Healing Bodies and Souls

Healing Bodies and Souls. . Injured soldiers passed through here, carried from the battlefield in blankets and carts. At the "flying hospital" next to General Gates' headquarters, surgeons and nurses tended their wounds., "Well, the next day after the battle I saw a sight that was shocking indeed; a good many both of our men and the enemy lye dead at Gen Gates' head Quarters; others very badly wounded just a-dying and everything looked sadly with regard to [the] poor Wounded Creatures; some shot almost through the body crying to God, to Jesus &c. to take away their lives; poor miserable Creatures indeed." , -Private Ezra Tilden, Massachusetts militia, October 9, 1777, Dr. Potts was Director General for the Northern Department's hospitals. His team worked tirelessly here to care for the American army's sick and wounded. , Doctor Jonathan Potts, M.D. by Henry Benbridge, ca. 1775 Art Institute of Chicage, Amputation Saw , Shock, pain, and blood loss could be overwhelming. Speed during an amputation was crucial for a surgeon to save a soldier's life. There were no anesthetics. The worst enemy was infection, the causes of which were then unknown., Military chaplains comforted the sick, wounded, and dying. This army's pastors were Congregationalist and Baptist. Catholics, Judaists, and those of other Protestant faiths were not provided clergies. , Chaplain Enos Hitchcock, D.D. by William Blodgett, ca. 1775. Rhode Island Historical Society.