Civil War Ambulances

This photograph depicts civil war ambulance wagons arranged in a line that appears never ending. The Civil War was the first war to make use of ambulance wagons and the method was devised due to the vast number of casualties left on the battlefield after the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861. Both the Union and Confederacy lost a vast number of men simply due to the inefficiency in getting them off the field and treated. The civil war ambulance wagon was designed to expediate the process and prevent further death and injury due to massive numbers of bodies left in the field. The ambulance wagons proved their worth in the Battle of Gettysburg where 1000 ambulance wagons were able to evacuate about 20,000 casualties with not a single one remaining on the battlefield. The lines of the photograph – both of the arrangement of the ambulance wagons and the symmetry of the wheels – brings a sharp focus to the photograph. The calm and peace that the photograph exudes sharply contrasts the chaos and turmoil in which the ambulances operate during the time of war. Furthermore, the angle at which the photograph is shot which arranges the seemingly endless line of ambulance wagons against the white of the sky makes the war and its causalities seem endless as well - as if they too have not end in sight.