- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Location
- Central Massachusetts
Dr Luther Vose Bell, M.D., L.L.D
When the war broke out, Dr Bell offered his services to Gov. Andrew, and received a commission as Surgeon of the 11th Massachusetts Regiment. He did not reveal that at the time he was under treatment for a lung disorder. The regiment was organized at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor during May, 1861, mustered in on June 12th, and left the Bay State on the 29th.
The 11th first saw action at the First Battle of Bull Run, suffering serious casualties in heavy fighting at the foot of Henry House Hill. A week after the battle, Surgeon Bell found time to write to a friend:
The whole volume of military surgery was opened before me one Sunday afternoon, -- July 21 -- with illustrations horrid and sanguinary. ‘Sudley Church’ with its hundred wounded victims will form a picture in my sick dreams so long as I live. I have never spent one night out of camp since I came into it, and a bed and myself have been strangers, practically, for months.
Yet I have, as you know, four young motherless children. Painful as it is to leave such a charge, I have forced myself into reconciliation by the reflection that the great issue under the stern arbitrament of arms is, whether or not, our children are to have a country.
Sudley Church Hospital, during the battle
Surgeon Bell was a great admirer of Gen. Hooker, and the two became close friends. When Hooker was promoted to Divisional command, he insisted on Bell’s advancement to Division Surgeon.
Determined to do his duty to the utmost, Dr Bell was from the start painfully aware of his own questionable health. Indeed, his memorialist observed that “continuance in life, and especially with such a measure of bodily vigor as to qualify him for any active duties, was unexpected to himself.” But, as time went on, he seemed to grow stronger
Dr. Bell shared with his regiment the experience of various removals and camps; working with unabated zeal, and, evidently to his own surprise, enjoying, in spite of fatigue, and exposure to rough circumstances, a measure of health which he had not known for , years. He writes, Aug. 24, 1861, "My own health and spirits continue excellent. Some of my friends have prognosticated, that, when my zeal had cooled, there would be a reaction, under which I should wilt. As I never experienced any enthusiasm, of which I was conscious, beyond a plain, simple, every-day desire to discharge what seemed a duty, I never accepted their theory, and see no reason to do so now."
But, life in a tent during the long winter was not the best place for a 55 year old with a questionable constitution. And, he did not pamper himself. “As the damps and chills of autumn drew on, instead of allowing his horse to be tethered, as hundreds around him were, in the open night-air, he is careful to procure him a warm board shelter, while the owner sleeps under canvas only.”
On February 4, 1862, he wrote a long letter to a friend in Charlestown, Mass. “My continued health amazes me,” he reports, and affirms that “I do not contemplate leaving the service (health of myself and my children continuing) until this wicked Rebellion is forever quelled.” It was the last letter he would ever write.
He retired that night in his usual health, save that he felt slightly the symptoms of a cold. His attendant, Prentiss, ... in whose intelligence and fidelity Dr. Bell reposed great confidence, — sharing his tent with him, — rose long before daylight to write a letter. About four o'clock on the wintry morning of Feb. 5, under his canvas shelter at Camp Baker, two miles from Budd's Ferry, on the Potomac, Dr. Bell very suddenly announced to him that he was suffering in most severe distress, and must die if not soon relieved. He directed Prentiss to administer chloroform to him. His pain was in the lumbar region, and was so excruciating, that Dr. Bell was from the first convinced that his death was inevitable. He said he had never in his life before known what pain was. Prentiss proposed to go for Surgeon Foye, ... " No,'' said the sufferer: "you can do for me all that any one can." To the further entreaty of his attendant, pleading that he did not like to be alone with him while he was in such distress. Dr. Bell gave him permission to send for the surgeon. His pains continued for the six following days, and were made endurable only through the constant use of chloroform. On Tuesday, Feb. 11, his disease had reached the vital parts, and resulted in metastasis. The patient retained his full consciousness, and saw the end of earth close upon him. He calmly directed to whom telegrams should be transmitted as soon as he had ceased to live. In the afternoon. General Hooker and staff were present in the tent, and showed their profound respect and sympathy for the sufferer. The Rev. Henry E. Parker, chaplain of the Second Regiment of New-Hampshire Volunteers, — to whom... Dr. Bell often refers in his letters with warm approbation, — was with him as well.
Surrounded by this group of friends, he calmly drew his last breath about nine o'clock in the evening.
His remains were transported homewards under the charge of Chaplain Parker, and rested for a while in the library of his Charlestown home. On Monday, Feb. 17, the funeral was held, and Dr. Luther V. Bell was laid to rest in a peaceful evergreen grove, in Mount Auburn Cemetery in nearby Cambridge.
Sources:
Memoir of Luther V. Bell, M.D.. LL.D, (1863) by George E. Ellis (which details, with many anecdotes and letters, Surgeon Bell’s life both before and during his military service.)
A Discourse on the Life and Character of Dr. Luther V. Bell, (1863), by Isaac Ray
A Narrative of the Formation and Services of the Eleventh Massachusetts Volunteers (1893), by G. B. Hutchinson
Appleton's Cyclopedia
https://bullrunnings.wordpress.com/...on-11th-massachusetts-infantry-on-the-battle/