Wounded Union soldiers during the Civil War who couldn’t walk to a field hospital had to rely on stretcher-bearers, according to the book “What They didn’t Teach You About the Civil War by Mike Wright.
“Stretcher bearers were among the worst troops in the army. Each regiment was to provide twenty-five to thirty men as stretcher-bearers. Now, who are you going to assign? Your best soldiers? Your top marksmen?” the author writes.
“Usually, those assigned to Civil War ambulance duty were the loafers, bums, and scoundrels. Musicians sometimes also were pressed into service when not off tooting some martial tune.”
“You’ve finally made your way to the field hospital a mile or so back from the battle. A doctor checks you over and decides you need to go to a regimental hospital father away from the fighting. Call in an ambulance. Take your pick, either a two-wheel or four-wheel horse-drawn wagon.”
“They didn’t even have that choice at the Battle of Manasas. Like many of the troops they were meant to aid. Union ambulance drivers got scared, turned around, and drove back to Washington as fast as possible. Many of the Union troops at Manasses left their weapons in the field. Ambulance drivers were worse; they left the wounded behind.”
“Neither the two-wheeled nor the four-wheeled variety had springs, but the smaller variety was worse. It bounced, swayed, and tossed the wounded men from side to side and up and down. Union soldiers called it the ‘avalanche,’ because they were so unstable, the wounded tended to slide out of them.”