From the Richmond Daily Whig, 30 November 1863
A GROSS OUTRAGE – We have received a communication from a soldier, giving an account of what he terms a "gross outrage" practised on invalid soldiers at Chimborazo Hospital. It seems that when the patients obtain sick furloughs, and are about to start for the trains which are to convey them homeward, a person named Hix proposes to convey them to the depot in an ambulance for three dollars per head. The indignation of our correspondent has been aroused at this treatment of soldiers "whose health and limbs have been shattered in the service," because he was lead to believe that the ambulance belonged to the Government. We are informed, however, that Hix owns an ambulance, and, presumptively, the team, which, being the fact, it is no "outrage" on his part to charge soldiers a reasonable fare when they use his ambulance. But we also learn that there are two or three Government ambulances under the control of the authorities of Chimborazo, and it seems outrageous that they do not use them in sending furloughed soldiers, enfeebled by disease or wounds, to the depots, instead of turning them loose to get there on foot, or by paying Hix three dollars for the privilege of a ride in his ambulance.