Hospital Sketches

Alcott’s younger brother Tom is a flat character who appears only in the beginning of Hospital Sketches, but he serves a crucial role in launching the narrative and establishing Alcott’s character. Chapter 1 begins with Alcott stating that she wants “something to do” (1). Her family offers numerous options that do not interest her, until Tom suggests, “Go nurse the soldiers” (1). His suggestion immediately interests her, and she enlists, prompting his admiration.

When her commission arrives, it is not at the desired Armory Hospital, but “a much less desirable one” (2) at Hurly-burly House, foreshadowing her later critiques. Tom immediately assumes that she will reject it and offers to bring her trunk back up to her room. His assumption rankles her. Though she privately admits that her resolve had been wavering, she cannot bear the idea of her brother’s “disdainful pity” (3) and announces her intention to leave that same day. The episode establishes her stubborn nature, which fuels her resolve through challenges that she faces across the narrative.

Teddy is a 12-year-old drummer boy who appears in the narrative in Chapter 4, when Alcott describes her experiences on night duty in the hospital. The first time Alcott mentions him is when she describes how her patients change when they are sleeping. Some grow more or less merry, others talk, and Teddy sings sweetly, though no amount of “persuasion could win a note from him by day” (34). 

Teddy arrived with the rest of the wounded from Fredericksburg. He had been lying in a camp until a soldier called Kit “wrapp[ed] him in his own blanket, carried him in his arms to the transport, tended him during the passage, and only yielded up his charge when Death met him at the door of the hospital” (36), secure in the knowledge that Teddy would be safe there. Alcott describes Teddy suffering fever and chills alongside grief for having lost Kit. He also feels guilt because he is persuaded that he caused Kit’s death.

Alcott is with Teddy when she receives the news that John is on his deathbed. Teddy wakes up sobbing from a “vivid dream” (37) that triggers his grief for Kit. Alcott’s description draws attention to the boy’s innocence and youth. She describes his “little bed” and “tearful little face” (36) looking up at her as he laments that he was not thinner when Kit carried him. If only he had not been so heavy, he tells Alcott, Kit might not have died. No matter what Alcott tells him, Teddy will not be comforted. He is a child, but he is going through experiences that even grown men struggle to process and endure. Through Teddy, Alcott rounds out her portrait of the emotional and physical cost of war, showing how even children are impacted.

John is a Virginia blacksmith who fights and dies for the Union cause. He was not among the first patients to arrive from Fredericksburg because he chose to stay behind and allow others apparently more seriously wounded to go first. 

Before she meets John, Alcott hears about his qualities from a friend of his, who praises “his courage, sobriety, self-denial, and unfailing kindness of heart” (38). She describes John as a large, “stately looking man” who needs the bed lengthened to “accommodate his commanding stature” (38). Attractive, with brown hair and a beard, John is compassionate towards others and never complains or makes demands. He is a dignified and serious man but also capable of smiling “as sweet as any woman” and has “a child’s eyes” (38), steady and trusting.

The only occasion Alcott recalls where his composure seems to falter is during a consultation with a surgeon. His face only clouds momentarily before returning to his usual serenity, as if “he had acknowledged the existence of some hard possibility” and “left the issue in God’s hands” (38). The following evening, Alcott learns from the doctor that John is the patient whose suffering is most acute. His size, vigor, and lack of complaint had led her to mistakenly believe that he was not seriously wounded.

Alcott is devastated because the “army needed men like John, earnest, brave, and faithful; fighting for liberty and justice with both heart and hand, true soldiers of the Lord” (39). She begins to watch John more carefully and notices that, despite his pain, he is holding himself up while the surgeon dresses his wounded back. After that, she devotes herself to attending to him. He is grateful, admitting that it was just what he had wanted, though he had not wanted to trouble her by asking for help.

Alcott makes sure that the rest of his days are filled with the comforts that he would never directly ask for. John’s example teaches Alcott to care not only for the most demanding, but also the most deserving, who often will not ask for anything due to their strong and self-sacrificing characters. In the narrative, John represents the ideal Union soldier, who dies calmly and bravely at sunrise. Alcott is moved by his death.