Just catching up with this thread. At Gettysburg it is clear from these surgeons' accounts that they were tasked with deciding which of their wounded could be taken on retreat and which were to be left behind.
Thomas Fanning Wood, CSA Assistant Surgeon, 3
rd North Carolina, described how, on returning to Johnson’s Division field hospital on July 3d, he was assigned to report on the number of wounded and indicate those who could walk or be transported. “The men were not slow to find out that we were preparing to fall back and leave them as prisoners.”
Wood, Thomas Fanning,
Doctor to the Front: Recollections of Confederate Surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood, Donald B. Koonce, editor, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville,, 2000. p. 108.
Isaac Scott Tanner, CSA Surgeon 21
st North Carolina, Hoke’s Brigade Surgeon in Early’s Division, recorded casualties of the dead and wounded of his regiment and noted the names of wounded “left in hospital near Gettysburg.”
Isaac Tanner Ledgers, Virginia Historical Society Collection
John Walker Powell, CSA Medical Director of Hill’s Third Corps, kept a small notebook, titled
C.S.A. Hosp. Dept. Surgical Notes, in which he listed a number of cases from the 14
th South Carolina, assessed their condition, and reported whether they were to be removed or remain. Two patients listed in “dangerous” condition died on the 3
rd and 4
th. Other wounds were described as “serious,” or “slight.” For example, Private John H. Cheatham, whose foot wound was described as “serious,” was sent off by wagon and was later listed as a patient at Howard’s Grove Hospital in Richmond on July 17. Edward M. Dinkins’s thigh wound was described as “slight,” but he was left at Gettysburg, transferred to the Chester Pennsylvania hospital, and paroled August 12, 1863. Two patients, who underwent amputations on July 2
nd were both left at Gettysburg. James M. Youngblood’s wounded wrist was amputated below the elbow; he was paroled at David’s Island, New York Harbor, in November 1863. C.L. Durisoe had his leg amputated for a knee injury, was transferred to David’s Island July 19
th, and died there July 23
rd. Amputees were typically left behind because of the danger of secondary hemorrhages or infections during transit.
Powell, John Walker,
C.S.A. Hosp. Dept. Surgical Notes, Virginia Historical Society.