28, 1865, according to the Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Commission website.Īfter the remains of nine people were removed by family and friends of the dead, the bodies of 299 people remained in the hospital’s cemetery, and most were military soldiers. The dead were buried in a cemetery on the site. In its years of operation, the hospital treated 10,593 patients with a mortality figure of 308, Grzyb wrote. Gunshot wounds were treated at the Portsmouth hospital as well it’s assumed that surgeons performed relatively few amputations since most patients arrived with lost limbs from prior operations in field hospitals, according to Grzyb’s book. Typhoid fever - extremely common during the war and transmitted through food or water contaminated by feces - and diarrhea were the most prevalent, Grzyb wrote. Illnesses varied among the men who had fought in the Peninsula Campaign and arrived in Portsmouth. The effort failed and a number of the wounded soldiers from that campaign were transported to the hospital in Portsmouth, Garman said.Īccording to Grzyb’s book, 1,724 patients, including 60 to 70 Confederate prisoners, as well as nine surgeons and 108 male nurses arrived by vessels to the hospital. George McClellan, in charge of the Union army, devised a plan in the early months of 1862 to seize Virginia’s capital city, Richmond. ![]() They were soldiers from the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia. The Lovell General Hospital received its first influx of patients on July 6, 1862. Mostly Union soldiers were treated but the hospital accepted some Confederate prisoners of war as well, he said. The hospital was located in the approximate area where the Melville marina is today it consisted of a large summer estate, repurposed, and 14 pavilions serving as temporary barracks, Garman said. Portsmouth’s proximity to the water was advantageous, too, since most of the hospital’s patients arrived by boat. “It’s hard to really say except there was space available,” Garman said. ![]() ![]() “It’s a long way to send wounded people,” he said. Garman couldn’t say for sure why a war hospital was established in Portsmouth.
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