The First Ambulance Service

The first ambulance service in the United States was established at Commercial Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1865, designed to transport wounded Civil War soldiers from train stations to the hospital. The service used horse-drawn wagons equipped with stretchers, splints, and a small medicine supply. Within a few years similar services had been established in major cities across the country. The design of those first Cincinnati ambulances, with the patient loaded from the rear into a dedicated patient compartment, established the basic form of the ambulance that is still used today.

Source: Wikipedia