Uncovering the East Bay’s War Wounds

View of the hospital’s main building, also known as Lovell General Hospital; Photography courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Though the Civil War never came to Rhode Island, Rhode Island went to the Civil War: The state sent 25,236 Union troops to fight, 1,685 of which died.

But the state has a very literal, visceral connection to that devastating American-versus-American conflict: In Portsmouth Grove, now known as Melville, stood Lovell General Hospital from 1862 to 1865, where thousands of soldiers, Union and Confederate alike, were treated.

“Not that many people know about it,” says Jim Garman, Portsmouth’s town historian who taught for nearly four decades at Portsmouth Abbey and has written six books on local history.

No one is really sure why the government ordered the hospital to be built in Rhode Island, Garman says, which involved using an existing resort hotel for administration and building twenty-eight wooden wards to house wounded soldiers.

“Maybe because it was easy to get them here by rail or boat,” Garman says of the location on Narragansett Bay. “The hospital was built to accommodate 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers. But it eventually held 2,400.”

An unidentified soldier in Union uniform. Photography courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The hospital was well-known to locals, says Garman, who wrote in a 1981 story for the Sakonnet Times that Aquidneck Island residents donated food and supplies and helped put on celebrations for patients around holidays.

Over Lovell’s three-year history, 308 soldiers died from their wounds, disease and infection. They were buried onsite, but years later their remains were moved to Cypress Hill National Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. According to another local historian’s book, Hidden History of Rhode Island and the Civil War by Frank L. Grzyb, in the years Lovell existed, 10,593 patients were treated.

Walking in the area now reveals nothing of its sad past. The site of the sprawling hospital is covered in brush and trees. Nearby are a marina and some businesses, including the popular tourist attraction Rail Explorers Rhode Island, where people can climb aboard sturdy rail bikes and pedal down tracks that once carried soldiers.

But long gone are the pavilions that once held the injured men. When the hospital shut down in August 1865, any locals who wanted the structures had only to haul them away, Garman says. No one knows for sure if any remain.

When asked how he thought enemy soldiers co-existed in the confines of a hospital, Garman smiles softly.

“Well,” Garman says, “they probably shook hands and played cards.” 

A most civil thing to do in the most uncivil of wars.

The hospital building, far left, with soldiers sweeping while a young girl watches. Photography courtesy of the Library of Congress.