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TRANSACTIONS OF
THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA,
Vol. 28
SOME
EXPERIENCES OF A CONFEDERATE ASSISTANT
SURGEON
By
WILLIAM H. TAYLOR, M.D.,
Surgeon De Jure, Assistant
Surgeon De facto, Nineteenth
Regiment of Virginia Infantry, C.S.A.
Read May 2, 1906
When I was
complimented by a request to give an
account of the methods of the medical
staff of the Confederate army I was
obliged reluctantly to decline because
the circumstances under which I served
did not enable me to obtain anything
approaching an adequate acquaintance with
the subject. With the exception of the
first six months of the war, during which
I was employed in Richmond hospitals, I
served the whole time in the field,
practically as an assistant surgeon; for,
though I at length became surgeon, I
preferred to remain with my old
companions and friends in an inferior
capacity rather than enjoy my higher rank
with strangers, and I was so fortunate as
to have my wish gratified. But the
position of a Confederate assistant
surgeon stationed with the men in the
field was one affording only the most
limited and meager opportunities for
acquiring a comprehensive and accurate
knowledge of the methods of the medical
and surgical service.
Still, the
position of an assistant surgeon had its
own peculiar feature; and, after further
consideration, I have concluded to
attempt some slight description of an
humble phase of a subject whose proper
handling is, in its entirety, far beyond
my knowledge and abilities. Even this
little I shall be obliged to do most
imperfectly. The lapse of time has swept
out of my remembrance much that was once
very vivid. In truth, I have not very
greatly encouraged these recollections.
Most of them are disagreeable, and even
painful, to me. For though I rejoice that
I allied myself with what I believed, and
yet believe, was a righteous cause, and
my conscience tells me that I at least
tried to act well my part in the small
sphere in which my lot was cast, I was,
nevertheless, altogether out of my
element; and I look upon my years
frittered away in the army as that much
blank, and as waste leaves torn out and
thrown away from my book of life.
I must say,
too, that, despite my long and intimate
association with the army, I have never
been able to satisfactorily realize that
I was a soldier. The essence of
soldiering is fighting, and, while we
have fighting parsons in abundance, I do
not know of any fighting surgeons. In
common with the assistant surgeons of the
Southern side, and, I suppose, of the
Northern side also, I may venture to
claim a share of whatever military glory
is conferred by being often under fire -
usually while in sheltered places; still,
I have felt some degree of uncertainty in
posing, on this account, as a warrior. I
have, therefore, habitually put aside my
military career, letting its incidents
lie dormant, and reviving them only on
peculiarly fitting occasions, and these
have been few and far between. This
consideration has kept me from joining
the military organizations which have
been formed by survivors of the war, and
thus I have been deprived of that
freshening and brightening of old-time
reminiscences which these associations
foster. My narrative will therefore, I
fear, be notable for the scantiness of
the addition it makes to the general
stock of knowledge.
I might
indeed be able to offer something in the
semblance of a real contribution to a
memorable history, had I not been, like
so many of my compatriots, a victim of
the disastrous contingencies of war. From
time to time I made notes of many of my
experiences and observations, and had
gathered a considerable mass of this
material. On a furlough home I left a
large part of it there for safekeeping,
but one day the house caught fire, and my
papers were consumed. Another portion was
in a trunk in a storehouse in Richmond;
this was burnt at the evacuation. The
rest was recorded in a notebook kept in
my saddlebags. The saddlebags were left
in a hospital on the retreat to
Appomattox, the hospital was captured and
the saddlebags with it, and this finished
me. Never was an ill-starred cultivator
of the fields of knowledge more
ruthlessly stripped of the hard-earned
fruits of his labor.
I was anxious
to improve myself in my profession and
endeavored to assimilate all the
information that came in my way. In
reviewing my acquirements during my three
years and a half of service in the field,
I find that they may be summed up in the
statement that I gained an excellent
working knowledge of the art of
practicing medicine without medicines and
surgery without surgical appliances. This
knowledge is not be undervalued, for it
was eminently adapted to the time and
circumstances, but it has now become
rather antiquated, and, I must own, has
not stood me in much stead since.
Not only must
my account be defective for want of
matter, but its manner also will be
justly liable, in particular, to the
reproach of great discursiveness. For
this feature I must crave indulgence. All
of value that I can communicate could,
indeed, have been put in a very few
paragraphs, but so brief and bald a
statement could have elicited no
interest, even had it gained a hearer.
Of my brief
experience in the Richmond hospitals
there is nothing novel to be said. It was
at the very beginning of the war, when
means and appliances were abundant, and
there was no occasion to depart from
customary methods. Afterwards I had but
little to do with hospitals, and was
never connected with one long enough to
learn much of its economics. Of the
Confederate hospital system and
management I am therefore not competent
to give an account that would be even
approximately adequate.
At first the
system of the medical and surgical
departments of the Confederacy conformed
to that of the United States, and it kept
closely parallel with that as long as
means permitted. But as these diminished,
and exigencies multiplied, wide
divergences became imperative. Radical
changes had to be made, and substitutions
and makeshifts had to be adopted, the
details of which my situation prevented
me from accurately knowing and which,
consequently, I cannot presume to
describe. I must confine my account to
the outcome of it all as it showed itself
in the service in the field, and, in
fact, as it was outside the hospitals.
Our regiment
had two medical men, a surgeon and an
assistant surgeon. There was also a
hospital steward - a kind of apothecary,
whose duty it was to take charge of the
case of medical and surgical supplies,
and to prepare, or dole out, what was
prescribed, and to act as general
assistant to the surgeons. In addition,
there was a man, familiarly styled the
knapsack-toter, who carried a knapsack
containing small quantities of the most
generally useful medicines, bandages,
isinglass plaster, etc., and whose
special duty it was to be with the
assistant surgeon on the battlefield. We
also, of course, had stretcher-bearers to
convey the wounded to the ambulances.
These ambulances were very sad-looking
and, for the most part, very
uncomfortable vehicles, and their
unfortunate passengers were apt to have a
dreary ride of it.
