Within days, most of the 3,000 new patients were housed in either the new wood-frame wards or one of hundreds of tents, paving the way for a complex that became one of the Union's largest and most well-developed hospitals. It was a touching and sympathetic sight, with forms and faces indicative of disease, some with fans, and most with staffs in their hands, they slowly walked along, like pilgrims to the promised land.' 'A large number (of the patients) were convalescing, so that they walked to the hospitals. But the situation only grew worse with the ferocious Battle of Williamsburg and the campaign that followed.īy early July 1862, the American Medical Times reported the Hampton 'hospitals filled to overflowing with the sick and wounded from the battlefields about Richmond.' That meant the two largest buildings in the region had been seized and repurposed in a desperate response to the unending stream of sick soldiers, Cobb says. Within days of Virginia's secession, however, the number of troops stationed there grew nearly 10-fold, raising the number of sickbeds needed so quickly that doctors commandeered the Hygeia Hotel and transformed its famous dining room into a surgical ward.Īs the Federal presence swelled, so did the need for more hospital space, leading the army to fill the abandoned halls of the 4-story Chesapeake Female Seminary with 500 more stricken soldiers.

'And when Grant crossed the James River and began the siege of Petersburg in 1864, its location so close to the field of battle made it even more crucial.'ĭespite its later significance, the Hampton hospital got its start in the small 4-ward clinic that served the garrison of 350 men defending Fort Monroe at the start of the war.

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