Barrycdog
Major
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2013
- Location
- Buford, Georgia
My 80 Years in Atlanta
by Sara Huff
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http://www.artery.org/08_history/UpperArtery/CivilWar/SaraHuff/My80YearsInAtlanta_All.pdf&ei=B_BCUb7uDpSl4APUqoCACw&usg=AFQjCNE9YsykdeheovFK9bClWzF1zOr0-w
It was on July the 22, the day after we left home because the fighting was so near, that my
younger brother John's keen ears caught the sound of distant firing (The Battle of Atlanta).
Before that fiery July sun had set, thousands of as brave men as ever joined battle, were
numbered among the dead. And I saw thousands more brought into the city in ominous black
covered ambulances which made their slow, pain-laden way up Decatur Street to several
improvised hospitals where Dr. Noe D'Alvigny and Dr. Logan, as well as many of Atlanta's most
prominent ladies, waited to try to ease their suffering.
As the battle, raging to the east and southeast of us, grew more fierce, the line of ambulances
creeping up Decatur Street increased. The dismal-looking vehicles had their side curtains lifted
to let in the air, for the heat was intense.
We could see from our viewpoint, in front of the old-time residence of Charles Shearer Sr., the
blood trickling down from the wounds of the poor helpless victims of one of the war's most
terrible battles.
Men were clinging to sides of the hospital
vans trying to fan away the terrible swarms of
flies which hovered over the wounded, My
young brother John went into action, as he
usually did when he saw a chance to be helpful.
Noticing that a fly brush had just fallen from
the hands of a man on one of the ambulances,
and had been crushed by the heavy wheels, he
grabbed the slit-paper fly brush that mother
handed him, and leaping to the side of the
slow-moving ambulance, became one of the
most efficient fly fanners in the procession. He
was less than 12 years of age.
On one of the wagons sat a priest comforting
a dying soldier. Later on this same man of God
aided Dr. D'Alvigny in saving the churches and
the Medical College
In company with us that day on the
battlefield was an elderly couple looking for
their son. They were about to come away
when we saw a temporary burial going on in a
nearby thicket. Their soldier boy was being put
under the ground.
When mother and the rest of us walked over
the battlefield of July 22 (Battle of Atlanta) on
the day after it was fought over, the ground
looked as though it had been plowed up and it
was literally red with blood that had been
spilled there the day before.
During the battle the bullets fell thickly in the yard of the Atlanta Medical College where Dr.
D'Alvigny was operating. His daughter, Pauline D'Alvigny Campbell, who was assisting her
father, narrowly escaped being hit several times, since on account of the intense heat the
operating table had been carried out into the shade of several nearby trees. Now it was hurriedly
carried in. Pauline picked up some of the bullets, and showed them to me fifty years later, shortly
before her death. She and my mother were lifetime friends.
My eyes have watched the path of a shell as it stretched like a shining thread across the war
clouds hanging over the city of Atlanta in the summer of 1864. Fireworks of later years have in
exposition displays reminded me of the dramatic night scenes of my war-time childhood.
Rockets seem to curve in their course, while a shell moves on as evenly as did Lindbergh as I
watched him sail into Atlanta
Peter Paul Noel D'Alvigney was a surgeon for the 9th Battalion Georgia Artillery
by Sara Huff
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http://www.artery.org/08_history/UpperArtery/CivilWar/SaraHuff/My80YearsInAtlanta_All.pdf&ei=B_BCUb7uDpSl4APUqoCACw&usg=AFQjCNE9YsykdeheovFK9bClWzF1zOr0-w
It was on July the 22, the day after we left home because the fighting was so near, that my
younger brother John's keen ears caught the sound of distant firing (The Battle of Atlanta).
Before that fiery July sun had set, thousands of as brave men as ever joined battle, were
numbered among the dead. And I saw thousands more brought into the city in ominous black
covered ambulances which made their slow, pain-laden way up Decatur Street to several
improvised hospitals where Dr. Noe D'Alvigny and Dr. Logan, as well as many of Atlanta's most
prominent ladies, waited to try to ease their suffering.
As the battle, raging to the east and southeast of us, grew more fierce, the line of ambulances
creeping up Decatur Street increased. The dismal-looking vehicles had their side curtains lifted
to let in the air, for the heat was intense.
We could see from our viewpoint, in front of the old-time residence of Charles Shearer Sr., the
blood trickling down from the wounds of the poor helpless victims of one of the war's most
terrible battles.
Men were clinging to sides of the hospital
vans trying to fan away the terrible swarms of
flies which hovered over the wounded, My
young brother John went into action, as he
usually did when he saw a chance to be helpful.
Noticing that a fly brush had just fallen from
the hands of a man on one of the ambulances,
and had been crushed by the heavy wheels, he
grabbed the slit-paper fly brush that mother
handed him, and leaping to the side of the
slow-moving ambulance, became one of the
most efficient fly fanners in the procession. He
was less than 12 years of age.
On one of the wagons sat a priest comforting
a dying soldier. Later on this same man of God
aided Dr. D'Alvigny in saving the churches and
the Medical College
In company with us that day on the
battlefield was an elderly couple looking for
their son. They were about to come away
when we saw a temporary burial going on in a
nearby thicket. Their soldier boy was being put
under the ground.
When mother and the rest of us walked over
the battlefield of July 22 (Battle of Atlanta) on
the day after it was fought over, the ground
looked as though it had been plowed up and it
was literally red with blood that had been
spilled there the day before.
During the battle the bullets fell thickly in the yard of the Atlanta Medical College where Dr.
D'Alvigny was operating. His daughter, Pauline D'Alvigny Campbell, who was assisting her
father, narrowly escaped being hit several times, since on account of the intense heat the
operating table had been carried out into the shade of several nearby trees. Now it was hurriedly
carried in. Pauline picked up some of the bullets, and showed them to me fifty years later, shortly
before her death. She and my mother were lifetime friends.
My eyes have watched the path of a shell as it stretched like a shining thread across the war
clouds hanging over the city of Atlanta in the summer of 1864. Fireworks of later years have in
exposition displays reminded me of the dramatic night scenes of my war-time childhood.
Rockets seem to curve in their course, while a shell moves on as evenly as did Lindbergh as I
watched him sail into Atlanta
Peter Paul Noel D'Alvigney was a surgeon for the 9th Battalion Georgia Artillery