Hospital Sketches

This book is a classic. Wirten by Louisa May Alcott, yes the one that would later write the chlidrens classic "Little Women", tells the story of her service during the Civil War through the eyes of Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle. Although it is a short work, this edition is only 55 pages it brings to focus war and its cost and who pays the bill. Nurse Periwinkle will have two assigments before she, her self becomes a victum of the war (Typhiod) and must leave. The first is what we would call today an Evecuation Hospital where the wounded are brought from the battle field. We hear about a un-named soldier who asks only for a sip of wat and Nurse periwinkle has to go to a water can in another building and when she returns the soldier is dead. We hear about the long death of John, of the little Sergent who manages to survive and the Prussian who goes back to fight again. Nurse periwinkle's final assigment is to the Armory Hospital and to "K" Ward. K Ward is Military talk for where they send those who have run out of medical options and who's fate is in some other power, a large percentage of those on K Ward, will die on K Ward. All Wars have K Wards, I was in the K Ward at letterman Army Medical center for several months during the Vietnam War. Her brief discription is perhaps the best in literature of what hopelessness is. This book should be read by all and have a place next to Stephen Crains "Red Badge of Courage" in High School American Lit. Class.

What aroused my interest in this book? No snazzy title. No enticing aroma of mystery or intrigue about it at all. But am I glad that I did read it? Unquestionably! From start to finish this book never falters, never flags in evoking the times, the place, and the human experience. Louisa's style may require some adjustments and patience from modern readers, and it probably will appeal to a more mature audience. (I don't see young people dropping Harry Potter for the tale Louisa tells.) As another reviewer eloquently noted, the book tears at the heart and makes you smile and laugh. Would that I could write half as good.The truth of the book cannot be denied. Read it and decide for yourself.

This book allows the reader an indelible insight into a life of service that indubitably was a character building experience for Alcott. One can see where she might have developed a truer compassion for her characters because she partook of such hard and sacrificial work during such a turbulent time as the Civil War. This book tears at your heart at times and at others makes you laugh. What a wonderful gift to have read it!

Hospital Sketches is an indispensable volume for anyone seeking to know about a neglected aspect of Civil War history: the struggles of the underpaid and often inexperienced women who nursed the wounded. Although Alcott worked as a nurse for only six weeks before nearly dying of typhoid pneumonia, hers is the most compelling and most literary account of the realities of nursing in the Civil War. The book is also significant because it brought Alcott her first success as a writer. It was also in writing this book that she learned the style that made her the most highly regarded American woman writer of the post-Civil War era. Those who have the sophistication to appreciate it will find the book both funny and touching. It rates in my view as a minor classic, but a classic all the same.

Louisa May Alcott was the first Civil War army nurse to publish an account of her service. Not yet famous at the author of "Little Women," the appearence of "Hospital Sketches" in the summer of 1863 was the also the first of her works to win her widespread attention. Bored with life at home and wanting to contribute something to the war effort, Alcott volunteered to serve as an nurse. After a wait of several months, she was assigned to the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington DC. She arrived in mid-December, and her very first day brought her responsibility for forty patients when another nurse fell ill. It was a sign of things to come. Three days after her arrival, the hospital was flooded with wounded from the Battle of Fredericksburg. Initially horrified at the idea of giving the wounded sponge baths, Alcott quickly overcame this misplaced modesty and became accoustomed to the sights and sounds of the the ward. By the end of her brief service, she had learned how to feed, bathe and comfort the wounded, change dressings and administer medicine. . .even watch amputations without revulsion. It was as the night nurse on a three-room ward that she found the vivid charachters she would bring to life in "Hospital Sketches." There was a little Ohio sargent she called "Baby B," who had lost his right arm in battle and was teaching himself to write left handed. (He would later become one of her faithful correspondents) There was a 12-year old drummer mourning the loss of a buddy, a helpful Prussian who spoke no English, and a nameless man so addled by war that he was given to running up and down the aisles yelling all night long. Most poingant was the story of John, a Virginia blacksmith whose death was a model of the 19th Century Christian ideal. Only six weeks after she arrived in Washington, Alcott fell dangerously ill with typhoid fever. Doctors wrote her parents, and before long her father had arrived to take her home. She would spend months recovering. Given a mercury-based compound common in the treatment of typhoid, she would suffer the effects of mercury poisioning for the rest of her life. She was still confined to bed when she began writing "Hospital Sketches." As "Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle" -- a name adopted under the dictum that a lady's name should not appear in print -- the short book illustrated the flair for charachterization and the delightful sense of humor that would make her later works so popular.