Non-Combat Injuries at Gettysburg

[Tom Elmore]

A few reported casualties incurred during the Gettysburg battle/campaign were not the result of fire (direct or indirect) or close combat situations. Some examples:

CSA

Junior 2nd (3rd) Lieutenant James A. Riddick, Company H, 53rd Virginia. While on the march to Gettysburg, Riddick and some companions were tempted by a tree bearing abundant ripe cherries and they climbed up to retrieve the fruit. A limb gave way under the weight and down came Riddick, breaking his arm in the fall. He was left behind in a Chambersburg hospital and afterwards captured. (Evening Journal, April 11, 1911; July 23 letter of Benjamin P. Sale to his mother; Compiled service records, Fold3)

Private Thomas H. Greer, Company A, Cobb's Legion Infantry. During his regiment's advance on July 2, Greer was impaled while attempting to negotiate a garden fence that stood in his path. The injury resulted in a hernia on his right side which subsequently affected his mobility. (Georgia Virtual Vault, Confederate Pension Applications, Newton County)

2nd Lieutenant Robert Remus Saunders, Company B, 45th North Carolina. His service records indicate he was "hurt by [the] falling of a limb" and "disabled about 2 p.m. [on] 3d July." If the time and date are correct, Saunders was probably near the base of Culp's Hill during a lull in fighting at that location. But perhaps the earlier shelling and intense musketry fire had weakened a large tree limb under which he took position. The injury was clearly quite serious, since he was unable to travel and was taken captive following the battle. (Compiled service records, Fold3)

USA

Private Henry G. Edwards, Company F, 108th New York. The regiment provided close support for Lieutenant Woodruff's Battery I, 1st U.S. Artillery in Ziegler's Grove and was called upon occasionally to assist in repositioning their guns. It was during one of those evolutions that Edwards "injured his right knee while assisting to remove a piece of artillery." (A Complete Military History and Record of the 108th Regiment N. Y. Vols., by Private Geo. H. Washburn, Rochester, NY: 1894, p. 254)

Captain James Bolles Coit, Company K, 14th Connecticut. During the day on July 2, a drummer boy was assigned to ride an officer's horse out of harm's way, but the horse became frightened and threw the boy to the ground. It plunged forward to where the regiment lay and struck Coit with full force in the face and breast. Rendered unconscious, with his face bruised and eyes swollen shut, it was initially feared the captain might not survive, but after a few days he returned to the regiment and his face recovered without permanent disfigurement. (History of the Fourteenth Regiment Connecticut Vol. Infantry, by Charles D. Page, Meriden, CT: The Horton Printing Co., 1906, p. 140; Souvenir of Excursion to Battlefields by the Society of the Fourteenth Connecticut Regiment, by Chaplain H. S. Stevens, Washington: Gibson Bros., 1893, p. 12; The National Tribune, December 2, 1886, p. 2 and January 27, 1897, p. 5)

Private Murray Aldridge, Company D, 157th New York. He was "hit in the face by a horseshoe thrown from the horse of [Brig.] Gen. [Alexander] Schimmelpfennig's aide previous to the engagement." Schimmelpfennig was commanding the brigade at that time. (Casualty list, 157th New York, Civil War Newspaper Clippings, New York Military Museum)

1st Lieutenant James Silliman, Company A, 28th Pennsylvania. Posted on Culp's Hill, his regiment advanced at 8 a.m. on July 3 to relieve the 29th Ohio in the rifle pits. Silliman wrote: "As we were moving along on the double-quick, I caught my right foot between two rocks and sprained my ankle and did not reach the pits, my foot being so that I could not bear weight on it." When the firing subsided, he crawled out of danger and was transported by ambulance to the Twelfth Corps hospital on the George Bushman farm. (July 5 letter from Silliman to his sister, Three Letters from Gettysburg, by Allen C. Guelzo, The Gettysburg Magazine, issue 71, July 2024, pp. 70-71)

