British officers declared that the American
army was without engineers who knew the science of war, and
certainly the forts on which they spent their skill in the North,
those on the lower Hudson, and at Ticonderoga, at the head of
Lake George, fell easily before the assailant. Good maps were
needed, and in this Washington was badly served, though the
defect was often corrected by his intimate knowledge of the
country. Another service ill-equipped was what we should now call
the Red Cross. Epidemics, and especially smallpox, wrought havoc
in the army. Then, as now, shattered nerves were sometimes the
result of the strain of military life. "The wind of a ball," what
we should now call shellshock, sometimes killed men whose bodies
appeared to be uninjured. To our more advanced knowledge the
medical science of the time seems crude. The physicians of New
England, today perhaps the most expert body of medical men in the
world, were even then highly skillful. But the surgeons and
nurses were too few. This was true of both sides in the conflict.
Prisoners in hospitals often suffered terribly and each side
brought charges of ill-treatment against the other. The
prison-ships in the harbor of New York, where American prisoners
were confined, became a scandal, and much bitter invective
against British brutality is found in the literature of the
period.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160