This photograph depicts an ambulance and medical orderlies removing causalities from the battlefield to a field hospital; similar ambulances were used throughout the war.
Ambulance wagons or wagons especially designed for the transport of the sick or wounded had not been in use in the armies of the United States until just before the outbreak of the Civil War.
Common wagons contained seats for eighteen persons, fourteen inside and four on the front seat. By raising the flaps of the inside seats and removing the cushions a bed for two persons or, in case of an emergency three could be arranged inside the wagon.
Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 31380
