Medicine in the American Civil War
First, injured soldiers were brought to field stations near the battle.  There, medical people gave the soldiers whiskey if they had it and put bandages on them.  Then, the patients were taken to hospitals.  The "hospital" could be only a barn or other building where the doctors had decided to work.  They were not always organized well.  There, the medical people did triage: they looked at the patient to plan what to do next.  They divided patients into three groups: patients who were sure to die soon, patients who needed surgery and other patients.  From there, some soldiers were sent to better hospitals in the bigger cities.  Patients could be taken from place to place in different ways.  General George B. McClellan started an ambulance corps in 1862, and the Confederacy soon made their own.  There were also hospital trains, or steamboats called "sanitary steamers."