Solid Shot Casualties at Gettysburg

[on again]

Darn good soldier, that sergeant!

The killed officer was Lt Col Julio Pedro Garesché de Rocher {west Point 1841] Arm of service Artillery!

Julius Peter Garesche (1821-1862) - Find a Grave...

Civil War Union Army Officer. A Lieutenant Colonel in the Union Army, he served as an Assistant Adjutant General and Chief of Staff to Major General William S. Rosecrans with the Army of the Cumberland. During the Battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, he was riding alongside General Rosecrans very...

www.findagrave.com

Julius Peter Garesche

https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/civil-war-cubans/garesche-death.gif

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Good post. I can only imagine the stress caused by seeing solid shot coming through your position on the battlefield.

Just thought: I guess it could be called Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. (Haha intended.)

 

[Tom Elmore]

Part V

CSA

3rd Corporal William F. Floyd, Company F, 4th Texas. Born in DeSoto County, Mississippi, but apparently living in San Antonio, Texas, at the time of his enlistment, Floyd was wounded at Sharpsburg. At Gettysburg, he was decapitated by a cannon ball on July 2, just prior to the advance of his regiment. A comrade wrote: "A shell from the Federal batteries came along through our lines and cut a man's head off; his name was Floyd, from San Antonio; I was within forty steps of him." (Confederate Casualties at Gettysburg, by John W. Busey and Travis W. Busey, 3:1427; Memories of the Lost Cause, by J. M. Polk, Austin, TX: 1905, p. 15 – Polk was a private in Company I, 4th Texas; https://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=1785)

Private John S. Robertson, Company D, 38th Virginia. During the cannonade preceding the charge against Cemetery Ridge on July 3, Robertson's left arm was shattered at the elbow by a "cannon ball," which necessitated amputation of the limb near the shoulder. (Confederate Pension Applications, Library of Virginia, Richmond)

USA

Private Otto W. Ludwig, Company C, 2nd Wisconsin. His captain tersely reported Ludwig's death on July 1 as: "head shot off by cannon ball." A post-war book recorded: "The boys of the Second had much trouble in keeping out of the way of the guns of Battery B, as they were constantly changed in position to keep out of the smoke," adding that a soldier from Company C "had his head shot of in front of Battery B's guns." A potential candidate (three Battery B's were in the First Corps artillery brigade) would be Captain Cooper's Battery B, 1st Pennsylvania, and perhaps this "friendly fire" incident occurred late in the afternoon, when the battery, then posted on Seminary Ridge, was behind the Iron Brigade as it emerged from Herbst woods and briefly took position on McPherson Ridge before falling further back to the foot of Seminary Ridge. (Letter from Capt. [G. W.] Gibson, Grant County Herald, Lancaster, Wisconsin, July 14, 1863, p. 3; Recollections of a Newsboy in the Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865, by Doc Aubery, Milwaukee, WI, 1904, p. 53)

Private Sidney L. Willson [variant Wilson], Company D, 72nd New York. On the afternoon of July 2, a minie ball struck one of his legs, inflicting a "compound comminuted fracture." As he lay on the battlefield, unable to move, a round shot from an enemy battery carried away his other leg. The leg in which he was first wounded by gunshot was subsequently amputated. In 1869, he found employment in the United States Senate, as Assistant Doorkeeper, but ten years later he lost his job when another political party took control of the Senate and discharged him. (The North State, Greensboro, North Carolina, July 17, 1879, p. 2)

When taking position north of the town around noon on July 1, the 82nd Ohio encountered incoming cannon balls, doubtless from Confederate guns (namely Captain Page's battery of four Napoleons at this hour) that had just taken position at the eastern base of Oak Hill. It did not help matters that many Eleventh Corps units were kept in a massed column formation for far too long, which made them a tempting target. Corporal Engle of Company K wrote that soon after his regiment passed through the town: "cannon balls were set on our regiment, we suffered greatly throughout, 9 men were hit to the ground with one ball … ." (September 27, 1863, letter of Corporal Charles (Karl) F. Engle, to his family, Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio, ohiomemory.org)

 

[Tom Elmore]

Part VI

CSA

Captain William D. Brown, Chesapeake Artillery, 4th Maryland Battery. "Here comes a litter … Approaching the sufferer we were shocked to behold the familiar face of the chivalrous Capt. Wm. Brown … His face was pale as death, and although both legs had been horribly shattered by a cannon ball, he smiles as he recognized us." Brown soon died from his wound. (Account attributed to Maj. William W. Goldsborough, 1st Maryland Battalion, Civil War Memoirs of Washington Hands, Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville)

USA

Unidentified Corporal, 76th New York. On the morning of July 1, when the regiment first took position north of the railroad cut, it immediately came under heavy artillery fire, as reported by Sergeant Edgar D. Haviland of Company E: "When we first came into line there was a Corporal hit with a cannon ball and fell upright back into my arms. In such a time a man don't have time to take care of the men, so I threw him down." It is not possible to identify this individual since eight corporals were killed in the regiment on that day. (August 11, 1863, letter of Edgar D. Haviland, to his mother)

Unidentified staff officer serving under Brigadier General George J. Stannard was affected by the shock wave of a near miss. "A solid shot passed so near my head [July 3] that the left side of my face and ear are quite sore." (The Daily Green Mountain Freeman, Montpelier, Vermont, July 9, 1863, p. 2 and July 14, 1863, p.1)

Captain Johann Rudolf "John R." Fellman, Company I, 108th New York. Born in the Swiss Canton of Aargau, and of German heritage, Fellman emigrated to the U.S. in 1850, and became an accountant in Rochester, New York. On July 3, a cannon ball shattered his right leg, which had to be amputated. (Illinois Staats-Zeitung, Chicago, Illinois, February 1, 1886, p. 7)

Private Emil F. Giese, Company D, 82nd Illinois. A native of Prussia, on the first day at Gettysburg Giese was wounded severely in the left leg by a "kanonenfugel" (cannon ball), according to a German-language newspaper. After the war, despite having lost his leg to a hospital amputation, he won two competitions as a gymnast and found employment as a gymnastic instructor at a Chicago "hochschule" (college). (Baltimore Wecker, Baltimore, Maryland, September 22, 1866, p. 2)