Existing comment:
In 1862, an artificial limb manufacturing shop (patented by BW Jewett) was set up to fit amputees with artificial limbs. Amputees from neighboring hospitals were transferred to St. Elizabeths Hospital to fit the prostheses free of charge. Soldiers stayed at the hospital until their wounds healed and they learned to use their artificial limbs. During this period, a portion of the hospital's farm was converted into a cavalry depot and an encampment for a marine company.
Overcrowding was inevitable during the war. Tents were placed on the ground for the convalescent patients. President Lincoln frequently visited the hospital to see the sick and wounded soldiers, and a room was reserved for his overnight stays. During the fall of 1862, General Joseph Hooker was wounded and admitted to the hospital. Dr. Nichols and his wife personally cared for him. Dr. Nichols, a volunteer Surgeon for the St. Elizabeths Army General Hospital, would often ride out to major battlefields around the Washington, DC area to treat casualties. He was introduced as one of General McDowell's staff at the Battle of Bull Run. Approximately one-fourth of St. Elizabeths' male employees divided their time between the battlefields and the hospital. The patients stepped in to assist in providing hospital services.
During the Civil War, the wounded soldiers were reluctant to write home that they were being treated at the "Government Hospital for the Insane." They began referring to the asylum as the St. Elizabeths Hospital after the colonial name of the tract of land where the hospital was located. Congress officially changed the hospital's name in 1916.
The GHI was the first and the only federal mental health facility in the United States at the time. Soldiers were referred there for treatment after they were thoroughly evaluated for malingering and deception. They way for a Union soldier to get discharged |