Shiloh Wounded taken to Vicksburg

Forrest

Sergeant
Joined
Sep 25, 2015
I know that eventually some of the wounded ended up in Vicksburg. Does anyone have additional information? (how many, were they overflow from Corinth, etc., were they the ones with lesser wounds, etc.) Thanks.
 
Would you mind elaborating on your question, please? Do you mean you have information that wounded from that particular place were channeled to Vicksburg or are looking for an overview of which wounded from which places were sent where? Is it just Corinth you're interested in?

Vicksburg had quite a few hospitals, some were homes, like most towns during the war visited by violence. Must have been crazy for the citizens, gosh.
 
I know wounded members of the 22nd Kentucky were funneled back to Vicksburg after the fall of the city. They came from various places like Louisiana until they got closers to New Orleans when they were funneled there. That's about the extent of my knowledge of Union hospitals there.
 
Would you mind elaborating on your question, please? Do you mean you have information that wounded from that particular place were channeled to Vicksburg or are looking for an overview of which wounded from which places were sent where? Is it just Corinth you're interested in?

Vicksburg had quite a few hospitals, some were homes, like most towns during the war visited by violence. Must have been crazy for the citizens, gosh.

My question refers specifically to soldiers who were wounded at Shiloh and ended up being taken to Vicksburg. I am researching Vicksburg during the summer of 1862, and one of the events that occurred then was wounded soldiers arriving by train from Shiloh (I read this in diary/journal accounts of Vicksburg citizens). I assume they were taken to Corinth prior to Vicksburg, not enough room, or left Corinth when it was evacuated, then taken to be treated elsewhere. I'm also assuming that the worst injured were treated in 'earlier' towns than Vicksburg, and that Vicksburg ended up with sick and less wounded....but how wounded is 'less wounded'? and I would rather stop assuming if at all possible :smile:

The 4th Louisiana also arrived in Vicksburg that summer, after fighting at Shiloh, but then were sent elsewhere later that same summer of 1862. It could be that the wounded I am reading about actually arrived with the 4th and that no soldiers were otherwise sent, and that the diary entries were slightly mistaken. I just can't find anything on this other than the diary entries.
 
I know wounded members of the 22nd Kentucky were funneled back to Vicksburg after the fall of the city. They came from various places like Louisiana until they got closers to New Orleans when they were funneled there. That's about the extent of my knowledge of Union hospitals there.

Are you saying they were funneled to Vicksburg after Shiloh?
 
My question refers specifically to soldiers who were wounded at Shiloh and ended up being taken to Vicksburg...

Forrest, I realized what you meant, although I had to LOOK at where you had posted the thread in the first place! On the homepage where threads originally appear, it isn't obvious at all, so it would've helped if you titled the thread something like Were Shiloh Wounded Taken to Vicksburg?
 
Forrest, I realized what you meant, although I had to LOOK at where you had posted the thread in the first place! On the homepage where threads originally appear, it isn't obvious at all, so it would've helped if you titled the thread something like Were Shiloh Wounded Taken to Vicksburg?

Okay. I posted it in the 'Shiloh' sub-forum, so I thought that would handle it, but I see what you are saying. I also have a problem with searches on particular topics at times, and I suspect it's the same sort of issue.
 
I don't know if this info will be useful as far as your particular needs but thought I'd put it out there just in case. This came up recently while researching someone's family - some Union sick and wounded were taken to hospital barges on the Mississippi River near Young's Point, Louisiana (which is pretty close to Vicksburg). The men we were researching were mainly from the Midwest - Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio - and many died of sickness - pneumonia, consumption, and chronic diarrhea. Time frame shortly before the fall of Vicksburg. Some had been at Shiloh.
 
It's possible to edit the thread title? If you edit it to what James suggests would probably get even more replies- we have so many well read members it's a shame to miss anyone else with information.

And whoa, there's a topic I've never seen discussed, how hospitals in Vicksburg fared during the siege. Had not occurred to me, wounded being in the city. Must have suffered from shortages along with everyone else plus can't imagine some were able to be moved to the shelters dug all over.
 
It's possible to edit the thread title? If you edit it to what James suggests would probably get even more replies- we have so many well read members it's a shame to miss anyone else with information.

And whoa, there's a topic I've never seen discussed, how hospitals in Vicksburg fared during the siege. Had not occurred to me, wounded being in the city. Must have suffered from shortages along with everyone else plus can't imagine some were able to be moved to the shelters dug all over.

I can't figure out how to edit the title :frown:

I think Shaara does a great job of describing the city hospital during the siege, using a composite female character. You can go straight to his sources by checking out the diaries of some of the women he references at the very beginning of the novel. As some have already mentioned, many soldiers ended up in private residences - also from journals and diaries, soldiers often expressed that survival depended on being placed in a private residence, as opposed to a hospital (not just during the Vicksburg siege). I also have found references to soldiers from the river batteries being loaned to the hospital (I think the Marine Hospital was the one I saw - it was south of town).

