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Due to the massive numbers
of sick and wounded soldiers in the U.S. Army, the U.S. States Sanitary
Commission was created June 13, 1861 to assist the Army Medical Bureau.
However, following the Battle of Wilson's Creek, every hospital ward in
St. Louis was filled, and humane care of the wounded was lacking.
As a result, the Union citizens of St. Louis with the help of Mrs. Jessie
Benton Fremont and the St. Louis Ladies Union Aid Society made known their
resolution to see that the government provide better health care of its
sick and wounded west of the Mississippi. As a result, the Western
Sanitary Commission was established on Sept. 5, 1861.
Not only did the commission increase the hospital space in St. Louis and elsewhere, but also outfitted hospital steamers which would provide care of the sick or wounded near the battlefields along the Mississippi and its tributaries.
The following steamers were converted as floating hospitals and served as part of the Western Sanitary Commission hospital fleet : "City of Louisiana", set out on March 20, 1862, later renamed the "R.C. Wood"; the "D.A. January"; the "Empress"; the "Imperial"; the "Crescent City"; the "Red Rover"; the "City of Alton"; the "City of Memphis"; the "Nashville".
The following transports were
used for "conveying the sick and wounded": the "Ruth"; the "Glasgow"; the
"Diana"; the "Nebraska"; the "Champion"; the "Baltic".
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Capt. Flem. Calvert
and
P. W. Sheckley, Clerk
Composed in St. Louis, by Richard S. Poppen
Published 1864 by Endres and Compton, 52 Fourth Street,
Memphis and Cairo.
Midi File courtesy of Benjamin
Tubb