When we were
on the march, or in camp, and no outside
hospital had been established, the
surgeon was with the regiment and had
supreme charge of all medical and
surgical matters. Usually he divided the
work with the assistant surgeon very
equitably. All the surgeons with whom I
was acquainted were social with their
assistant surgeons. In quiet times they
exhibited little pride of place, showing
themselves patterns of equality and
fraternity. But when a battle was
imminent they were prone to become very
lordly indeed, cavorting fussily around
and ordering us assistant surgeons to
move well up to the front, and giving us
commands which, if we had obeyed them to
the letter, would have been the death of
us - after which they retired, or, to
speak with accuracy, fled, to the shelter
of their field hospitals. Sometimes,
however, on these occasions, by a
miscalculation, they would get in range
of a shot; and I remember with peculiar
satisfaction how we assistant surgeons
were once much comforted by seeing a
group of our chiefs knocked out by an
unexpected cannon-ball which tore off the
roof of a house under whose protection
they were chattering in great glee, and
gave each one of them a substantial
spanking with the shingles.
If much
sickness prevailed in a permanent camp it
was customary to establish a brigade
hospital in some comfortable house at a
convenient, or, as the case might be, at
an inconvenient distance away. Thither
the surgeon would repair, and reside
there in enviable ease and freedom,
leaving the regiment in charge of his
assistant surgeon. In fact, it was the
duty of the assistant surgeon to be with
the regiment all the time, and thus he
was obliged to share many of the
hardships and privations, and some of the
dangers, of the men. So far as the meager
comforts of military life were concerned
he was not greatly better off than they.
One great advantage, and on the march an
inestimable one, was that he could ride.
But the blessing of a horse was always
alloyed with much anxiety. Often he would
be tied up at night and be gone in the
morning - strayed or stolen, and very
likely the latter. This was a most
disheartening calamity, and I was called
upon to endure it several times during my
campaigning.
The domestic
economy of the assistant surgeon was much
the same as that of the privates. Some
years since I published an article in
which I pointed out that hitherto no
systematic account has been given of how
the soldier in the field keeps house -
how he provides for his dwelling, for his
table, for his clothing, for his bed, and
for the multitude of conditions which are
the elements of housekeeping. I did not
pretend to be qualified to give to give
such an account, but I attempted a
description of one feature, namely, how
the Confederate soldier put himself to
bed. As this topic is in some sort
related to my theme, and as I have
excellent reasons for believing that no
one ever knew of my article but myself
and the printers who set the type, and,
especially, as I have at last gotten an
audience, I will bestow some parts of it
on you.
A precept
which the soldier speedily learns, or, at
any rate, speedily has taught him, is to
dispense with superfluities. This species
of self-denial is, as is well known, one
of the most valued features of various
systems of philosophy, and is much
preached among civilians, though little
practiced by them. The genuine exemplars
of it are soldiers; not, indeed, because
they are convinced of its eminent moral
worth and beauty, but because they cannot
help themselves. Accordingly, with these
philosophers, even a bed is a
superfluity, and they are able to do
without it.
Soldiers in
the field do not keep very regular hours.
Sometimes they sleep, like other people,
at night; sometimes during the day; not
infrequently, they sleep neither during
the night nor day. In fact, for sleeping,
as for whatever else they may have to do,
all times and seasons are alike to them -
it is done when and how they can. Still,
soldiers are endowed - in some instances
very richly endowed - with the frailties
of human beings in general, and are thus
very susceptible to comfortable
surroundings; and they are perfectly
willing to deposit their carcasses in
civilized beds when they can get them.
These, however, are not readily to be had
in the field, and there the warriors are
obliged to put up with such beds as they
may be able to improvise, these being,
for the most part, devices which a
civilian would at once pronounce no beds
at all.
In our
permanent camps, especially where huts
had been built, admirable beds were
fitted up, some of which were, in fact
quite as good as the box bed provided for
the dog of a well-regulated family. In
these camps, when there was a liability
of a sudden outbreak at any time of
firing from the confronting enemy, as,
for example, was the case on the lines
between Richmond and Petersburg, it was
generally considered to be conducive to
longevity to sleep in a hole in the
ground. Fastidious persons, with whom
perhaps I should class myself, while
retaining the hole, built their beds
along its upper border, taking care to
have a substantial headboard, consisting
of a good thick log. This log was set
parallel with the enemy's line, and was
meant as a receiver of bullets straying
its way.
But it was
when on the march that comfortable beds,
while most longed for, were hardest to be
got. Agreeable camping places were,
however, not infrequent. Yet out
experience was of infinite variety, and
we soon learned to expect anything and to
be discouraged by nothing. When on the
march, our method of going to bed was
always very simple. In general, we placed
something between us and the ground, if
we had anything suitable, as was not by
any means always the case, and covered up
with blanket or overcoat. Our trying
times came with rainy weather, especially
when it was prolonged and chilly. Then,
after a day's trudging through mud and
water, tired to the bone, and wet through
and through, we laid ourselves on the
soaked earth, covered up with whatever
was available, blanket, overcoat, or
bushes, let the rain pour on and endured
impassive, till perhaps the accumulated
water, submerging mouth and nose, forced
us to turn. It is easy to realize that
such nights were horrible, yet, so
callous to physical hardships like these
does the soldier become, that, for my
part, though I must have passed through
scores of wretched nights during my life
in the field, not more than four or five
of them have left a marked impression on
my mind.
It is
paradoxical to speak of sleeping while
marching all night long. These night
marches were truly the times that tried
men's souls. Can there be in human
experience anything more ineffably dreary
than to be dragging one's self on and on,
step by step, the livelong night, with
men and army wagons moping and blundering
through the darkness, and checked every
few feet by some disabled team? Yet, even
under these distressing conditions, some
of us could sleep - becoming veritable
somnambulists, creeping and snoring in
unison.
The crowning
event of the soldier's life, of course,
is the battle. It would be natural to
suppose that the immediate anticipation
of this portentous trial would banish
sleep. Yet, this is not so. He may be
deprived, it is true, by the
contingencies of the situation of the
opportunity for sleeping, but, should he
get the opportunity, he is fully capable
of using it. As far as I have observed,
on the night before the battle the
soldier's slumber is tranquil. As he lays
himself down there is a thought of what
is impending, an anxious thought, no
doubt, but it is not of long duration.
Then all is forgotten; he sinks into
undisturbed and, I believe, generally,
dreamless sleep; and, unless roused by
some physical discomfort, rests till
awakened by the appointed signals. He
sees no ghosts, no forms of loved ones at
home. He is as dead temporarily as, very
possibly, in a few hours, he will be
permanently. He sleeps like the condemned
is said to sleep on the night before his
day of execution. What he feels at the
moment of waking is a matter of
individual temperament. In effect, the
summons of the soldier to rise on the
morn of battle is that solemn call,
"Prepare to meet thy God!" and
we cannot deem it derogatory to the
bravest if he suddenly hears it not
altogether unmoved. But the depressing
emotion, if felt at all, is rapidly
dissipated by the stimulating feeling of
companionship with friends who are about
to tread together the path that leads to
glory, if also to the grave.
