Act of Kindness - 20th Georgia & 89th Illinois at Chickamauga

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Duncan Jackson Hall mortally wounded Chickamauga.jpg

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=76631254

September 26, 1863, less than a week after the Battle of Chickamauga.....
24 year old Benjamin Franklin Abbott, Adjutant of the 20th Georgia, Benning's Brigade, wrote to his friend, Green Haygood:

“I came upon a young officer and found he was mortally wounded and suffering very much. I saw at once he would die & asked if I could do anything for him. He replied, ‘I am dying. Wash me clean and bury me decently.’ I promised him all I could under the circumstances. . . . I had him moved in the hut and in less than an hour he died. As far as I could I complied with his request and marked his grave with a board on which I carved his name [Lt Col D J Hall] with my knife.... (The young officer was 25 year old Lt Col Duncan Jackson Hall, 89th Illinois.)

As soon as I found Hall suffering so much, I took from my pocket a small vial of morphia and gave him about half a grain, and he was relieved very soon of pain and died easily and rationally. I had carried this little vial during all my service, fearing I might be wounded and left suffering on the field. It had never served me, but it was now to relieve an enemy.

These little incidents . . . serve to show . . . that we cannot yet be barbarians. In my own heart before the battle I felt very bitter against these men who had invaded our soil . . . and yet in the hour of victory we soldiers were touched with pity for these wounded and dying enemies. It was not the place to discuss right and wrong; it was simply a question of humanity.

Source: Benjamin (Franklin) Abbott to (Atticus) Green Haygood, 26 September 1863, quoted in Mills Lane, ed., Dear Mother Don’t Grieve About Me. If I Get Killed, I’ll Only Be Dead. Letters From Georgia Soldiers in the Civil War, Savannah, GA, Beehive Press, 1977, pp. 275-76.
B. F. Abbott, promoted Adjutant 20th Georgia Infantry, to rank 10 Mar 1863.
Congressional Edition, Volume 4612, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904, p. 346.
Find A Grave Memorial http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=81406998
 
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Thanks for posting this. It further confirms something I've noticed through the years- that the men seemed to follow this humane treatment of each other despite what we sometimes hear? There are various stories circulated post war of wounded men on the field taunted or mistreated and really do not feel it happened. You also read variously of men not treated well by the other side sometimes as captured wounded. That did occur unfortunately. What we don't seem to see are men treating each other barbarically in these situations- you read many more of these instead.
 
These are a ' thing ', the acts of kindness during such a dark time. I knew it reminded me of something, as bizarre a connection as it sounds. Georgia, maybe made me think of it, and Georgia troops at first being frustrated Wrightsville civilians refused to help Confederate troops put out the fire they were fighting on the famous bridge there? The town began to catch fire- would have gone up in flames were it not for Confederate troops led by John B. Gordon instantly surrounding the area and fighting the new flames. It's a crazy good story, one of the best from the 1863 invasion.

Great account in Scott Mingus Sr's " Flames Beyond Gettysburg ", pg. 267.
 
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