- Joined
- Jul 23, 2017
- Location
- Southwest Missouri
Courtesy Kansas State Historical Society
In 1864 and 1865 the Macon, Ga., City Hall and the old market house were used as a hospital for wounded and sick Confederate soldiers. The ladies of the town constituted themselves nurses, and perhaps in no other hospital in the Confederacy did the patients fare so well. One day a lady went to the hospital to visit "her soldier." She was accompanied by a very handsome married lady, a refugee from New Orleans. When they reached the cot upon which the soldier lay writhing with pain, caused by the recent amputation of his left arm, they ministered to his wants and then sat by and cheered him with gentle words of comfort. As they were leaving the soldier requested the New Orleans lady to give him a small Confederate flag which she wore upon her breast. She gave him the flag, first writing her name on the white bar.
The soldier recovered, the war ended, and he returned to his home in Alabama. As something not to be forgotten, it should be mentioned that at the time he was in the hospital he was unmarried, and continued so after the war. In 1885 the soldier had occasion to visit New Orleans. He remembered the lady that gave him the flag, and made inquiries about her. He discovered that her husband died soon after the war, and that she, a widow, was still living in New Orleans. He called on her, then called again; in fact he called many times.
A few days ago there was a wedding in New Orleans, in which he and the lady figured as principals.
Campfire Sketches and Battlefield
Love Story #2
On August 22, 1862, quite a sharp artillery fight took place at Freeman's ford, with some loss to both sides. The Federal batteries succeeded in throwing a shell into the head of Elwell’s column just after it had passed Gaines’ barn, and this shell killed two men and wounded sixteen , One of the wounded I dressed and left with little hope of ever seeing him alive again. He had three holes in his right side, a portion of the liver had been torn out and one of his ribs had been broken. Besides all these wounds, the cartridge box he wore had exploded and made a large bruised and burned place on his back. His clothing was torn to shreds.
I did my best to dress his wounds and laid him tenderly under the shade of a dogwood tree by the roadside, as I believed, to die. But he did not die; he fell into the hands of some noble women, got well and went to the front again. When the war was ended he returned and married his nurse—a noble girl, who had watched and tended him through his terrible sufferings.
Campfire Sketches and Battlefield
(and a reminder that war is a lover of no person)
Tragic Love Story #3
After the first attack upon Vicksburg, in June, 1862, the Rebels strengthened the approaches in the rear of the city. They threw up, defensive works on the line of bluffs facing the Yazoo, and erected a strong fortification to prevent our boats ascending that stream. Just before General Sherman commenced his assault, the gun-boat Benton, aided by another iron-clad, attempted to silence the batteries at Haines's Bluff, but was unsuccessful. Her sides were perforated by the Rebel projectiles, and she withdrew from the attack in a disabled condition.
Captain Gwin, her commander, was mortally wounded early in the fight. Captain Gwin was married but a few weeks before this occurrence. His young wife was on her way from the East to visit him, and was met at Cairo with the news of his death.
Campfire and Cottonfields