Jarvis Hospital

Jarvis U.S. General Hospital
Jarvis Hospital c1862. The former Steuart family mansion of Maryland Square is visible in the center.
Geography
Location	Grounds of Maryland Square, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Organisation
Care system	Care of wounded soldiers during the American Civil War.
Hospital type	General
Services
Emergency department	Yes
Beds	1500
History
Founded	1862
Closed	1865

Jarvis U.S. General Hospital was a military hospital founded in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1861, at the beginning of the American Civil War, for the care of wounded Federal soldiers. The hospital was built on the grounds of Maryland Square, the former residence of the Steuart family, which had been confiscated by the Federal government at the outbreak of war. The hospital closed at the end of the war.

Although Maryland was a slave state, she remained in the Union during the Civil War. However, many Marylanders were sympathetic to the Confederacy, including the Steuart family of Baltimore, who were planters and slave owners along the Chesapeake Bay. On April 16, 1861 Brigadier General George H. Steuart (1828–1903), then a captain in the US Army, resigned his commission, left Maryland and joined the Confederacy. His father, Major General George H. Steuart (1790–1867), did the same, though he was by then considered too old for active service. As a consequence of these actions, the family home at Maryland Square, on the Western outskirts of Baltimore, was confiscated by the US government.

In February 1862 a Massachusetts soldier described the property (by then known as "Camp Andrew", after Massachusetts Governor John Andrew):

On May 25, 1862 the property was taken into the control of the medical director of the US Army, with the former Steuart mansion serving as the main administration building for the hospital.

The hospital, which had a capacity of 1,500 beds, was built on relatively high ground, which at the time was on the edge of the city of Baltimore, and, according to one contemporary writer, benefited from "a salubrious air". It was named in memory of surgeon N. S. Jarvis, of the US Army, who died while medical director of the Middle Department.