Hospital Sketches

Content Warning: The section of the guide includes discussion of racism, gender-discrimination, illness, and death.

The postscript is addressed to “My Dear S.” whose questions echo those of other “friendly readers of the Sketches” (61).

The first question Alcott addresses asks whether religious services were held at patients’ deathbeds and on Sundays. She responds that she hopes they are at most hospitals, but at hers, the dead were typically taken away without ceremony. She recalls a Maine soldier’s remark that soldiers left to die this way after all they have endured suggests that few Christians live in Washington. One of her friends spoke to the chaplain about ministering to the patients’ souls, but nothing changed. She later learned that the chaplain had taught at a Southern college and wonders if he was a secessionist, though he denied it. 

On the occasional Sunday, staff and patients held a service in the Ball Room. Singing was the most engaging part. Rather than relevant and enjoyable Bible stories, they were given “dry explanations” and “literal applications” (62). She concludes that the men were given “the chaff of divinity” while “its wheat” (62) was left for those who knew where to find it. She notes that “our New England boys” (63) did try to observe the day in a variety of ways.