During 1862, shortly after Shiloh, the city hospital must have been dealing mainly with sick - there was a measles epidemic that effected at least the 26th and 27th Louisiana infantry, and possibly the heavy artillery batteries, although I can't find references to it by any artillerymen. There were some soldiers wounded by the gunboat attacks, but not many. My assumption would be that towns, hospitals, residences had been found for most of Shiloh's wounded before they got as far as Vicksburg. Of course, hospitals and handling of wounded during the 1863 siege was a different thing, due to the outer defenses.

The summer 1862 situation wasn't so much a siege to the soldiers, as they weren't penned in by Union ground troops on the North, South and West, and the gunboats left them alone for periods; however, to the civilians who stayed, it was probably almost as bad, as they still faced the bombardment from the Union gunboats.
 
I can't figure out how to edit the title :frown:

Forrest, look at the top of this page - over at the right side appears Thread Tools^ Unwatch Thread; click on the little arrow and a "pull down" will appear that says Edit Title. Click on that and it will let you redo the title however you want.
 
Forrest, look at the top of this page - over at the right side appears Thread Tools^ Unwatch Thread; click on the little arrow and a "pull down" will appear that says Edit Title. Click on that and it will let you redo the title however you want.

Got it - thanks!
 
Shaara! Thanks very much! It may sound awful but have never read his Vicksburg work- so much for skipping books based on personal preference. Sounds as if I missed a huge amount on a topic where information can be annoyingly scanty. Well, unless one reads nurse's journals and the old, archived books. They're pretty amazing. Our Confederate nurses were able to leave less first hand accounts so anything on Vicksburg is most welcome.
 
I don't believe that all were taken to Vicksburg. There are 13 graves of unknown Confederate soldiers along side the Natchez Trace just south of Cherokee, Alabama.
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Shaara! Thanks very much! It may sound awful but have never read his Vicksburg work- so much for skipping books based on personal preference. Sounds as if I missed a huge amount on a topic where information can be annoyingly scanty. Well, unless one reads nurse's journals and the old, archived books. They're pretty amazing. Our Confederate nurses were able to leave less first hand accounts so anything on Vicksburg is most welcome.

Shaara gets his women's views from Emma Balfour, Mary Ann Loughborough, Lucy McRae, Dora Miller and Mollie Tompkins - some are free online if you dig around. I have the writings of all but Mollie Tompkins. If you are interested in doing more research, some of Betty Eggleston's writings are available at LSU and Univ. North Carolina, but apparently nowhere else (not published) - she volunteered at the City Hospital and is mentioned by soldiers, but I have no idea what she might have written. Apparently, she even had a cannon in one of the river batteries named after her, so she was quite popular with the soldiers.
 
There were "Wayside" hospitals all up and down the railroads from Shiloh, Corinth. To include Grenada, Topelo etc, There was even a hospital at Shelby Springs here in Alabama that had wounded from Shiloh. The soldiers who had the worse and longest recoveries from their wounds were sent to the areas where they lived so that their families could look after them somewhat
 
Shaara gets his women's views from Emma Balfour, Mary Ann Loughborough, Lucy McRae, Dora Miller and Mollie Tompkins - some are free online if you dig around. I have the writings of all but Mollie Tompkins. If you are interested in doing more research, some of Betty Eggleston's writings are available at LSU and Univ. North Carolina, but apparently nowhere else (not published) - she volunteered at the City Hospital and is mentioned by soldiers, but I have no idea what she might have written. Apparently, she even had a cannon in one of the river batteries named after her, so she was quite popular with the soldiers.

For a look at Confederate citizens and refugees just outside Vicksburg I heartily recommend: http://civilwartalk.com/threads/kate-stone-of-brokenburn.87144/ Twentysomething Kate Stone lived with her mother and siblings on a plantation called Brokenburn near The Bend (Miliken's Bend) just across the Mississippi near what is now Tallulah, Louisiana. They were forced from their home in fear of being molested by riff-raff from Farragut's fleet in 1862 and were gone before the siege but her memoir gives a good idea of life in the vicinity of the river fortress.
 
For a look at Confederate citizens and refugees just outside Vicksburg I heartily recommend: http://civilwartalk.com/threads/kate-stone-of-brokenburn.87144/ Twentysomething Kate Stone lived with her mother and siblings on a plantation called Brokenburn near The Bend (Miliken's Bend) just across the Mississippi near what is now Tallulah, Louisiana. They were forced from their home in fear of being molested by riff-raff from Farragut's fleet in 1862 and were gone before the siege but her memoir gives a good idea of life in the vicinity of the river fortress.

I've read excerpts of her journal, but had no idea she lived in Tallulah - my father is from Tallulah. Back in the 1960's when we would drive from East Texas to Tallulah, when we weren't counting cows we would sometimes keep ourselves busy by looking for the brick chimney remains of the old plantations, off in the distance. In the 1990's I did the drive from Tallulah to Monroe on the backroads we used to travel prior to I-20. I couldn't find any plantation evidence whatsoever.
 
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