And when the
fateful day has passed over and beyond
us, and the night has come, it may be
that it does not bring us rest, and that
we shall not sleep. We may have to follow
the fleeing enemy, or, ourselves
discomfited, we may have to hasten away,
soliciting the darkness to help us to
some friendlier place. Or we may be so
fortunate as to be privileged to sleep on
the field of battle. Every one has often
read of soldiers, under these
circumstances, sleeping among the heaps
of slain. Usually, the phrase "heaps
of slain" must be taken as a
rhetorical embellishment. The aspect of a
battlefield immediately after the battle,
hideous as it is, is seldom quite as bad
as it is represented to be. Our standard
descriptions of these scenes are commonly
the idealized pictures of poets and other
romantic persons who have assiduously
cultivated peace that they might be
spared to fitly celebrate war. Their
statements, therefore, are often
erroneous, or, if true, the truth is not
infrequently overcharged with illusory
ornament. Heaps of slain cannot easily be
formed except under peculiar conditions,
as when the fighting is desperate within
restricted spaces. Generally, the bodies
are scattered far and wide, with
intervals, which are often considerable,
between them. There is no need to sleep
on, or in immediate contact with the
dead, and only a very brutish or callous
fellow would do so. In truth, in putting
himself to bed on the battlefield, the
soldier gets at a convenient distance
from the corpses, drops down without much
preparation or ceremony, and quickly
sinks into profound, if not always
restful slumber, for he is sadly worn and
very weary.
But the very
perfection of repose for the Confederate
soldier was to sleep on the grass, on a
balmy summer night, beneath the benignant
sky, with the bright stars, or better
even, the mildly radiant moon, kindly
beaming on him. Then he is lulled into
peace with all the world, and grows
charitable even towards his enemy. How
soft his slumbers are, and, in his later
years, how sweet their recollection - if
the imminent Destinies, darkly busy,
shall spare him.
He does not,
at such a time, drop suddenly into
oblivion, but lets his fancy stray
homeward for awhile; and, be sure, if he
is in the flush of youth, as so many of
our soldiers were, his thoughts soon
centre on some fair being whom he loves
and who loves him, too, with affection
not purer indeed, but yet firmer, and, to
my thinking, sweeter than can nowadays
prevail between young men and women; for
the love of the Confederate boy and girl
was the all-powerful, yet exquisitely
tender love that has its birth amid great
misfortunes and is nourished by profound
sorrows shared by the lovers, each with
the other.
Whatever
Sancho Panza, Macbeth, the doctors, or
other authorities have said in praise of
sleep will be heartily endorsed by the
Confederate soldier. It was his one
solace when sinking under cold and wet,
fatigue and hunger, and, most intolerable
of all, under forebodings, too well
grounded, of inevitable disaster.
Happily, sleeping was one of his innate
accomplishments; he had an alacrity for
it, and a capacity for securing it which
seldom failed him. Mostly, too, the sleep
he got was of a gentle and benignant
nature and he slept well. Alas! Alas! for
earlier friends whom I saw fall asleep,
and who have been sleeping now these
forty years and more!
As for our
food, while the surgeons during their
sojourn in the hospitals may have had
fare in some degree sumptuous, when they
rejoined their regiments, they had to eat
what the assistant surgeons ate, which
was, except when some lucky chance
brought an adventitious addition to the
larder, just what every body else ate. In
the early months of the war we fared
sufficiently well; but then came
scarcity, culminating, from time to time,
in what was perilously close to famine.
Corn bread and sorghum molasses was one
of our luxuries; and, though in the last
days of the Confederacy especially we fed
on the fat of the land, it was of the
land of Nassau, consisting of hunks of
pork, all fat and no, or next to no,
lean, which we tempered with hoe-cake.
Yet in those days, by some mysterious
nutritive process, I myself gathered more
flesh on my bones than I ever had before.
But I lost nearly every bit of it on the
retreat to Appomattox, and I have never
been able to get back more than a modicum
of it since.
When our
medical duties were over for the day, we
governed ourselves according to
circumstances. If the troops were moving
we went with them and partook of their
adventures, whatever they might be. If we
were in camp it was always, to me at
least, a problem to know what to do to
enliven the usually tedious hours. I
preferred to read, if there was anything
to read, which was only occasionally the
case. Any book would do. At one camp I
came across a war-worn copy of
Shakespeare, and struggled on till I got
nearly through the works of the great
bard. It was a labor I had never
accomplished before and have never
ventured on since; and at many of its
stages I felt kindly towards the criminal
noted by Macaulay, who preferred the
galleys to Guicciardini, and could
understand the feelings of the military
gentleman in the house of correction who
chose picking oakum as against the
History of Macaulay himself. Other
devices for passing the time were playing
cards or chess, chatting with one
another, and strolling idly about. We
were very gossipy, and discussed the news
and scandal of the camp just as naturally
as if we had been civilians.
When we
chanced to be stationed in the
neighborhood of families measurably
well-to-do, camp life became quite
agreeable. Then we grew commendably
assiduous in the observance of our social
duties. By a happy concurrence of
circumstances our most convenient seasons
for paying visits coincided with the
family's meal times, and we always
courteously accepted an invitation to
partake of the repast. We endeavored to
requite their hospitality by
communicating to the old folks all the
war-news we could pick up or make up, and
by dancing with the girls; and those of
us who were gifted with the divine
afflatus would sing for them.
I myself was
greatly esteemed as a remarkably artistic
vocalist and at these meetings did not
churlishly hide my talent. I had but one
number in my repertoire - a most mournful
ballad made by me to the memory of a camp
cat, which, in one of our too frequent
starving times, had been caught, cooked
and consumed by some of the men. An old
man is prone to vaunt the triumphs of his
youth, and I trust that you will bear
with my vain gloriousness in declaring
that the song itself was a marvel of
poetic pathos, and that my voice, sweetly
strong in lusty melody, was brimful of
soul-shattering dolor; and that, in my
opinion, I do not unbecomingly over
praise myself by stating my conviction
that when I executed the threnody to the
tune of "The Mistletoe Bough"
and to the accompaniment of the
cracked-pot riles of a junk-shop lute,
the sorrowing Psalmist himself, had he
been a listener, would have been tenfold
more eager for wings like a dove that he
might fly away and be at rest. I was also
a notable dancer, and, while I admit that
I was not conspicuously expert in the
technicalities of dancing, I was gifted
with a large share of suppleness,
flexibility and endurance, and was
renowned for my great feat of dancing
full four miles vertically for each mile
horizontally.
