Chimborazo Hospital was a Civil War-era facility built in Richmond, Virginia to service the medical needs of the Confederate Army.

Most Richmond-area military hospitals were not purpose-built buildings, but rather repurposed existing structures, including warehouses, hotels, homes, and stores.

[1] Since most Confederate soldiers would be wintering further north, Moore decided to convert the barracks into a hospital, appointing Dr. James B. McCaw, a professor at the Medical College of Virginia, as surgeon-in-chief.

There were ninety hospital wards, which all had shingled roofs, wood-plank floors, and whitewashed walls (interior and exterior).

Each building was surrounded by wide avenues, as McCaw believed fresh air was a medical necessity for recovery.

[2] For most of the war, even when the wounded from the nearby Seven Days Battles required tents to accommodate overflow, food was sufficient and medical care received praise.

However, as occurred at all hospitals of the day, available resources were not always sufficient and sometimes organizational structures broke down, leading to insufficient care and an unsanitary environment.

As news arrived of Robert E. Lee's retreat from the Siege of Petersburg on April 2, 1865, patients began to leave voluntarily or be evacuated.

The major violent incidents came in March 1866, which were initially characterized by local media sources depicting the conflicts as "Negros" terrorizing defenseless white people.