Type: Exhibition case
Name: Home Front Hospitals: Marcus Ward's U.S. General Hospital
Detail: After the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, it was clear that the war would be longer and more brutal than previously imagined. This reality was commonly experienced in battlefield hospitals - makeshift hospitals comprised of tents or borrowed houses that were overcrowded and unsanitary. In order to alleviate congestion and poor conditions, military hospitals on the home front were instituted. These hospitals were equipped with experienced doctors, modern medical supplies, and amenities such as bathing facilities and full kitchens. Soldiers who suffered from injury or illness (including gunshot wounds, gangrene, typhoid fever, malaria, tuberculosis, and camp diarrhea) were sufficiently treated and sometimes even had the convenience of being close to home. By the war’s end, 192 general hospitals existed in the United States. One such hospital was Ward’s U.S. General Hospital located in Newark, New Jersey.
Ward’s U.S. General Hospital opened in May of 1862. Named after its founder, Marcus L. Ward, a New Jersey businessman, governor, and advocate for soldiers and their families, it was one of three in the state (including those in Jersey City and Beverly) to accommodate sick and injured soldiers. Initially paid for by a loan secured by Ward from the state government, the hospital was located in a four-storied building between the railroad tracks and the Passaic River at the foot of Centre Street. This location made it easy for soldiers to be transported by car or by boat. When the secretary of war allocated additional funding in 1864, the hospital expanded into several factory and warehouse buildings east of Centre Street and had room for 1,400 patients. By the time the hospital was decommissioned in 1865, staff members had treated roughly 80,000 military patients.