These
gatherings, naturally, were favorable to
the development and growth of the
tenderer feelings, and the boys and girls
here formed attachments. For, even in
those stern and bitter days, courting and
marrying went on in our desolated land
much as they were going on under happier
skies. Some of these attachments
eventuated in the marriage of more than
one of my own companions and friends. Of
the girls with whom I myself thus became
acquainted there was one in especial who
comes vividly to my mind now. She married
an officer of my regiment not very long
before the end of the war, and during the
unusually prolonged period we chanced to
be stationed near her home her sunny
nature showered brightness all about us.
Her kind and gentle heart has long been
stilled, for it was her fate to pass away
amid gloom and anguish in the last days
of our humiliation and ruin. As I write
of her at this distant time my heart is
overflowing with tender recollections and
impels me to pay my poor tribute to her
memory.
Indeed, for
us poor harried men, sorely beset and
beaten down, it was indispensable to have
the comfort and support that woman is so
marvelously fitted to bestow. What would
have become of us without our women it is
hard to conjecture. The deeper we sunk
the closer they clasped us; and when at
last we were utterly submerged there they
were with us still, nearer and dearer
than ever. And it was they who raised us
out of the pit. For their sake we
proceeded to re-establish our homes and
strove to mend our broken fortunes, in
which efforts they gave inestimable help.
From my own home, whose solitude is not
lightened by the presence of wife or
child, let me waft across the dusty years
my benediction on the Confederate women -
on the younger ones who made me happier
by their companionship, and on the older
ones who were ministering angels to the
sick and wounded and despairing - nor
shall I ungraciously withhold my blessing
from good and loving women, all and
everywhere.
These visits
to the neighbors often extended quite far
into the night, and during one of my
nocturnal prowls I had the unspeakable
satisfaction of falling in with a
collection of jack-o'-lanterns - things I
have never seen but this once. As my
paper is painfully bare of scientific
matter, and as jack-o'-lanterns are
scientific phenomena, I seize upon them
to help out my scanty stock. In common
with all the little Southern children
before the war I had been fully
instructed by my African nurses and
playfellows in the mystical lore
inherited by them from their fatherland,
and which they had assiduously cultivated
and added to and improved upon. The
jack-o'-lantern was one of their most
valued specialties and they had put me in
possession of so much circumstantial
information concerning its eccentric and
baleful peculiarities that in my earlier
years I felt for it the most respectful
apprehension. As we grow older, however,
most of us grow more or less skeptical,
and I had at length come to disbelieve in
jack-o'-lanterns almost altogether. But
let no man doubt them. There are such
apparitions, for I have seen them - at
midnight, hovering over dead men's
graves, under the solemn shadow of a
church - just the conditions which had
been prescribed by the most able among my
African instructors. Moreover, it was
asserted by them that the most favorable
circumstance for evoking the appearance
of a jack-o'-lantern was for the wanderer
to be returning from a henhouse attended
by its inhabitants. Whether this
circumstance was in operation on the
night in question I will not positively
affirm or deny, for in the multiplicity
of occurrences of a cognate kind any
individual one is but too apt, in the
lapse of years, to glide out of the
recollection. I can only say that we
indeed did not infrequently commingle
foraging with our social pleasures.
The church
ahead been used for a temporary hospital,
and the men who had died there were
buried near it. Not the least melancholy
incident associated with warfare is the
hurried and unceremonious sepulture that
often unavoidably has to be accorded to
soldiers who die while serving in the
field. In the exigencies that beset an
army actively employed there is but
little time or opportunity for observing
the elaborate decencies considered by
civilians as indispensable at a burial.
Indeed, the dead soldier may congratulate
himself, supposing he is in condition to
do so, if he has been buried at all -
though I can say that no instance ever
came under my notice during our war where
at least this much was not done for him.
The graves at the church were a group of
five or six. They were, no doubt, very
shallow, and perhaps the bodies had been
interred without coffins. At any rate,
the conditions for rapid decomposition
were favorable, and this was going on.
As I
approached I saw each grave marked out in
its whole extent by a ghastly
phosphorescent gleam floating over it. I
got off my horse and made as critical an
examination as I could. The light did not
develop till the exhalation had risen
some two feet above the grave. It was of
a pronounced blue color, which, though
pallid in its tint, was very distinct and
conspicuously visible, and of uniform
tenuity without glow or coruscation. It
was very sensitive to air currents, and I
could make it vanish by a wave of my
hand, but in a few seconds it would glide
into sight again after a very ghostly
fashion. Altogether the spectacle was one
of great interest to me, and, though far
less awesome that the vision that had
been imprinted on my young mind, was not
without impressiveness. Certain it is
that not one of my old-time colored
contemporaries, had he chanced to come
upon it, but would have felt his soul
shriveling up within him as he gazed.
Some few nights after this apparition I
passed the haunted spot again, but the
jack-o'-lanterns were gone.
In recalling
the medical aspects of our life in camp,
with the view of imparting something that
you might thing of value, I am greatly
disappointed at finding that I have
scarcely anything which is worthy of your
attention. As to our methods, I may say,
as a general statement, that we aimed to
conform to the science of the time,
though the restrictions to which our
ever-increasing necessities subjected us
often forbade the practice of it. We did
not do the best we would, but the best we
could. And what we knew of military
medicine, compared with what is known of
it now, seems small and of inferior
quality. Particularly, the rigid
antiseptic notions of these days did not
enter our heads. We had correct ideas as
to ordinary cleanliness and decency, and
we policed the camp in accordance with
them, but there was no excessive care,
nor anything approaching the refinements
of present-day sanitary science - such as
were applied during and after the Spanish
war. Yet the contrast in the results
accompanying our crude methods to those
attained in the later war is most obvious
and most remarkable. Perhaps, then, when
I say that our knowledge, in some
directions, seems to have been inferior
to that of this time, I use the proper
word, and that, in fact, the condition
was more seeming than real. It is much
the habit of arrogant youth to belittle
the knowledge of the old. But inquirers
whose researches lead them to study the
work of their quite remote predecessors
are constantly surprised at the learning
and ability of those ancient men, and
very well know that to the question so
triumphantly propounded, "What would
the ancients say?" to this or that
modern exploit, that the ancients
aforesaid would not seldom be fully
authorized to say something crushingly
uncomplimentary.
