Poor William Hirst – Sick and alone in the General Hospital of Tournay, 1793

In today’s post, we look back from 2020, where we are in the midst of a pandemic crisis ourselves, to 1793 only to find our poor Private William Hirst sick and alone in the General Hospital of Tournay.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/10/18/health-care-politics-aca/

I have been 6 Weeks in the General Hospital in this Town in the Fever and the Ague and am not quiet [sic] recovered yet

William Hirst – Hirst Letter #4 – 24 November 1793

His body is wracked by fever and “ague.” He is surrounded by others dying from the “flue.” Fever could mean any number of things in the 18th century. “Ague” was a particularly nasty variant of fever, most likely malaria “in which your body shakes.” Filth and disease were the true killers in the 18th and 19th century Army.

Disease carried out its own seasoning process; it was truly survival of the fittest. If a new recruit could make it through his first six months in the ranks, his chances of survival in the months and years ahead improved greatly.

But even seasoned recruits were often plagued with non-fatal illnesses. In Nature’s Civil War; Common Soldiers and the Environment, Professor Katheryn Shivley Meier estimates that at any given time, 20-30% of the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac during the Seven Day’s Battles were on the sick list. Typical maladies were fever, ague, and dyspepsia. This correlates well with the Duke of Wellington’s observation that usually thirty percent of his Peninsular army was on the sick list. It should also be remembered that many soldiers who were ill declined to allow themselves to be placed on the sick list. That usually had to do with both personal fortitude and a fear of army physicians, known around the bivouac fires as “saw bones.”

John M. Danielski Germ Warfare – Filth and Disease Were the Real Killers in Wars of the 18th and 19th Centuries from MilitaryHistoryNow.com • 5 November, 2018 

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2016/03/02/the-bloody-flux-how-one-british-army-doctor-waged-a-war-on-dysentery/

An Officer’s Side of the Story

Before we knew more about Hirst, Douglas Fyfe hypothesized that he might have been an Officer. Would that he had been! For his experience in Tournay might have been markedly different.

While researching the phrase “general hospital Tournay 1793” I encountered two contemporary published accounts digitized by Google of the French Revolutionary Wars as told by British soldiers. The first, “A Sketch of the Campaign of 1793. Letters from An Officer of the Guards, on the Continent, to a Friend in Devonshire.” Published in London, 1795. The second, “An Accurate and Impartial Narrative of The War By an Officer of the Guards. In Two Volumes. Comprising the Campaigns of 1793, 1794, and the Retreat Through Holland to Westphalia, in 1795.” Published in London, 1796.

The accounts of the Campaign of 1793 are pretty well identical and almost certainly written by the same person. In fact, the second and longer version includes an accusation that the first published account was stolen from the author by a duplicitous ‘friend’ and fellow officer.

The 1796 version is sub-titled “Original Poetical Epistles From Headquarters.” An epistle being a letter in verse, usually addressed to a person close to the writer, popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The writer even includes a few satirical sketches, like the one below.

From An Accurate and Impartial Narrative of The War By an Officer of the Guards. In Two Volumes. Comprising the Campaigns of 1793, 1794, and the Retreat Through Holland to Westphalia, in 1795.” Published in London, 1796. p. 126.

This brief quote from “A Sketch…” serves to show the stark contrast between Private William Hirst’s account of constant apparently aimless marching only to end up in hospital – and an Officer’s muttering but eventual thanks for the comfort of the monastary, all for the benefit of “Lucy” his “charmer.”

Letter VI.
Head Quarters, Abbaïe, St. Martin
Tournay, Oct. 26, 1793
 
‘Tis strange all the croakers together should join,
To blame us for quitting the camp of Cisoine.
And pretend that the safety of Flanders depended;
On having the Frontier completely defended.
‘Tis a comfort however, this proves very plain,
They blame without reason, and this I’ll maintain.
A soldier on service must hardships endure,
And has no right to grumble, or mutter, I’m sure.
Tho’ forc’d in cold weather to sleep on the ground,
The tents left behind, and no straw to be found;
With scarcely a batt horse allow’d in the line,
He came here to suffer, and should nor repine.
But rather should glory, to smart in a cause,
Soon or late that must crown him with well-earn’d applause;
... 
To Camphain to morrow our way we pursue,
And bid to the monks of St. Martin’s adieu,
It grieves me to leave the good fathers, I own,
Where such comfort and real enjoyment we’ve known,
This change tho’ unpleasant, I’ll bear like a man,
And make myself happy as long as I can.
All the news when we’re settled my charmer shall hear,
Till when I remain, her adorer sincere!

The General Hospital of Tournay c. 1793

But of Tournay, or Tournai, the author notes in less flamboyant prose – and this is of special interest as we know poor William Hirst is actually lying there …

The general hospital at Tournay was filled with invalids, and the inattention to their comforts, which has since arisen to such a shameful height, was even at the early period of the war conspicuous in the medical department. Two men were often placed in the same bed, the one complaining of dysentery, the other of a putrid fever; death to both patients usually ensued from such ignorance, added to the other instances of inhuman treatment and neglect, and the mortality was consequently great. Sour Burgundy which was substituted for port wine, as it could be purchased at the rate of about ten-pence a bottle, was the only liquor served out to the sick, heightening in general their disorders; and a regimental surgeon who had the weakness to feel for his suffering fellow-creatures, when visiting the hospital, to enquire after the patients in his own battalion, was called on to procure them water to moisten their parched lips, as they had not, they declared, for many hours been furnished with a drop of any kind of liquid!

An Accurate and Impartial Narrative of The War By An Officer of the Guards in Two Volumes – Comprising the Campaigns of 1793, 1794, and the Retreat Through Holland to Westphalia in 1795. (Introducing also the Original Poetical Epistles from Head-Quarters…) The Third Edition, Enlarged. Vol. 1. Published 1796. p. 143

So, dear reader, I leave you here for now. Will William Hirst survive the fever and the ague or, like his friend Henry Willcock, in Letter #4, succumb to the horrors of the General Hospital of Tournay?

Read on …