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- Jan 16, 2015
It is said that where there is still life, there is still hope.
Part I
Chaplain George Patterson of the 3rd North Carolina was asked to visit the gravely wounded Colonel Risden T. Bennett of the 14th North Carolina on the night before the army retreated. Bennett had been shot on July 3. He asked the chaplain to read the burial service over him before he departed, remarking, “For I know I’m as good as dead.” Patterson readily assented, and conducted the solemn service. Bennett was placed in an ambulance for the trip home, but he eventually recovered his health. In 1886, while visiting a western town, Bennett recognized the old chaplain and extended a warm greeting. Patterson did not recognize him: “I don’t know you, sir. Who are you?” The former officer replied, “I am Colonel Bennett, of the 14th North Carolina regiment.” Patterson quickly retorted, “Now I know you are lying, for I buried him at Gettysburg.” (Greg Coco, On the Bloodstained Field, quoting from R. H. McKim, A Soldier’s Recollections.)
Captain Azor H. Nickerson of Company I, 8th Ohio, was shot through one arm and both lungs while on the skirmish line on July 2. He tried to run, but blood gushed from his mouth and he collapsed, unconscious. He came around while an ambulance attendant was bathing his face, then endured a bumpy and harrowing ride in an ambulance to a field hospital, probably at the Catherine Guinn farm on the Taneytown road. As Surgeon Henry M. McAbee looked him over, Nickerson ventured that it looked very badly for him. McAbee, who had performed hundreds of operations as chief surgeon of the division, responded, “very badly.” “You know I am not afraid to hear the worst; is there any hope for me, doctor?” “No,” said he, very kindly, patting the captain on the forehead as he looked away, “no, my boy, none whatsoever.” Nevertheless, three decades later Nickerson had the last word: “And yet poor Surgeon McAbee is many years dead, and I am still here.” (Personal Recollections of Two Visits to Gettysburg, by A. H. Nickerson, Scribner’s Magazine, New York: Charles Schribner’s Sons, July 1893)
“The Lieutenant [Samuel Judson Fletcher] was wounded at the same time I was – shot through the head. The doctor said he could not live; but when I last saw him, day before yesterday, he was looking much better, and I am confident he will, with good care, recover.” [Fletcher was shot in the jaw; he died in July 1924 at the age of 93.] (8 July 1863 letter of 1st Sergeant Edward F. Chapin, Company H, 15th Massachusetts; Busey and Busey, Union Casualties at Gettysburg, 1:193)
Orderly Sergeant James Wright of Company E, 22nd Massachusetts was shot through a lung, the ball being taken out of his back. Wright was examined repeatedly by surgeons for several days, and warned that his case was incurable. Well-meaning helpers in the hospital also told Wright (and others in similar condition) that he should prepare for death. But Wright refused to give up. Finally a brigade surgeon of the regular army after a careful inspection said: “I believe that as you have lived ten days you will recover.” Wright replied, “You are the first surgeon who has understood my case.” [Wright rejoined his regiment in October, although he could no longer stand the exposure and was sent home.] (Musket and Sword, by Edwin C. Bennett, Boston: Coburn Publishing Co., 1900, p. 144)
Private Joseph Irwin of Company B, 29th Pennsylvania was shot at close range while the regiment was returning to its supposedly unoccupied breastworks on Culp’s Hill after dark on July 2. A minie ball entered his back above the hips, grazed the spine, passed through the stomach and lodged under the skin about two inches above the navel. His comrades carried him off in a blanket, then he endured a tortuous jolting ride in an ambulance to the field hospital, where the regiment’s doctor intimated that his case was hopeless. Irwin was given morphine to sleep, but it had no effect and he suffered all night in great pain. On July 3, Irwin coaxed a surgeon into removing the ball, which afforded him much relief. His condition slowly but steadily improved. Irwin was later moved to Camp Letterman, then to Satterlee hospital in Philadelphia. He was discharged for disability on May 15, 1865. (Letters of Joseph Irwin; Busey and Busey, Union Casualties at Gettysburg, 2:801)
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