Plans called for soldiers’ barracks, officers’ quarters, three hospitals, and a large bake house. In late September and early October 1861, a workforce of slaves began erecting permanent winter quarters on the site. The undeveloped forty-acre plateau in the city’s east end, known as Chimborazo Hill, was selected as a camp for soldiers. They were made almost entirely of earth and wood, which is why you often see old photos of fortifications almost completely barren of any nearby trees.ĭuring the summer of 1861, newly-enlisted Confederate troops inundated Richmond. The interior line consisted of a series of forts in the middle line, earthworks were constructed in a five-mile radius from the capitol building, with intermittent installations of artillery batteries the outer line was a set of simple trenches that soldiers could quickly occupy if the city were threatened.Įssentially, there were three types of fortification surrounding the city – artillery batteries strategically placed to maximize the effectiveness against approaching troops, forts to house more artillery along with soldiers and supplies, and. In June 1861, street cleaners and unemployed free blacks were put to work building the three lines of defense around Richmond. On May 29, 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis arrived in Richmond. Hundreds of hospitals sprang up in the Confederate States, particularly in Richmond, where five railroads converged and close to many of the war’s battles. The Confederate government was not prepared for the sudden burden of caring for so many men. They fell sick with disease and died from battle wounds by the hundreds of thousands. Several million men went off to war in the early 1860s. Her memoirs describe in vivid detail her experiences as one of the first women to enter the previously all-male field of medicine in the Confederacy. Phoebe Yates Pember was one of the first women to serve as a hospital matron during the Civil War. Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia essentially functioned as a village, complete with bathhouse, soap factory, morgues, and a bakery.
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