It is not for me to say whether a better site might not
have been selected, or whether the camp might not have been better
managed. I will take it for granted that improvement might have been
made in both respects, but our concern is rather with what was, than
with what "might have been."
To appreciate Camp Wikoff we must consider two things specially;
first, its purpose, and secondly, the short time allowed to prepare
it; and then go over the whole subject and properly estimate its
extent and the amount of labor involved.
The intention of the camp was to afford a place where our troops,
returning from Cuba, prostrated with climatic fever, and probably
infected with yellow fever, might receive proper medical treatment and
care, until the diseases were subdued. The site was selected with this
in view, and the conditions were admirably suited to such a purpose.
Completely isolated, on dry soil, with dry pure air, cool climate,
away from mosquitoes, the camp seemed all that was desired for a great
field hospital.
Here the sick could come and receive the best that nature had to
bestow in the way of respite from the heat, and pure ocean breezes,
and, taken altogether, the experiences of August and a good part of
September, have justified the selection of Montauk.
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