Army Medical and
Hospital Departments Budgets
Edited by Dr. Michael Echols
There is confusion about why some
surgical sets are marked for the Medical Department and others for the
Hospital Department. There is evidence in the archives the two
departments were usually addressed as one entity, but also separately.
There sometimes appears to be two different budgets for the two departments.
One theory is the sets ordered and marked by the Medical Department were
intended for field use rather than hospital use. The
Quartermaster and Purveyors would have been directly involved in order
supplies of sets and books for hospitals and that would have not have been
under the Medical Dept. budget, but that of the hospitals.
The answer may be buried in the budgets, thus this article. (Note
where it says 'Department, not Departments', indicating one not two
different departments.)
Archival evidence of both a
separate and individual Hospital and Medical Department
Bvt. Lieut. Col. T. A. McPARLIN, U.S. Army,
Medical Director, Army of the Potomac:
DOCTOR: I have the honor respectfully to render the following report of
the operations of the Medical
and Hospital Department and
Ambulance Service of this division from July 19 to December 31, 1864.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
E. J. MARSH,
Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army, Surgeon in Chief of Division.
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
Before Petersburg, Va., December 26, 1864.
GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following, in continuation of
the report of operations of
the medical and hospital department of the Army of the Potomac,
for the campaign of the year subsequent to July 31:
MARCH 29-APRIL 9, 1865.--The Appomattox (Virginia) Campaign.
No. 6.--Report of Surg. Thomas A. McParlin, U.S. Army,
Medical Director,
of operations January 1--June 30.
To my immediate assistants, Surg. J. A. Lidell,
inspector of the medical and hospital
department of this army, and
Asst. Surg. J. Sire Smith, attending surgeon at headquarters, to whom I
am indebted for valuable assistance in discharge of special duties
committed to them; Asst. Surg. E. J. Marsh, U.S. Army, surgeon-in-chief
of the Second Cavalry Division, passed to the command of General
Sheridan the day preceding the campaign. He has performed all duties
while under my direction with signal ability.
JNO. A. LIDELL,
Surg., U. S. Vols., Insp. of Medical and Hospital Department,
Army of the Potomac.
SURGEON-GENERAL'S OFFICE,
December 17, 1860.
Hon. JOHN B. FLOYD,
Secretary of War:
SIR: In reply to a communication referred by you to this office from the
chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate, inquiring "whether the
expenses in the military department of the Government cannot be reduced
without detriment to the public service," I have the honor to report
that the expenditures of the
medical and hospital department of the Army
have always been regulated with a view to the utmost economy.
It is not believed that these
expenditures can be reduced in a single item without a sacrifice of the
welfare of the soldier and the true interests of the public service.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
By order:
R. C. WOOD,
Surgeon. U. S. Army.
SURGEON-GENERAL'S OFFICE,
November 13, 186I.
Hon. SIMON CAMERON,
Secretary of War:
SIR: I have the honor to submit to you a report upon
the fiscal transactions and other
matters relating to the Medical Department of the Army for the year
ending the 30th of June, 1861.
The amount of the appropriation for the medical and hospital department
remaining on the 30th of June, 1860, was---
In the hands of disbursing agents $3,787.82
In the Treasury of the United States 46,266.82
Amount appropriated per act approved 21st of June, 1860,
for the current expenses of the
medical and hospital department
for the year ending June 30, 1861 76,225.50
Amount refunded into the Treasury 26.17
Amount appropriated per act approved 2d of March, 1861, for the current
expenses of the medical and hospital department for the year ending June
30, 1862, anticipated to meet circumstances growing out of the rebellion
of the Southern States 115,000.00
Total 241,306.31
The total amount of funds available for
the service of the medical and
hospital department of the Army
during the year ending June 30, 1861, was $241,306.31, and the
expenditures of that year amounted to $194,126.77, leaving a balance of
$6,006.62 in the hands of disbursing agents, and $41,172.92 in the
Treasury of the United States.
Of the total sum expended during the fiscal year embraced in this
report, $20,088.89 were paid on account of the pay and other claims of
private physicians, and $174,037.88 for medical and hospital supplies
and for the pay of hospital cooks and nurses.
The following act of Congress is published for the information of the
Army:
AN ACT making additional appropriations for the support of the Army for
the year ending thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-two.
Be it enacted
by the Senate
and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
following sums be, and the same are hereby, appropriated, out of any
money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the service of the
year ending thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-two:
For pay of two and three years'
volunteers, fifty million dollars.
