Large numbers of rebel wounded, numbering thousands, were left in our corps hospital; and though attended by their own surgeons, they neglected them so shamefully that it was an act of common humanity to provide better treatment for men helpless and suffering,—prisoners as they were. One of our surgeons volunteered to undertake the duty of attending them, and others were detailed for that purpose. Their condition when captured was so filthy that the task of waiting upon them was a revolting one.
All of our wounded that could bear transportation were forwarded, as rapidly as it could be done, to hospitals in Pennsylvania and Maryland. By the 7th of August there still remained three thousand, who were moved into tents at the United States General Hospital on the York Turnpike; when our corps hospital was merged into this, we removed there; I remained as its matron until the close.
While the wounded were being brought in from different directions, a rebel was placed in a tent of Union men; one of the number protested against having him among them. As they seemed to pay no heed to his objections, ended by saying that “he enlisted to kill rebels, and certainly as they left him there, his crutches would be the death of him—he could use them, if not the musket.” The attendants, finding the soldier was in earnest and the rebel in mortal fear of him, good humoredly took him among his own countrymen. In opposite extremes of the camp this same scene occurred: two men protesting that they “enlisted to kill rebels,” and would not have them under the same shelter.
Captain J. C. H., of the 145th Pennsylvania Vols., from Erie, had much the same idea; he was suffering from a thigh amputation—the only one of nineteen similar cases, performed at the same time, that lived; a rebel officer was placed in the back part of the captain’s tent, when he instantly ordered the nurses to carry him, upon his bed, under a tree which stood near—and there he remained nearly all day, until the surgeon in charge settled the difficulty by removing the rebel.
About one-third of the camp were rebels; this proportion was almost uniformly kept up; rebel ladies from Baltimore and other places were permitted to come and wait upon their own wounded; as matron, it was part of my duties to attend to the distribution of delicacies, etc.; I have waited upon them hour after hour, as kindly as I ever did upon our own loyal men. All this was before I had been among those who were starved in Southern prisons; after having seen them, the task might have been a difficult one. The orders were imperative in the hospital: no difference was permitted in the treatment of the two.
We found, in the rebel wards, the son of a former Secretary of State of New Hampshire, a conscript from Georgia; his life had been repeatedly threatened by them, if he dared to leave, or if he admitted that he was a Union man; so that no one ever suspected the fact, until the rebel officers had all been sent to “Johnson’s Island” or Baltimore; the same evening he came to the Sanitary tent, and told his story; from there taken to headquarters, where it was repeated,—insisting that he would take his own life, rather than leave the hospital a rebel prisoner. To assure him that he was among friends, the provost marshal was sent for, and the oath of allegiance taken. He remained as clerk for some time; when his wound permitted, was sent home.
A nephew of President Johnson, named Burchett, was also a Union man among rebels; with a number of others, they were attempting to come into our lines when captured. The rebels told them they would be put in the front ranks, and when they came to Gettysburg, carrying out their threat, they were made breast-works of. None of the sixty escaped unhurt; many were killed. Burchett lost a leg, and one arm permanently disabled. He was a free-spoken Union man among them, and seemed to be no favorite with the rebs on that account. He remained a prisoner, hoping in the exchange to be sent to Richmond, that he might save some property belonging to his father, who had lost everything in Kentucky.
In the “Union tent,” as it was called, standing alone in a rebel row, I found a boy of seventeen, wounded and “sick unto death,” whose wan, emaciated face, and cheerful endurance of suffering, at once enlisted my sympathy. He was the son of a clergyman in Maine; and in answer to inquiries about his wound, told me, with a feeling of evident pride, that “early in the day his right leg was shattered and left upon Seminary Hill, and he carried to the rear; that the stump was doing badly; he had enlisted simply because it was his duty to do so; now he had no regret or fear, let the result be as it might.” I wrote immediately to his home, to tell them he was sinking rapidly; my next briefly stated how very near his end was; there were but a few days more of gentle endurance, and the presentiment of the child we had so tenderly cared for proved true—when, with murmured words of “home and heaven,” his young life ebbed away—another added to the many thousands given for the life of the nation. One week after his burial his father came; with a heart saddened with his great loss, said that his eldest had fallen at “Malvern Hill,” the second was with the army at Fernandina, and Albert, his youngest born, slept with the heroes who had made a worldwide fame at Gettysburg. They were his treasures, but he gave them freely for his country.
Another, the only child of a widowed mother, from Montgomery County, Penna., lay from July until October, calmly bearing untold agony from a wound which he certainly knew must result in death; yet his one anxious thought, constantly expressed, was: “Mother, do not grieve; it is best, and right; bury me with my comrades on the field.” So, at sunrise one bright autumn morning, his soul went up to God,—the casket which had held it, we laid to rest among the nation’s honored dead in Gettysburg Cemetery.
This bereaved mother, who gave her all for her country,—her eldest upon Antietam’s hard-fought field, Willie at Gettysburg,—with the thousands of others who have made the same precious offering, are names to be gratefully remembered and cherished while the record of this war endures.