and inattentive, they
were promptly reported to the medical director. The condition of the
hospitals in the city was, however, much better than that of the
hospitals and convalescent camps over the river, in Virginia. A visit
which she made to one of these, significantly named by the soldiers,
"Camp Misery," in September, 1862, revealed to her, wretchedness,
suffering and neglect, such as she had not before witnessed; and she
promptly secured from the Sanitary Commission such supplies as were
needed, and in her frequent visits there for the next three months,
distributed them with her own hands, while she encouraged and promoted
such changes in the management and arrangements of the camp as greatly
improved its condition.

This "Camp Misery" was the original Camp of Distribution, to which were
sent, 1st, men discharged from all the hospitals about Washington, as
well as the regimental, brigade, division and post hospitals, as
convalescent, or as unfit for duty, preparatory to their final discharge
from the army; 2d, stragglers and deserters, recaptured and collected
here preparatory to being forwarded to their regiments; 3d, new recruits
awaiting orders to join regiments in the field. Numerous attempts had
been made to improve the condition of this camp, but owing to the small
number and inefficiency of the officers detailed to the command, it had
constantly grown worse. The convalescents, numbering nine or ten
thousand, were lodged, in the depth of a very severe winter, in wedge
and Sibley tents, without floors, with no fires, or means of making any,
amid deep mud or frozen clods, and were very poorly supplied with
clothing, and many of them without blankets. Under such circumstances,
it was not to be expected that their health could improve. The
stragglers and deserters and the new recruits were even worse off than
the convalescents. The assistant surgeon and his acting assistants, up
to the last of October, 1862, were too inexperienced to be competent for
their duties.

In December, 1862, orders were issued by the Government for the
construction of a new Rendezvous of Distribution, at a point near Fort
Barnard, Virginia, on the Loudon and Hampshire Railroad, the erection of
new and more comfortable barracks, and the removal of the men from the
old camp to it. The barracks for the convalescents were fifty in number
and intended for the accommodation of one hundred men each, and they
were completed in February, 1863,