of the brigade surgeons, and that every other available method of transporting medical and hospital supplies should be employed. I also directed that the ambulance squads of the corps should follow in the rear of their respective brigades, with their stretchers, buckets, lanterns, &c. In other battles I have noticed a sad deficiency in anesthetics, stimulants, &c., even where transportation was abundant, and have known the tortures of the knife inflicted on the wounded soldier without aid of the lethe on that the Government so liberally provides. I am happy to say that no such instances occurred in the hospital of our corps during or following the battles of Chancellorsville and the Wilderness.

The corps bivouacked for the night near the river, and in the morning moved to a point overlooking the pontoon bridge laid by the Sixth Army Corps, giving the men an opportunity of seeing again their old battle-ground of December 13.

Next day [30th] the corps marched to a point 5 miles from the United States Ford, and, crossing the river the following morning, at once proceeded to the front, near the Chancellor house. An engagement seeming imminent, I at once established the principal depot for the wounded at the large white house, about half a mile in rear of the Plank road and on the right of the road leading from the ford to Chancellorsville. Here preparations were hastily made for the reception of the wounded. The house and outhouses were thoroughly cleaned and policed; operating tables were improvised by detaching some of the doors from their hinges, with the addition of a few boards found about the premises. The necessary arrangements for cooking were made under the directions of the surgeons in charge; but night came on, bringing with it but few casualties to our troops. Seven of our men were injured by a single shell, one case requiring amputation of the arm above the elbow, so that most of the work done by our surgeons this night was in caring for the wounded of other corps.

On the morning of Saturday, May 2, the division operating staffs were all present at the white house. The First Division [Birney's] having advanced, I ordered the operating staff of that division to establish their field hospital at a point on the Plank road 1 mile west of the Chancellor house [occupied as General Hooker's headquarters], and about three-quarters of a mile in the rear of the division line of battle.

The First Division was soon engaged, and about 20 wounded men were brought in; 1 of them, a corporal in the Third U. S. Artillery, suffered amputation of the beg leg for compound fracture of the leg with great laceration of soft parts by shell. The others chiefly slight wounds, and had been dressed on the field by the medical officers who followed their regiments.

At sundown th enemy forced our lines at a point farther west on the Plank road, driving the Eleventh Corps in ignominious retreat. The fleeing Dutchmen actually ran over our hospital. This and the rapid approach of the rebels made the position untenable, so the surgeons proceeded to evacuate, but they succeeded in conveying their wounded [except those killed by the shells] to the white house, before mentioned as the principal depot. In the meantime a few others of our corps and several of other corps had been brought in by our stretcher-bearers, and were properly attended to by the surgeons; but soon the enemy appeared to have got the range of this hospital, for the shells came thick and fast, and I thought it best to order the wounded removed to the woods on the opposite side of the road leading to the ford, the med-