[.ca] Hospital Sketches (ISBN 0918222788)

The experience of an author turned Civil War nurse.:
Louisa May Alcott was the first Civil War army nurse to publish an account of her service. Not yet famous at the author of "Little Women," the appearence of "Hospital Sketches" in the summer of 1863 was the also the first of her works to win her widespread attention. Bored with life at home and wanting to contribute something to the war effort, Alcott volunteered to serve as an nurse. After a wait of several months, she was assigned to the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington DC. She arrived in mid-December, and her very first day brought her responsibility for forty patients when another nurse fell ill. It was a sign of things to come. Three days after her arrival, the hospital was flooded with wounded from the Battle of Fredericksburg. Initially horrified at the idea of giving the wounded sponge baths, Alcott quickly overcame this misplaced modesty and became accoustomed to the sights and sounds of the the ward. By the end of her brief service, she had learned how to feed, bathe and comfort the wounded, change dressings and administer medicine. . .even watch amputations without revulsion. It was as the night nurse on a three-room ward that she found the vivid charachters she would bring to life in "Hospital Sketches." There was a little Ohio sargent she called "Baby B," who had lost his right arm in battle and was teaching himself to write left handed. (He would later become one of her faithful correspondents) There was a 12-year old drummer mourning the loss of a buddy, a helpful Prussian who spoke no English, and a nameless man so addled by war that he was given to running up and down the aisles yelling all night long. Most poingant was the story of John, a Virginia blacksmith whose death was a model of the 19th Century Christian ideal. Only six weeks after she arrived in Washington, Alcott fell dangerously ill with typhoid fever. Doctors wrote her parents, and before long her father had arrived to take her home. She would spend months recovering. Given a mercury-based compound common in the treatment of typhoid, she would suffer the effects of mercury poisioning for the rest of her life. She was still confined to bed when she began writing "Hospital Sketches." As "Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle" -- a name adopted under the dictum that a lady's name should not appear in print -- the short book illustrated the flair for charachterization and the delightful sense of humor that would make her later works so popular.

I thought is was ok...:
At first when I got the book I was expecting stories about the soldiers and Civil War more then a first time nurse. The book starts with two really boring first chapters that tell about her trip to the hospital, and then finally starts up with her time spent helping patients. Though it never tells in depth anything about the wounded. It is more about how Lousia May Alcott and other nurses handled the jobs given them. I was expecting something that would make you sympathize more with the soldiers then a nurse, and something that would bring you into the time and setting. I learned nearly nothing about what it was like for the soldiers from this book, I only learned I don't like Louisa May Alcotts writing style.

Hospital Sketches:
The main character of Hospital Sketches is Nurse Tribulation Periwinkle. The book is about her experiences as a nurse at a Washington D.C. hospital during the civil war. The theme is cheerful despite the wounded men. One man showed his gratitude for the way she helped him stay cheerful by offering "I've got a pair of earbobs and a handkerchief pin I'm a-goin' to give you"(Alcott 69). Cheerfulness is shown when a nurse says, "Bless their hearts..."(Alcott 75) because she is so proud of the soldiers. The Author makes everything more confusing than it has to be. For instance, "as we quitted them, followed by grateful glances that lighted us to bed"(Alcott 75). She uses this sentence to say that people smiled at the nurses as they went to bed. She often switches from one subject to another without making any indication of it, leaving you confused. "At the beginning of my reign, dumps and dismals prevailed"(Alcott 77). She says this while she is telling you about the breakfast she is eating. That has nothing to do with breakfast. She is unclear about what she is referring to. The main Conflict doesn't come until the end. She gets sick and needs to decide whether to keep on working there, or go home and try to get better. She decides to go home because her father says, "Come home." I think this book was poorly written, and I don't recommend it to anyone.

A Vivid Account of the Civil War Wounded:
I loved "Hospital Skeches" by Louisa May Alcott. It tells of many wounded soldiers that Louisa actually met in her nursing period at the Georgetown Hospital. It tells of Sergeant Bane and his "Dearest Jane", Doctor P., the 'quiet sleeper', who "would like a drink of water, if you ain't too busy", Billy, Kit, and many others. The only things that I didn't absolutly love about "Hospital Sketches was the font, which was difficult to read, and the fact that Louisa herself isn't the exact main character, name and all. However, Nurse Periwinkle, who replaces Louisa, is an almost carbon copy of Alcott, so I can't really complain. People just don't write books that are as good and as true as this anymore. As I said in my title, this is a truly vivid account of the wounded men and the nurses in the Civil War.