Early in the
morning we had sick-call, when those who
claimed to be ill or disabled came up to
be passed upon. Diagnosis was rapidly
made, usually by intuition, and treatment
was with such drugs as we chanced to have
in the knap-sack and were handiest to
obtain. In serious cases we made an
honest effort to bring to bear all the
skill and knowledge we possessed, but our
science could rarely display itself to
the best advantage on account of the
paucity of our resources. On the march my
own practice was of necessity still
further simplified, and was, in fact,
reduced to the lowest terms. In one
pocket of my trousers I had a ball of
blue mass, in another a ball of opium.
All complainants were asked the same
question, "How are your
bowels?" If they were open, I
administered a plug of opium; if they
were shut, I gave a plug of blue mass.
The
prevailing diseases were intestinal
disorders, though we had a share of
almost every malady. Occasionally we
suffered seriously from measles. Smallpox
was effectively kept in check by
vaccination. Intermittent and other
malarial fevers at times incapacitated
regiments to an extent which was really
portentous. Our management of these
various diseases presented, as far as I
know, nothing unusual or novel. None of
the well-developed cases remained long
under my care, for they were sent from
the camp to the hospital to be treated by
the surgeon. When I have sometimes
modestly advanced the statement that,
during all my army experience, I never
lost a case of fever, or of pneumonia,
or, indeed, of anything else, except when
the subject had been slain outright,
captious members of the profession have
said that this was because I sent the men
off before they could get a chance to
die. This explanation seems plausible
only because the fact is true. I will not
waste time in controverting it, but
content myself with saying that my
reputation as a successful practitioner
was much higher with the regiment than
was that of the surgeon, who, it was
universally perceived, lost a good may
cases that lived as long as I had them,
and died only after they fell into his
hands.
A modicum of
surgical practice was furnished by the
accidents that occurred. These were not
as numerous, nor, generally, as grave as
the inherent carelessness and
recklessness of the soldier temperament
would warrant us in expecting. Once
source was the unexploded shells which
were apt to be pretty plentifully
scattered over the ground after a battle,
and particularly so in localities where
we were camped for a time in the
neighborhood of the enemy. Under these
circumstances there was often much
artillery firing indulged in for
inappreciable reasons. No one minded it
much, and, on the whole, the missiles
were more dangerous after they had come
to rest than in their flight. It was the
delight of the men to tinker with the
unexploded shells, and, opening them, to
drain out the powder and peck out the
balls with which they were charged. As
this operation was not always thoroughly
done the discarded shells, which were
carelessly thrown aside, could still be
very formidable should a spark from a
pipe or a fire reach them.
To one of
these shells I owed the promise of a case
of transcendent surgical interest and
instruction, and worthy to be reported in
the journals as rivaling, or even
surpassing, the celebrated crow-bar case,
where the implement passed through the
victim's brain without materially
damaging him. One afternoon a good old
Rebel was making ready to solace himself
with the unaccustomed refreshment of a
copious mess of apple dumplings, which he
was boiling in a pot supported over the
fire by help of one of these imperfectly
eviscerated shells. In due time the pot
was blown up with a report that roused
the whole brigade. I hastened to the
spot, and on approaching the veteran was
astonished at the spectacle he presented.
Apparently, all his brains had literally
been blown out and bespattered him from
head to foot, while, notwithstanding, he
was not only erect, but was able to move
about and his head was still whole - a
marvelous pathological phenomenon. You
will fully sympathize, I have no doubt,
with the keen disappointment I felt when
a minuter investigation showed that it
was not his brains, but the apples from
his dumplings. As for him, he was unhurt
bodily, and mentally was not visibly
moved by the grandeur of the blow-up of
the pot, which all the other beholders
agreed was uncommonly sublime, though the
loss of the dumplings, which had been
scattered to the four winds of heaven,
affected him profoundly.
Normally, we
were scant of medicines, and, generally,
they were of the commoner kinds. At
times, however, we were well supplied,
and with excellent preparations. These
times would be when captures had been
made, or medicines of Northern or
European manufacture had come through the
blockade. The Confederate pharmaceutical
laboratories worked industriously, but
under great disadvantages, and their
output was, in many directions, not
surpassingly excellent. Among other
things they made blue mass. This would
have been a very satisfactory product
could its components have managed to keep
themselves in harmonious juxtaposition;
but, as it was, it would not be long
after the mass reached us before the
mercury seceded from the rest and settled
off by itself at the bottom of the
holder. The loyal residue we used for its
appointed ends, and the rebel mercury we
sometimes utilized to circumvent the
inferior forms of life that trod in hosts
with equal foot the general careering on
his charger and the private wallowing in
his mud-hole.
On the
battlefield our stock of medical and
surgical supplies was particularly
condensed. As for the latter, we had
chiefly a pocket-case of instruments,
plaster and bandages. Bandages were
plentiful, but we seldom had splints. We
could usually find some makeshift for
these. On one occasion I used a whole
fence-rail for a broken arm, being unable
to do any better. I had just finished
making the rail secure when a turn in
affairs forced us to take to flight. My
patient started to run with the rest, but
the distal end of the heavy rail tilted
downward, stuck in the ground, and jerked
him up short at every step. I do not
precisely know what became of him, but
unless he had the sagacity to turn round
and retreat backward I fear I was
instrumental in delivering him into the
hands of the enemy.
Our most
valued medicament was the alcoholic
liquors, which were furnished to us
sometimes in the form of whiskey and at
other times of apple brandy. These
preparations were esteemed by the
surgical staff very generally as a
specific for malaria especially - a
condition which was very prevalent, and
to which the surgeons with whom I as
associated believed themselves to be
peculiarly susceptible. Feeling that a
breakdown on our part would work
irretrievable detriment to the country we
patriotically strove to ward off the
calamity by instituting a grand sanitary
soirée on the night of the day on which
the supplies arrived in camp, where we
would tone up our systems and corroborate
our constitutions by drinking up every
drop of the prophylactic before morning.
