Diagrams Illustrating the Principal Means Used to Transport the Sick and Wounded and Medical Supplies

Conveying the medical corps during the American Civil War.

More soldiers (by far) died from disease during the Civil War than by any other cause. This resulted more from a lack of scientific understanding of hygiene, rather than compassion or effort, as this print implies. Various means of transporting wounded soldiers and medical supplies are shown across the page. Wagons, steamboats, and railroad cars were all specially equipped to tend to causalities.

The print was published by the United States War Department and issued as plate 174 in Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. The atlas was published in Washington, D.C. between 1891 and 1895 and contains some of the best near-contemporary maps of the Civil War.