The history of campaigning affords innumerable incidents illustrating heroism under fire, or equally trying circumstances, and it is difficult and perhaps unjust to single out a few for individual mention. Bravery is confined to no epoch and to no race; it is simply a God-given trait, not by any means possessed by all men. Take, for instance, one incident in the career of Larrey. During the landing of the English on the shores of Aboukir Bay, when General Silly had his knee crushed by a bullet, Larrey appreciated that immediate amputation was imperative, and gaining consent performed it, in three minutes, under the enemy's fire. Just as he was finished the English cavalry charged upon them; in his own words, "I had scarcely time," he said, "to take the wounded officer on my shoulders and carry him rapidly toward our army which was in full retreat. I spied a series of ditches across which I passed, while the enemy had to go around by a more circuitous route. Thus I had the happiness to reach the rear guard of our army before this corps of dragoons reached us. I arrived at Alexandria with this honorable, wounded officer, where I completed his cure."
Perhaps under no circumstance did Larrey's courage and zeal show to better advantage than in the awful retreat from Moscow. For example, after the terrible battle of Borodino, Larrey made two hundred amputations, practically with his own hands, where there were neither couches nor coverings of any kind, when the cold was so intense that the instruments often fell from the benumbed fingers of the surgeons, and when food consisted of horse flesh, cabbage stalks and a few potatoes. And all this while the savage Cossacks were hovering around equally ready to kill both surgeons and patients. Soon after came the passage of the Beresina, with its attendant horrors. General Zayonchek, over sixty years of age, had his knee crushed, and was in need of immediate amputation, which Larrey performed under the enemy's fire, amid the falling snow, with no shelter except a cloak, held by two officers over the patient while the operation was being performed. The General recovered, and died fourteen years later as Viceroy of Poland.
It was after this passage of the Beresina by the Imperial Guard that it was discovered that all the requisites for the sick and wounded had been left behind and on the other side. Larrey at once recrossed the river, and found himself amidst a furious, struggling crowd, in danger of being crushed to death, when suddenly the soldiers recognized him. Immediately they took him up in their arms, crossed the river with him, crying, "let us save him who saved us," and forgot their own safety in their regard for him whose merciful kindness they had so often experienced.
Another incident in Larrey's career: Ever faithful to Napoleon, his adored master, through victory or reverse, Larrey stood one night with a small group of medical men gazing over the field of Waterloo, and upon the wounded and dying who lay groaning around him. Suddenly they were charged by a squadron of Prussian Lancers, at whom Larrey fired his pistols and galloped away, but was overtaken by the Prussians, who shot his horse, sabred him, and left him for dead. After a while he recovered his senses, and tried to make his way across lots to France, but was again captured by another detachment of cavalry, who robbed him of everything, and then took him to headquarters, where it was ordered that he be shot. Think of such a fate for one who had saved so many lives! But the order would have been carried out promptly had not one of the Prussian surgeons recognized Larrey, having attended his lectures several years previously. Accordingly he was brought before Bülow, and finally before Marshall Blücher, whose son had been wounded and captured by the French in the Austrian Campaign, and whose life had been saved by Larrey's exertions. You may imagine that it did not take long to reverse that order for execution.
Praise from Napoleon was most rare, but of Larrey he made this remark in his will, along with a bequest of 100,000 francs, "He is the most virtuous man I have ever known."
Let us mention a few other instances. For example, Surgeon Thomson, who during the Crimean war, after the battle of the Alma, volunteered, with his servant, John McGrath, to remain behind on the open, unsheltered field, with five hundred Russians so wounded as to be disabled or even at the point of death. For three days and nights these two Englishmen remained practically alone upon that field, covered only with dead and dying, among foreign foes, none of them able to help themselves, or even to speak in a language that could be understood.
At the battle of Inkerman Assistant Surgeon Wolesley had established his field hospital in that awful place of slaughter, the Sandbag Battery. When its defenders were reduced to 150 men, and were forced to leave it, most of them retreated in one direction to find, only thirty paces away, a Russian battalion blocking their path. There was not one competent officer left, so this surgeon took command. Seizing a bayonet because he had no sword, he spoke hurriedly to the men, and explained that their next fight was not merely for victory, but for their own lives; then he led them in a charge that tore so fiercely through the Russian detachment that but half of them reached the other side alive.
During the South African campaign the papers recorded (but how few read of it?) the fate of Surgeon Landon, who was shot through the spine while ministering to the wounded on Majuba Hill. Paralyzed below the waist, he had himself propped up, and continued his work as best he could until his strength failed, when he said, "I am dying; do what you can for the wounded."
It may be of interest to devote here a few minutes to the consideration of conditions obtaining at the time of our Revolutionary War. In 1776 the barber surgeon still had a place in the armies of the world and was even then regarded as scarcely more than a menial. Never was he accorded the respect or the honors of a gentleman, nor was he allowed to carry a sword. On the other hand, he was subjected to corporal punishment, and could be caned by his colonel, or almost anyone else, whenever such an act was provoked. It may be said that the English troops were somewhat better equipped than were the hired Hessians, while the French, who came to our aid, brought with them some far better men, who were in many respects a revelation during our revolution and an inspiration to our own so-called surgeons. But our colonial and general governments dealt very stingily with our army medical department, and their professional equipments were of the most meagre; in fact, the history of surgery of those days, either in the army or in civil life, is practically the history of a few prominent individuals, most of whom had spent the time and money required for study abroad, and who had come home bringing back with them the best of their day, such as it was. For instance, there were the Warren brothers, in Boston, of whom the elder, Joseph, started Paul Revere on his famous ride. He was elected President of the Provincial Congress, and just before the battle of Bunker Hill was made Major General of the Continental forces, a position which he preferred to that of Physician General, which he had been offered. During the battle he fought with a musket, as though a private, and was shot down just as the conflict ended. The younger brother, John, lived to achieve fame and reputation, and transmitted them to his posterity.