CityState : Current
FROM TOP LEFT : View of the hospital ’ s main building , also known as Lovell General Hospital ; the hospital building , far left , with soldiers sweeping while a young girl watches ; an unidentified soldier in Union uniform .
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS .
War Wounds
More than 160 years ago , Portsmouth played host to a Civil War hospital . By Paul Kandarian
Though the Civil War never came to Rhode Island , Rhode Island went to the Civil War : The state sent 25,236
Union troops to fight , 1,685 of which died .
But the state has a very literal , visceral connection to that devastating American-versus-American conflict : In Portsmouth Grove , now known as Melville , stood Lovell General Hospital from 1862 to 1865 , where thousands of soldiers , Union and Confederate alike , were treated .
“ Not that many people know about it ,” says Jim Garman , Portsmouth ’ s town historian who taught for nearly four decades at Portsmouth Abbey and has written six books on local history .
No one is really sure why the government ordered the hospital to be built in Rhode Island , Garman says , which involved using an existing resort hotel for administration and building twenty-eight wooden wards to house wounded soldiers .
“ Maybe because it was easy to get them here by rail or boat ,” Garman says of the location on Narragansett Bay . “ The hospital was built to accommodate 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers . But it eventually held 2,400 .”
The hospital was well-known to locals , says Garman , who wrote in a 1981 story for the Sakonnet Times that Aquidneck Island residents donated food and supplies and helped put on celebrations for patients around holidays .
Over Lovell ’ s three-year history , 308 soldiers died from their wounds , disease and infection . They were buried onsite , but years later their remains were moved to Cypress Hill National Cemetery in Brooklyn , New York . According to another local historian ’ s book , Hidden History of Rhode Island and the Civil War by Frank L . Grzyb , in the years Lovell existed , 10,593 patients were treated .
Walking in the area now reveals nothing of its sad past . The site of the sprawling hospital is covered in brush and trees . Nearby are a marina and some businesses , including the popular tourist attraction Rail Explorers Rhode Island , where people can climb aboard sturdy rail bikes and pedal down tracks that once carried soldiers .
But long gone are the pavilions that once held the injured men . When the hospital shut down in August 1865 , any locals who wanted the structures had only to haul them away , Garman says . No one knows for sure if any remain .
When asked how he thought enemy soldiers co-existed in the confines of a hospital , Garman smiles softly .
“ Well ,” Garman says , “ they probably shook hands and played cards .”
A most civil thing to do in the most uncivil of wars .
18 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JUNE 2023