For payments to discharged soldiers for clothing not drawn, fifty
thousand dollars.
For subsistence in kind for two and three years' volunteers, twenty-six
million six hundred and sixty-eight thousand nine hundred and two
dollars.
For transportation of the Army and its supplies, fourteen million eight
hundred and eighty-one thousand dollars.
For the current expenses of the ordnance service, two hundred thousand
dollars.
For ordnance, ordnance stores, and supplies, including horse equipments
for all the mounted troops, one million nine hundred and twenty-four
thousand dollars.
For purchase of arms for volunteers and regulars, and ordnance and
ordnance stores, seven million five hundred thousand dollars.
For the medical and hospital
department, one million dollars.
For amount required to refund to the States expenses incurred on account
of volunteers called into the field, fifteen million dollars. Approved
February 25, 1862.
By command of Major-General McClellan:
L. THOMAS,
Adjutant-General.
GENERAL ORDERS NO 22 War Department
Adjutant General's Office Washington March 1 1862 AN ACT making
Additional Appropriations for the Support of the Army for the Year
ending June 30 1862
For the Medical and Hospital
Department one million of dollars
SURGEON-GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Washington, D.C., October 20, 1864.
Hon. E. M. STANTON,
Secretary of War :
SIR: I have the honor to submit the following statement of finances and
general transactions of the Medical Department
for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1864:
The funds derived from all sources and available for the expenses of
for the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1864, were-
Balance remaining in Treasury June 30, 1863, being residue of the
appropriation for the ensuing fiscal year, under the act
approvedFebruary 9, 1863 $8,522,423.27
In the hands of disbursing officers. 250,828.10
Deficiency appropriation act, approved March 14, 1864 3,296,000.00
Amount refunded by Subsistence Department on account of board paid for
sick soldiers in private houses and hospitals 66,522.03
Amount refunded from appropriation for supplies, transportation, and
careof prisoners of war 97,195.44
Amount refunded by Suire, Eckstein & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, being amount
overpaid to them in the settlement of their accounts in 1861-62
10,677.43
Proceeds of sales of condemned and unserviceable property 11,327.64
Proceeds of medical stores
sold, by authority of Maj Gen. U.S. Grant,to the inhabitants of
Vicksburg and vicinity 2,596.22
Proceeds of bedsteads sold to the Western Sanitary Commission by Medical
Store-keeper R. T. Creamer, U.S. Army, in June, 1864. $727.50
Amount received for ice sold by Medical Store-keeper Hennell Stevens,to
Algeo & Co., Memphis, Tenn., in December, 1863 4,020.00
Amount received for surgical
instruments sold to officers 94.00
Proceeds of various other sales 262.27
Total 12,263,988.08
Of this amount there was disbursed for
medical and hospital supplies $9,009,275.49
For
pay of private physicians
1,222,411.50
For hospital employés 437,792.09
For expenses of purveying department 260,406.61
For care of sick soldiers in private hospitals 48,806.82
For artificial limbs 34,750.00
For
contingencies of Medical
Department 12,348.82
Total 11,025,791.33
_____________________
The Congress of the
Confederate States of America
do enact, That the following appropriations be made for the support of
the provisional troops called into service by the act aforesaid: Pay of
the troops, $658,680; forage for officers' horses and quartermasters'
animals, and cavalry horses, $20,662; subsistence for troops, $270,000;
clothing for the troops, $200,000; camp and garrison equipage,
$18,267.72; supplies for the Quartermaster's Department, $76,160; fuel
for troops and hospitals, $59,997;
Medical and Hospital Department, $20,000.
Pay grades for Confederate Medical
Department 1861
SEC. 18. The pay of the officers of
the general staff, except those of the Medical Department, shall be the
same as that of officers of cavalry of the same grade. The
Surgeon-General shall receive an annual salary of $3,000, which shall be
in full of all pay and allowances, except fuel and quarters. The monthly
pay of a surgeon, of ten years' service in that grade, shall be $200; a
surgeon of less than ten years' service in that grade, $162; an
assistant surgeon of ten years' service in that grade, $150; an
assistant surgeon of five years' service in that grade, $130; and an
assistant surgeon of less than five years' service, $110.
_____________________
O.R.--SERIES III--VOLUME V [S# 126]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, REPORTS, AND RETURNS OF THE UNION AUTHORITIES
FROM MAY 1, 1865, TO THE END.
