entilated hospitals, and encourage women to join the newly-created nursing corps. Despite the efforts of the Sanitary Commission, some 560,000 soldiers died from disease during the war. "The real war will never get in the books . . . the hospital part," wrote poet Walt Whitman, who nursed soldiers in Washington.
             Second to disease as a cause of death was battlefield injuries, totaling some 200,000 casualties. The overwhelming number of wounded created problems in removing them from the battlefield. As late as 1862 there was no ambulance corps on either side. In August of that year, however, Union General George B. McClellan authorized the creation of a trained ambu
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