It is a
remarkable circumstance that the medical
purveyor, learned as he admittedly was in
medical science, was never able to grasp
the fact, which was knowledge of the most
elementary kind to us, that army surgeons
are specially cursed with a malarial
idiosyncrasy, and, on the other hand,
that they are blessed with a special
adaptability to the remedy. He appears to
have gone no deeper in the matter than to
note that, however large the quantity of
whiskey and apple brandy he issued,
credit fora surplus had never been known
on the records; whereat he marveled much,
and in his replies to our requisitions
would couple his expressions of
wonderment with painfully injurious
surmises and commonplace explanations of
the deficit suggested in very plain
terms.
Apparently,
the Federal medical department was
troubled with similar perplexities, and
it had devised a method for quite
effectively obviating them. This
consisted in thoroughly embittering its
whiskey with quinine, or some equivalent
atrocity. I infer that this was their
method from the fact that our brigade, on
one occasion, captured a large keg of
their liquor. Our surgical staff was then
in one of its run-down conditions, and
undertook to build up on this tonic. It
was found to be a very intractable
process, and resulted in our formulating
the opinion that to mix quinine with
whiskey is a pharmaceutical mistake and a
practice to be reprehended.
As alcoholic
liquors were indispensable on a
battlefield, it is conceivable that the
sudden and complete vanishing to which
they were liable might at some time prove
to be a very serious matter. And so it
would have been but that one of our
staff, being in tolerably constant
communication with his own home, where
there was a distillery, was able to keep
on hand a full keg of his own, from which
he would generously supply the rest of us
when an exigency required it.
We were
devout believers in the old medical
aphorism which declares that "wine
is the milk of age" - old age,
middle age, any age. We had no wine, only
whiskey and apple brandy, but they would
do. In these latter days something of a
reaction against alcohol as a remedy has
come. However it may be in civil
practice, where substitutes of equal
efficiency may possibly be attainable, I
have not the least doubt of its
surpassing utility in military practice
on the battlefield. In truth, I am
constrained to think that the present day
hostility to alcohol is not founded on
accurate scientific knowledge so
obviously as on infection by the
recklessly active crusade against it
which is a marked feature of our time. It
may be true, as we are told, in the
Women's Christian Temperance
Association's school physiologies, that
alcohol will cause the tissues of warts
and corns to degenerate, crumble away and
disappear, to the great sorrow of
childhood, which is prone to look upon
these appendages with pride; and a
special appeal has been made to the
consciences of such military men
themselves as would rather be entombed in
the stomach of a buzzard than not be
buried at all, by the terrifying
statement that these birds turn with
indignant disgust from the bodies of
liquor-swilling soldiers dead on the
battlefield. These may be formidable
objections to the use of alcohol, but the
military surgeon of my day would have
thought that they were offset by the
fact, demonstrated by innumerable
instances, that it promptly rallies the
deep sunk spirits of the wounded soldier,
and snatches him from the jaws of
imminent death.
The profound
shock induced by severe gunshot wounds,
and the tendency of soldiers to vastly
exaggerate the gravity of trivial one,
have been constantly noted by writers on
military surgery. These injuries are
indeed capable of cowing the most
courageous soul. During one of the
greatest of our battles a Confederate
general, deservedly famous for his
bravery, hurried to my station on the
field in piteous perturbation, convinced
that he was mortally wounded. He was
copiously treated from our black bottle,
and after a rather inordinate quantity of
the resuscitator had been taken - for, in
deference to his rank, he was allowed to
adjust the doses himself - he rallied
sufficiently for me to make an
examination. He had been struck by a
bullet which had made an abrasion of
considerable length, but exceedingly
superficial, on the right leg of his boot
- and this was all. He would not believe
it till he had cleared his intellect by a
few more doses of the restorative, when
he admitted the correctness of my
diagnosis, and returned to his command,
where he fought with his accustomed
courage to the end of the action.
I may here be
permitted to remark that the terror of
soldiers is a somewhat curious
phenomenon, with peculiarities which
might repay investigation. While their
intrepidity is displaying itself in deeds
of the most exalted courage it can, in
the twinkling of an eye, collapse into
the most abject cowardice. Julius Caesar
himself, if we can trust the report of
Cassius, flunked badly on more than one
occasion. Says Cassius -
"I
did mark
How he did shake; 'tis true, this god
did shake;
His coward lips did from their color
fly."
And there is
the memorable instance of the Great
Frederick, of all warriors perhaps the
most consummate, who fled the field
already won. Many soldier, officers and
privates, whose courage had been tried
and approved by the severest tests on
innumerable fields, have told me that
there were times when there would come
upon them an almost overmastering fear
under circumstances in no way peculiar,
and which would not adequately account
for it. It is a characteristic of the
human mind, of which I question if there
has ever been a single adverse instance,
that its noblest qualities, assiduously
cultivated and guarded with the utmost
care, will now and then, from some vague
cause, become uncontrollable and
temporarily give way; and perhaps the
most we can in justice require of even
the steadiest of our fellow mortals is
that these lapses shall be few and not
the habit of the mind.
For my own
part, I freely admit that I was never in
a battle but that I should have felt the
most exultant joy had I been out of it.
In all, however, I contrived, somehow or
other, to bear up more or less
satisfactorily except in two of them -
the battle of Malvern Hill and the battle
of Sailor's Creek. At Malvern Hill I was
still ill with a remittent fever which
had attacked me a few days before. The
battle was raging and we were hurrying
forward to take a place in the line when
suddenly I felt like Julius Caesar,
shaking all over and my lips and their
color parting company. A horrible fear
took possession of me and I was in a
deplorable state physically, mentally,
and morally. During a halt I was directed
to intercept the stragglers, who were
becoming numerous, and send to their
commands those who were not demonstrably
unfit for fighting. This was a most
humiliating duty, for I was painfully
conscious that I was lording it over many
a man who was worthier than myself. Apart
from my illness, which I had not regarded
as disqualifying me for service, there
was nothing in the circumstances of this
battle more formidable than what I had
encountered many times before. Yet my
dread was extreme, and, as it turned out,
was entirely unnecessary, for our brigade
did not get into the action.
I was
afterward in a great many other battles,
but in none did this hideous sensation
recur till in my very last battle of all,
which was the battle of Sailor's Creek,
three days before the surrender at
Appomattox. Here my large and varied
store of military experiences was
enriched with the knowledge of how it
feels to be part and parcel of a
thorough-going panic. Hitherto it had
been my inexpressibly good fortune to be
with, or, at any rate, behind, men who,
though occasionally compelled to fall
back, knew the art of doing it with
decent precipitancy. I was now with these
men, and on the firing line itself, for
they were doomed, and I was resolved to
share the fate of my old friends and
comrades whatever it was to be. But,
though bullets were flying copiously, I
felt no extraordinary apprehension. In
fact, fear was driven out by despair, for
all of us knew that this was our last
stand, that overwhelming defeat was
certain, and that escape would be
well-nigh impossible. Every one of my
regiment who was engaged in this battle
except myself and a slightly wounded
soldier was killed or captured. The
somewhat singular manner of my own escape
is a story that might be worth telling if
this were the place for it.