1st Lieutenant Nelson Byers, Company G, 147th Pennsylvania. It was probably near midnight on July 2 when the regiment was finally moved up to a stone fence and ordered to rest. Private William S. Keller soon fell fast asleep and dreamed that he was engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand encounter with the enemy. He awoke flailing and struck Lieutenant Byers in the face with his fist. Byers, who had likewise been asleep, jumped up, imagining that he had been struck by an artillery shell. However, he was not seriously injured and remained on duty as company commander. (Civil War Diary, Company G, 147th P. V. I., by Corporal J. A. Lumbard)

Corporal John Agen, 5th Massachusetts Battery. The battery was called up on the afternoon of July 2, and the cannoneers mounted for the ride toward the front. "The ground being rough, Corporal Eagan [Agen] was thrown and his arm broken in two places, which ended his services in the army." (Notes of Shackley, 1863, History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, Boston, MA: Luther E. Cowles, Publisher, 1902, p. 637)

 

[Tom Elmore]

Part 2

USA

Private Caleb H. Harrison, Battery B, 1st New Jersey. When the battery was engaged near the Peach Orchard on the second day, Harrison was called forward to replace a wounded cannoneer on a gun. Afterwards, when the battery was directed to withdraw, Harrison placed his hand on the hot cannon barrel to steady himself and severely burned the skin of his palm and fingers. (History of Battery B, First New Jersey Artillery, by Michael Hannifin, Ottawa, IL: Republican-Times, Printer, 1905, pp. 72, 76)

Colonel Adoniram Judson Warner, 10th Pennsylvania Reserves. Severely wounded in the hip at Antietam, the surgeon thought it impossible for him to recover. However, in June 1863, he returned to the regiment, although he remained on crutches. Owing to his disability, he was the only officer in the regiment to ride into battle at the Round Tops. But passing over the rocky, uneven ground, his horse stumbled and fell on him, badly reinjuring his hip, which required another surgical operation. (The Spirit of Democracy, Woodsfield, Ohio, August 20, 1876, p. 2; Official report of Col. Joseph W. Fisher; Wikipedia article, Adoniram Judson Warner)

Surgeon William Fleming Breakey, assigned to the Fifth Corps artillery brigade and served at Camp Letterman General Hospital. According to one account, he seriously injured his left femur (thigh bone) in a "collision with an obstacle in the dark," a rather vague comment that was not further explained, but led to his resignation for debility in April 1864. (History of the University of Michigan, by Burke A. Hinsdale and Isaac Newton Demmon, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1906, p. 327)

Private John H. Miller, Company I, 134th New York. On July 1, he received a blow on head from a sword wielded by his captain, presumably for having left the ranks without orders. Following the battle, he was initially sent to the Lutheran Theological Seminary Hospital, but on July 10 was forwarded to the General Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, where he was furloughed on August 20, 1863. He was said to experience convulsions regularly once a week. (The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1870, 3:316)

Private John Price Kepner, Company I, 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry. On the night of July 3, he suffered a severely sprained wrist when his horse fell into a deep ditch. A week later his wrist was still swollen but felt much better. (July 10, 1863, letter to his parents, John Price Kepner Papers, Library of Virginia, Richmond)

 

[rpkennedy]

Colonel Adoniram Judson Warner, 10th Pennsylvania Reserves. Severely wounded in the hip at Antietam, the surgeon thought it impossible for him to recover. However, in June 1863, he returned to the regiment, although he remained on crutches. Owing to his disability, he was the only officer in the regiment to ride into battle at the Round Tops. But passing over the rocky, uneven ground, his horse stumbled and fell on him, badly reinjuring his hip, which required another surgical operation. (The Spirit of Democracy, Woodsfield, Ohio, August 20, 1876, p. 2; Official report of Col. Joseph W. Fisher; Wikipedia article, Adoniram Judson Warner)

And thus ended Colonel Warner's field service.

The Antietam wound was a bullet which broke his pelvis and required a pretty significant surgery in February 1863. In November 1863, he was transferred to the VRC as colonel of the 17th Regiment until he was deemed unfit for field duty and served as a court-martial officer until the end of the war.

Ryan