Act of Kindness at 2nd Manassas - 73rd Ohio

lelliott19

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"The wounded Federals strewn across Chinn Ridge received little aid and comfort that night. Those who could still walk struggled to the Chinn House as circumstances permitted. One of them, Erskine Carson of the 73rd Ohio, had been wounded in the left leg and hobbled through the Chinn or chard until he reached the woodshed, where he bedded down for the night. To make matters worse, some Confederate stragglers stole Carson's pocket watch and blanket. Carson recalled the night as being one of horror:

Saturday night was a gloomy night, for all through the night there came the groaning and crying of men who were undergoing operations in the stone (Chinn) house that can never be effaced from my memory. During the night a Rebel soldier crawled up alongside of me, shot through both legs and it was piteous to hear him cry from the suffering his wounds caused him.

Carson lay on the field for several days before anyone tended his wounds. On Sunday night, he experienced severe abdominal pains that distressed him even more than his leg wound. A Georgian belonging to the ambulance corps stopped to talk with him. Learning of the Ohioan's suffering, the "kind hearted" Georgian administered a healthy dose of laudanam, which provided Carson "immediate relief." The two enemies established a rapport and traded addresses, hoping to meet again. On Monday, Carson, along with many of the Federal wounded was taken to the Fairfax County courthouse in an ambulance; his military service had ended. Two years later in Ohio, Carson received a letter from the Georgian, who had been taken prisoner at Gettysburg. The Georgian had taken the oath of allegiance and now needed a place to go in the North. Carson arranged a job for the Georgian on the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, allowing him to begin a new chapter of his life in Ohio."

Second Manassas: Longstreet's Attack and the Struggle for Chinn Ridge,
Scott Patchan, pp 110-111.

https://books.google.com/books?id=9LgK73rLDs8C&lpg=PA110&dq=Wounded federals strewn across Chinn Ridge&pg=PA111#v=onepage&q=Wounded federals strewn across Chinn Ridge&f=false
 
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That was quite wonderful, thank you! Fell free to add more of the same- so much blood and death and horrors on the battlefields of the Civil War, these stories are always wonderful little ' out takes '.
 
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