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DURING THE CIVIL WAR, BLACK SOLDIERS ENDURED DISCRIMINAtion in a variety of forms. They served in segregated units and almost always under white officers. Enlistment bounties and pay were unequal for black troops throughout much of the war, and they had severely limited opportunity for promotion or appointment as commissioned officers. Men in the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) endured harassment and violence from “friend” and foe alike because of their skin color. Although they all donned the same Union blue, at times the Federal government issued them inferior equipment and deficient food rations. And high-ranking officers called upon black men in the USCT to perform subordinate and sometimes degrading duties in place of whites. Although scholars have discussed and documented these racial abuses thoroughly, they have devoted scant attention to the most costly aspect of discrimination in the Union army, its medical care.Throughout the war black soldiers suffered from a shortage of qualified physicians and staff, endured abusive treatment at the hands of harshly racist surgeons, lost untold lives due to separate and woefully unequal hospital facilities, and served a disproportionate amount of duty in the most unhealthy environments. All this resulted in a mortality rate due to illness two and a half times greater than for white soldiers. Approximately 79,000 blacks served in the Union army. According to official records, there were over 600,000 cases of illness and over 0,000 wounds among black troops. Nearly 37,000 black soldiers, or one of every five, died during the war, and of those almost 30,000 died from disease alone. The Costliness of Discrimination: Medical Care for Black Troops in the Civil War JOSEPH T. GLATTHAAR 25 The burden for this enormous workload fell to a couple of hundred white and a few black physicians.2 Once the War Department began organizing black units in earnest, it had problems securing competent medical officers.The war placed unusual demands on the services of physicians, particularly those with medical-school training who were physically fit for field duty.White volunteer units already had gobbled up many of these men to serve as surgeons and assistant surgeons, and among those who were left,few found the prospects of duty with black soldiers pleasing. The surgeon general of the army realized that he could not compel whites to join the USCT, nor could he lower standards for applicants. What he could do, though, was make the examination more accessible to those who wanted to take it. He ordered the formation of permanent boards for the examination of USCT medical-officer candidates in the six largest cities and authorized temporary boards in various other locations “as the exigencies of the service demand.” Officially there was to be no softening of the requirements. “Quali- fications of Medical Officers of Colored Troops,”the surgeon general ordered, “should be equal to the standard required for those serving with other Troops.”3 These efforts alone proved wholly unsatisfactory, for boards could not provide enough surgeons and assistant surgeons to keep pace with the rapid expansion of black units. Meanwhile departmental commanders protested the critical shortage of medical personnel in the USCT. In reply, all Maj. Charles W. Foster, the head of the Bureau of Colored Troops, could write was “there are no candidates available for appointment” and “great difficulty is experienced in obtaining medical officers.”4 One seemingly logical place to turn was to black physicians. The small number of qualified black doctors in the United States certainly had an interest in serving in the USCT. The problem was that prejudiced whites had a powerful desire to keep them out of the service. Government officials feared the reaction of white soldiers who went before black physicians, especially during the chaos of battle, when surgeons treated men brought before them regardless of unit. They also worried about the implications of having blacks as field-grade officers, which was the rank surgeons received. By the war’s end the army could only entice eight black physicians to serve.5 While the War Department made limited progress procuring surgeons for the USCT, commanding officers needed someone to care for their sick and injured troops. Usually they assigned anyone with medical training, no matter how slight. In most cases former hospital stewards assumed the role of acting 252 JOSEPH T. GLATTHAAR [3.149.229.253] Project MUSE (2024-04-20...

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