In the
cataclysm that occurred I managed to
associate myself with another regiment,
which was retreating at a double-quick.
Behind us musket-firing, cannonading and
yelling were incessant and tremendous.
For awhile our retreat, though rapid, was
remarkably orderly, and I trotted along
on foot - for I had lost my horse - in
reasonably good spirits. But presently a
little unsteadiness manifested itself,
which quickly became a decided wobble,
and then, in a moment, as though it had
exploded, the whole organization flew to
pieces. It was a wonderful and startling
sight. These heroes of a hundred glorious
fields had instantaneously lost their
manliness and become reduced to the grade
of a flock of terror-stricken children.
It did not take long for me to be
thoroughly infected, and I got over the
ground with amazing celerity, unimpeded
by the reflection that I had not the
least idea of whither I was going. The
fact is, I was in very light marching
order, having little on my outside and
nothing at all inside except a few grains
of intractably flinty corn, which I had
been munching for the past two days. The
risk of being killed was imminent, for
not only did the pursuing enemy keep up
their fire, but many of our own men,
preserving even in the panic the noble
soldierly instinct of returning a fire,
as soon as they heard any one drawing
near to their rear, would throw their
guns back over their shoulders, blaze
away, and, casting the weapons from them
would race on with redoubled energy
without turning their heads to see at
what they had fired. Yet, in this, the
very presence of death, I had absolutely
no fear of it. It was not this that gave
wings to my feet - it was the dread of
capture. This misfortune had never before
presented itself to my mind as something
that might not be endured with fortitude,
but now for some reason the idea of it
took complete possession of my soul and
overwhelmed it with horror and dismay.
In their
headlong flight the men lightened
themselves of their arms, knapsacks,
blankets, of whatever impediment they
could get rid. And so we plunged along,
puffing and blowing, enveloped in all the
hideous noises of battle, helter-skelter,
higgledy-piggledy, each for himself, God
for nobody, and the devil take the
hindmost - by the nine gods of war, I
swear it was a mess. In the maniac rush,
though a few dropped out, and, cowering
behind trees, yielded prematurely to
their fate, the great body kept together,
and at length coming to a broad road,
cheered by its ample and unobstructed
track, they turned into it and fled along
it pell-mell. In great extremities early
religious impressions are apt to force
themselves upon the mind, and now I
vividly remembered that instructive old
hymn which admonishes us that
"Broad
is the road that leads to death,
And thousands flock together there;
But wisdom shows a narrow path,
With here and there a traveler."
And
accordingly I shot across the road into a
field, and ran and ran till I fell down
gasping for breath and with my tongue
hanging out of my mouth. From this lair I
saw a troop of Federal cavalry come
galloping and yelling down the broad road
in hot pursuit of my late companions,
whose career in a few minutes thereafter
was brought to a disastrous close. But I
had escaped, and ultimately got to
Appomattox, where I wandered around till
the surrender - a vagabond soldier,
friendless, starving and utterly
miserable.
The panics of
trained soldiers must, however, be
regarded as abnormal phenomena, and it
would be most unjust to view them as
evidences of dishonoring cowardice. The
fact is, that in an army, courage is a
plentiful as blackberries, and much more
so. It is rare indeed to find a man who
failed when the test was applied. On the
day of the battle of Gettysburg, whose
terrible gravity was foreseen by all of
us, a day remarkable for the enervating
and sickening heat of the weather, when
sick-call was sounded in my regiment not
a man responded and not one asked to be
excused from duty. And so, too, the
surgical staff everywhere and on all
occasions displayed all the courage that
was necessary, but, fully realizing that
it was their function to heal wounds, not
to receive them, and with minds clarified
and enlightened by the elevating
character of their studies and pursuits,
very judiciously forbore to exhibit a
superfluous amount of it.
But it was on
the battlefield that the assistant
surgeon was in his own sphere, for it was
the method of our service for him to be
with the troops when they were in action,
that he might render immediate aid to the
wounded. Here he did his strenuous work.
Abandoned by the surgeon to his fate he
had to depend upon himself, and here was
sternly tested whatever he possessed of
resource, fortitude and self-sacrifice.
It was the
custom of the assistant surgeons of our
brigade to work together for the benefit
of mutual help. As the troops advanced we
kept with them and closely scrutinized
the locality in the search for places
suitable for stations, noting trees,
fences, straw-stacks, depressions of the
surface, or whatever offered a show of
shelter, and especially looking for
gullies, which were the most desirable of
all. It was necessary for these stations
to be near the engaged men, and we could
not always find a satisfactory place; and
sometimes our only protection while
ministering to a wounded man was by
sitting, or even lying, with him on the
ground. We, however, were blessed with
the inestimable privilege of having among
us an assistant surgeon who was one of
Nature's born topographers. He was
intuitively skilled in dynamics and
conversant with parabolas and
trajectories and the relations of the
angles of incidence and reflection, and
possessed an instinct for the line of
most resistance. He was also an adept in
the calculus of probabilities, and,
moreover, had an exquisitely developed
antipathy to every kind of personal wound
or injury. This gifted man took an
energetic part in the selection of our
stations, and to his opinions and
judgment the rest of us paid the greatest
deference.
As the men
moved forward to get into position they
would not infrequently be under heavy
fire, and we assistant surgeons had to
maneuver against it the best we could.
When line of battle was formed it was
often the case that we were in it, and
there we remained till some one was
wounded, and, as a wounded man could not
be allowed at the front, we had the
opportunity of an honorable retreat with
him to our station in the rear. I will
not hypocritically assert that in those
days I was ostentatiously pious, but when
I was under these baptisms of fire it was
my wont to pray as devoutly as my
religious knowledge and experience
qualified me to do that I might be spared
merely till some one else got hit - and I
was particularly fervent in the
aspiration that this might befall right
speedily.
