Hospital Transport Service

During the Civil War, the Union Army often used ships to move sick and wounded soldiers from distant battlefields to general hospitals in Northern cities. Initially, government-run hospital transport ships suffered from lack of planning as did military operations on land. The need for improvement was especially demonstrated during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign when well-run volunteer hospital transport ships assisted the government ships to evacuate patients.

In April 1862 the Quartermaster General granted permission for the U.S. Sanitary Commission Hospital Transport Service to use some idle government transport steamboats to care for sick and wounded soldiers at no cost to the government.

On Sanitary Commission hospital transports, a doctor had charge of the wounded as they arrived at the dock by rail or ambulance. He determined the order of loading based on the severity of the cases. The most seriously ill were loaded in the lower saloon of the ship and tended by the ship's surgeons. The moderately ill were loaded into the upper saloon of the ship, and the least ill were temporarily held in tents on land. The "Women's Department" of the ship took charge of the patients' comfort and welfare. Several women worked on each ship feeding the patients, dressing wounds, and ensuring that all had clean beds and clothing. Supplies were loaded in order to provide basic medical care while on route.

The orderly loading of the volunteer ships contrasted dramatically with the confused loading of government hospital transport ships in 1862. Sanitary Commission volunteers noted that no one person received the wounded as they arrived, had charge of loading the patients, or was responsible for properly supplying the ship. The Sanitary Commission rendered whatever aid they could to the government ships, providing medical care, supplies, and food, but lacked the authority to take charge of the situation.

The Peninsula Campaign of 1862 ended in a Union retreat. One of the last duties of the U.S. Sanitary Commission Hospital Transport Service was when three of their ships were permitted to return to City Point, Virginia, under a flag of truce to load about eight hundred wounded men who were taken prisoner in Richmond. Afterward, the Quartermaster Corps reclaimed the ships loaned to the Sanitary Commission. Improvements were made in the functioning of the government hospital transports, providing more care and comfort to the soldiers. Female nurses and volunteers served on government hospital transports until the end of the war, sometimes at great personal risk.

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Sharpless, from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, began her service as an Army nurse in July 1862. She served at Fredericksburg, Falls Church Hospital, Antietam, and Gettysburg. On May 10, 1864, Sharpless was appointed matron of the U.S. Steamship Connecticut, a government hospital transport, and served in that capacity until September 1, 1865. During her service on the Connecticut, thirty-three thousand sick and wounded soldiers were transported to hospitals in Washington, Alexandria, Baltimore, and other cities.

"Mother" Ransom of Indiana was a nurse aboard the Government Transport North America when it sank in heavy seas on December 22, 1864. Many of the 203 enlisted soldiers onboard were too sick to move without aid; only a few were saved. Ransom was sent to a hospital in New York City to recover from her ordeal. While there, she received inquiries and visits from relatives and friends of the lost. On July 25, 1866, a grateful Congress authorized a payment of $400 to Ransom for her wartime services aboard the North America.