Newport and later by the First Light Infantry of Providence. In December 1862 a company of volunteers, called the Hospital Guards, was raised under the command of Captain Christopher Blanding. Soldiers who joined the company had to have disabilities or injuries which precluded them from front line service. The company remained at the hospital until it was closed and was mustered out of service on August 25, 1865.

An early superintendent of the hospital was Katherine Prescott Wormeley who was a key organizer of the United States Sanitary Commission. Wormeley was inspired by the work of Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War and was highly successful in recruiting nurses to work at the hospital.

The hospital was named Lovell General Hospital after Joseph Lovell, who served as the Surgeon General of the United States Army from 1818 to 1836. The hospital was also known as Portsmouth Grove Hospital.

The hospital was closed on August 25, 1865. In time, all the buildings of the hospital were either dismantled or removed. There are no remains today.

During the course of the war, over 200 patients died at the hospital. Their remains were originally buried in a cemetery near the hospital but were removed to Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York in May 1868.  [ad] [ph:L]

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