JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
Using this, from Gettysburg College's Special Collections, because some of the shambles described in caught, because it is haunting, because the faint image of a woman is inside the gate, right and because an ambulance there could only mean another wounded man had died. We forget, maybe, the battle's horrific aftermath.
In the excellent book " Our Army Nurses ", compiled by Mary A. Gardener Holland, those who survived were asked to write accounts of their experiences during the war. A few state they simply could not speak of them. They had reason.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hn3c8f;view=2up;seq=8
We know what happened at Gettysburg 150 years ago. Getting tougher to visualize, navigating between Thai food take outs, being stopped cold by hot asphalt, in one's quest for a moment of respect, at Camp Letterman and understanding somewhere, beneath learned arguments taking place between pizza slices, lay men whose last sight of a hot, hazy sun was July, 1863.
From " Our Army Nurses ", I think this is Sophronia Bucklin- who scraped time together, to see the battlefield.
So remembering becomes more important. Have a feeling we continue to gloss over the battle's aftermath, for whatever reason. If we did not, no one would discuss lunch perched over soldier' remains or tolerate commerce where a giant, canvas hospital once overlooked a shattered town- a symbol of healing.
Christian Commission
Christian Commission
Blood was spilled there in such copious amounts, wagons splashed through it, as aid came their way. That story is from Father Burlando's little band, Sisters of Charity on the way to St. Francis Xavier and the Methodist's church, the horses plunging side to side, trying to avoid bodies, blood and the horrors animals instinctively find terrifying. The Bliss barn was still smouldering. JPK, only man killed when his company was sent from the 126th NY, to clear out snipers July 2nd, maybe not buried, nor David Adam, 11th PA, killed Day 1. Uncles, neither identified when reinterred, unknowns in the National Cemetery. We think.
In the shambles, who knows? Our nurses came anyway. Some were already here.
A mile and a half. Of stretchers. Think of that. While hundreds lay there, bodies were created of wounded by swollen creek waters- wounded too weak to move, drowned, with no one to rescue them.
The Lancaster Ladies, who seem to have made the decision to COME HELP, because they simply could not stand so much suffering, so close to home, wrote much.