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Chimborazo Hospital

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zabelle
zabelle
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Chimborazo Hospital

  • September 18, 2006
  • Rated 4 of 5 by zabelle from Portland, Connecticut
Chimborazo Hospital

To fully understand the Confederacy and the impact of the War on Richmond I think a visit to Chimborazo Hospital is a must. Located in a park a five minute drive from Shockoe Bottom the Visitors Center is maintained by the National Park Department.

Begin your visit by watching the seventeen minute video ‘Under the Yellow Flag”, it will explain the Confederate Hospital System. After the First Battle of Manassas the city was flooded with wounded. It became apparent that the existing hospitals were woefully inadequate to handle the number of wounded who would be generated in the War. The wounded had to be treated in hotels and private homes. Five hospitals were ordered to be built in Richmond the most famous of which was “Chimborazo” the hospital on the hill. Local legend ascribes the name to a resident who had visited Ecuador and likened the hospital to a volcano located there and the name stuck. At its peak Chimborazo had 150 buildings. 76,000 people passed though its wards and 8,000 died here, which is about five a day. None of the original buildings has survived.

What you will get out of your visit here is the magnitude of Civil War. This was not some romantic, idealistic conflict over slavery. Well maybe it was but it was also horrifying slaughter. And it wasn’t just the gunshot wounds, it was the dysentery that killed many men. Before the war most surgeons had never treated a gunshot wound. The only cure for a shattered limb was amputation and without sterilization, many didn’t survive the operation. Just being transported to the hospital in wagons without springs killed many wounded. A visit here will quickly shatter any illusions you may have about war. It is an ugly business, that’s for sure.

Along with the surgeons, women, children and freed slaves worked in the hospitals. The confederacy didn’t have a Clara Barton, it never developed any nurses training. Nurses learned on the job. The nuns of St Francis ran a hospital in Richmond. They treated soldiers on both sides and were allowed to travel between the lines.

Before the War there were 100 medical schools in the United States, only 19 of them were in the South. You will learn a lot about the way the patients were treated and the instruments that were used. Some of it seems barbaric and some of it seems hardly different from today. This is a very educational museum on a variety of levels. I was grossed out by some of the stuff, fascinated by others and inspired by the people who had to do so much, for so many with so little. Allow about 45 minutes for your visit. There is no charge.

From journal Historic Richmond-Part 2 The Confederacy

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