文章基本信息

标题：Nurse Heroines of the Confederacy
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作者：Mary Louise Marshall
期刊名称：Bulletin of the Medical Library Association
印刷版ISSN：0025-7338
出版年度：1957
卷号：45
期号：3
页码：319-336
出版社：Medical Library Association
摘要：NVTHIN the eighty years which have elapsed since the close of the War between the States innumerable studies of the social history of the South have been made. The knowledge made possible by such a perspective leads to increasing wonder that the War could have lasted four years in a disparity so great as existed between the opposing sides in numbers, in materials, and in the achieved organization for conflict. It is possible that this very disparity was a compelling force in demanding from the people of the South a devotion to the cause and a unity of purpose more widespread and more intense than was usual in the North. Certainly the impact of hostilities was felt by men and women, old and young, fit and unfit. The War was fought almost entirely on southern soil and the resulting destruction was thus a personal matter affecting not only members of the family in active service but the very homes and families from which the soldiers came. The white population of the Confederate States was estimated at five and a half millions as opposed to twenty-two million in the northern States. The Confederate forces never exceeded 600,000 in contrast to a Union force of 2,800,000. Of this 600,000, one-third were either killed or died of disease and wounds, one-third were captured, one-half of the remainder were lost by discharge or desertion, so that in the final year of the War the active force numbered scarcely 100,000, almost all of them had been wounded or suffered illness. In the entire Confederate Army to care for their own forces and for Union prisoners, it is estimated that there were not more than 1,927 Surgeons and 3,854 Assistant Surgeons; of these only 24 medical officers had seen military service.