For medical and hospital supplies $15,204,497.20
For pay of private physicians 1,865,821.82
For pay of hospital employés 949,462.46
For expenses of purveying depots 683.830.33
For care of sick soldiers in private hospitals 240,476.11
For artificial limbs for soldiers and seamen (a) 126,538.00
Expenses of hospitals for officers 243,876.37
Miscellaneous expenses of the Medical Department 13,996.94
Subtotal: $19,328,499.23
Balance in the Treasury June 30, 1865 1,161,181.24
Total: $20,489,680.47
SIR: I have the honor to submit the
following statement of finances and general
transactions of the Medical
Department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1865:
RECEIPTS.
Balance in the Treasury July 1, 1864 $914,135.10
Balance in the hands of the disbursing officers 324,061.65
Balance remaining of appropriation for artificial limbs for soldiers and
seamen, per act of July 16, 1862, chapter 182, section 6 4,265.00
Annual appropriation for the year ending June 30, 1865, by act of June
15, 1864,chapter 124, section 1 8,930,640.00
Deficiency appropriation for the current fiscal year, by act of March 2,
1865,chapter 73, section 8 3,251,000.00
Annual appropriation for the year ending June 30, 1866, by act of March
3, 1865,chapter 81, section 1, required for disbursement during the
present fiscal year, and placed to the credit of the Medical Department
for that purpose March 22, 1865 6,000,000.00
Amount drawn from appropriation made by joint resolution of April 29,
1864, to cover expenditures for medical attendance and medicine for
100-day's volunteers 300.000.00
Amount refunded by the Subsistence Department for board of sick and
wounded soldiers in private hospitals 64,293.40
Amount refunded for medical attendance and supplies furnished prisoners
of war 140,506.08
Amount received for subsistence of officers in hospitals 286,281.04
Amount disallowed in account of Ebenezer Swift, U.S. Army, for June,
1863,and refunded from appropriation for pay of volunteers 17,762.91
Proceeds of sales of condemned and unserviceable hospital property
59,671.41
Proceeds of sales of ice not required for hospital use 12,352.25
* Value of books and surgical instruments sold to medical officers and
private physicians $8,311.30
Received for hospital property sold to the Quartermaster's Department
7,003.61
Received for medicines, &c., issued to refugees and freedmen 554.73
Recovered for hospital property lost or damaged in transportation 534.45
Recovered of Actg. Asst. Surg. J. S. Geltner, U.S. Army, for property
and moneys illegally disposed of 1,000.00
Amount received for care of patients belonging to the U.S. Navy 283.00
Amount received from all other sources 446.20
Total credits for the year 20,323,102.13
Amount over-expended by disbursing officers 166.578.34
Total: 20,489,680.47
Upon the termination of active
military movements, immediate measures were taken to reduce the expenses
of the Medical Department. Of the 201 general hospitals open on January
1, 1865, 171 have been discontinued. Three of the sea-going hospital
transports have been discharged; the fourth is now constantly engaged in
transfer of sick and wounded from Southern ports to the general
hospitals in New York Harbor. All of the river hospital boats have been
turned over to the Quartermaster's Department, and but a single hospital
train is retained in the Southwest. The vast amount of medicines and
hospital supplies made surplus by the reduction of the Army has been
carefully collected at prominent points and is being disposed of at
public auction, most of the articles bringing their full value, and in
some instances their cost price.
Extensive discussion of USA Medical and
Hospital Dept. surgical sets:
Extensive
history of the Medical Department
Instrument sets specified by U.S. Army Medical Department during the Civil
War
Display of instruments normally found in a Civil War hospital set 1861-65
Hernstein & Son, U. S. Army Hosp. Dept. issue field surgery set
Hernstein Civil War U. S. Army Hospital Dept. Staff Surgeon's set
Tiemann Civil War U. S. Army Hospital Dept. Field Surgeon's set
Snowden & Brother U. S. Army Medical Dept. field surgery set
U.S.A. Hosp.
Dept. trepanning set by Hernstein
U. S. A. Hosp. Dept. medium size ivory surgical set, 1861
U. S. A. Hosp. Dept. 9 in. bottle, 1861-65
Regulations for the Medical Department of the Army, 1861
Notes on
Army Medical
Department 1866, multi-topical
U.S. Army Hosp. Dept. Wood's Medicine,
Vol. I & 2
Snowden and Brother field size U.S.A. Med. Dept military amputation set,
1861
