Booknotes: North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals, Volume II

New Arrival:

• North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals 1864-1865, Volume II by Wade Sokolosky (Fox Run Pub, 2025)

Back in 2022, I reviewed Wade Sokolosky's North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals 1861-1863, Volume I, which traced the organizational origins and development of a Civil War military hospital system on the state level. In addition to providing detailed histories of the hospitals within that system, the book insightfully discussed management issues and challenges associated with this network of care facilities as well as how their operations and locations were affected (and in ways determined) by military events nearby and in neighboring states.

North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals 1864-1865, Volume II carries this narrative into the late-war period, documenting further expansion of the state hospital system as well as the disrupting influence of direct invasion as Union forces, their presence before then largely limited to the eastern seaboard, finally penetrated into the heart of North Carolina and crushed all remaining resistance.

Themes developed in Volume II include the profound effects late-war shortages in food and medical supplies had on hospital operations and the expansion of the state's hospital network into the Piedmont interior (a previously "safe" region that was exposed by late-war enemy mounted raids and the inexorable advance of General Sherman's army during the Carolinas Campaign of 1865). In support of the text are numerous maps, tables, photos, and other illustrations.