History Abounds in Richmond, Virginia
The first time I set foot in Richmond, Virginia, I was an aspiring writer working on a (terrible) novel about a family torn apart by differing loyalties during the Civil War. Newly married, living in Charlottesville, Virginia, I was fascinated by the amount of resources the state of Virginia provided about the war, its background, and the lives of the people who fought in it. Historic homes on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. (James Kirkikis/Shutterstock)
I was in Richmond to visit the American Civil War Museum at Historic Tredegar and the White House of the Confederacy. As a born and raised New Yorker, I had little understanding of the complexities of the war and the tumultuous years that led up to it. I expected to spend the entire day in the museum, head buried in displays and paragraphs of text I could eventually transfer to the backdrop of my book.
SUMMARY
Chimborazo Hospital, located in the Confederate capital of Richmond, was the largest and most famous medical facility in the South during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The hospital admitted nearly 78,000 patients suffering from battlefield wounds and diseases. Of this number, approximately 6,500 to 8,000 died, resulting in a mortality rate of about 9 percent. Few hospitals in the Confederacy had lower mortality rates, and those that did generally received patients who were further along in their recovery. The best-staffed and equipped Union hospitals, in comparison, achieved a 10 percent mortality rate. With no model to draw on, Chimborazo Hospital’s success can be attributed to a combination of its open-air, pavilion-style design; the comparatively good quality of care; innovative practices; and the supreme dedication of the caregivers men and women, black and white, slave and free. Their efforts contributed to one of the great advancements in mid-nineteenth-centu