During my
first battle I was in the thick of it the
whole time without shelter, having been
ordered by the surgeon in his final
injunction, before he decamped, to stay
right with the men, and in the novelty of
the position I did not know how to care
for myself. The bullets whizzing past me
were for awhile rather dismaying, but,
finding that I still lived, I heartened
up gradually, and the longer I lived the
greater the assurance I felt that I was
not to die, till presently I stood the
fire with an equanimity that astonished
me. But after the battle, when I betook
myself to serious reflection, it occurred
to me that to be shot at by innumerable
people for indefinite periods was a
somewhat risky adventure, and I made a
vow that for the future I would indulge
in it with frugality - a vow which I
faithfully kept; or, when I broke it, my
conscience is clear that it was from no
sinful compliance of my own.
We shifted
our stations, when it became necessary,
to conform to the movements of the
fighting line, and it was our good
fortune to very seldom have to fall back.
Our surgical work was usually very
simple, though often there was enough of
it to keep us fully and laboriously
employed. It consisted chiefly of the
application of plaster and bandages and
the administration of stimulants, and
superintending the placing of the badly
wounded in the ambulances for
transportation to the field hospital. No
elaborate surgical procedure was
undertaken unless there was urgent
necessity for it. Sometimes a very
extended area was fought over, and
wounded men, both our own and the
enemy's, would be scattered about it,
often, if the country was wooded or
otherwise difficult, in out-of-the-way
places, whither they had wandered. When
the battle was ended, if our troops had
possession of the field, we had to hunt
up these unfortunates - a duty willingly
performed, though not infrequently an
arduous one.
The army with
which our group of assistant surgeons
served was long triumphant, and during
this time our lot was reasonably
endurable; but at last the change came,
and our lot changed, too. Our
tribulations began the day following the
breaking of the Petersburg lines, and a
strenuous day it was for us assistant
surgeons. Its history was made up of a
diversified series of marches, halts,
ambushes and sudden attacks, ending late
in the afternoon with a break-neck race
for a bridge over a protecting stream,
and the hottest kind of pursuit thither
by the Federal troops. Our staff got over
the bridge safely, but many of our
companions were cut off and caught on the
other side. It was on this eventful day
that I first had experience of the
military formation called the hollow
square, of which I had a historical
recollection from its Napoleonic
association with "asses and savants
to the center." My judgment of it
was that the center was an eminently
proper place for an ass, for no one else
would put himself where he would be the
focus for the shots from every side. The
square was formed when attacks were made
upon us by unseen enemies as we passed
through bodies of thick woods. On these
occasions I preferred to remain outside
the square and gyrate around a tree.
This day
inaugurated a week of unspeakable woe. Of
its hardships and perils the assistant
surgeons bore an equal share with the
fighting men, having no option in the
matter. Our surgeons were not with us,
for they remained at the field hospital
when we began our pilgrimage, and had
their independent adventures. I do not
remember seeing any of them again till I
was approaching Appomattox, where at
least one of them eventually arrived with
heartbreaking accounts of troubles of his
own.
The roll of
surgeons slain in the Civil War is, I
believe, not of impressive length; nor do
I know that vast hosts of assistant
surgeons perished in the conflict -
though I have heard that one or two of
them were killed. That they were
susceptible, under favorable conditions,
to slaughter is, I think, shown by an
experience of my own at the battle of
Gettysburg. Our station on this field had
been selected by our medical topographer
with his utmost art, and seemed an ideal
one, being a little dell in a grove
conveniently in the rear of the troops.
Here we had a large collection of
apple-butter pots, gathered from the
surrounding country, which were filled
with water to be used for the wounded.
Feeling eminently secure we lolled and
waited for the battle to begin. It began
with that furious cannonade which is
remembered as the most thunderous that
has ever shaken the earth. It was
appalling to us, for our topographer had
by some strange misapplication of his
recondite learning contrived to place us
in the very centré and focus of fire. In
a moment the air was filled with limbs of
trees, scraps of butter-pots and yells of
fleeing medical men and knapsack-toters.
I undertook to keep company with my
companions, but my horse, young and
restive, had tangled himself in a tree
and I could not immediately extricate
him. I was thus for some minutes made an
involuntary witness of the impressive
spectacle. It is impossible to describe
it. I question if in all civilized
warfare there can be found anything more
sublimely awful that the crash of a
broadside of cannon-shot through a
stockade of apple-butter pots. I did not,
however, linger unduly to contemplate it.
Having at last released my horse I moved
off with him without mounting, pacing
along with the dignity befitting my
professional character dashed somewhat
with briskness. I had gone only a little
way when I suddenly felt what I have seen
described in accounts of hangings as a
dull thud. Dull as it was, it was
sufficiently sharp to convince me, for
the moment, that I was slain; and I
remember that I was much troubled in mind
to know whether I had been honorably put
to death by a legitimate missile, or had
been ignominiously butchered by a
butter-pot. It did not take me long to
discover that I was still living and in
tolerable condition. It is true that one
leg had been paralyzed by the shot, but,
by way of compensation, the function of
the other had been proportionately
exalted, and on this I hobbled vigorously
away, and at length reached a sheltering
gully, where I investigated my injuries.
I found that there was nothing more
serious than the loss of three or four
cubic inches of tissue, which had been
scooped out of me; and presently by slow
degrees and with much cautious
maneuvering I retraced my steps toward
the field of battle. On the outskirts of
the field I encountered the colonel of my
regiment with nearly all his teeth neatly
and effectively extracted by a bullet
received in the mouth. He could, however,
speak sufficiently plainly to tell me
that I could not go on without being
killed, and I understood him very well
when he ordered me to go back.
With the
pardonable vanity of a veteran who has
been battered in the wars its has always
been a delight for me to relate this
incident. Particularly, when, some years
since, I taught science to the boys and
girls of the Richmond high school, where
I at times relieved the aridity of
scientific details with accounts of my
military experiences, was I accustomed to
narrate this piteous story with much
feeling. The girls especially would
become deeply touched with sympathy for
the sufferings of their teacher, and
perceiving no obvious marks of injury
anywhere on my person, but full of that
kindly curiosity which is so amiable a
characteristic of the female sex, these
tender-hearted little beings would
exclaim, "Oh, poor Doctor TAYLOR!
Where are you wounded?" To this
affectionate inquiry I could only reply
simply, "At Gettysburg;" for to
their untechnical minds it would have
conveyed no information to tell them that
it was in the gluteus maximus muscle.
Whenever I
speak of the battle of Gettysburg my mind
reverts to something which, though it is
hardly pertinent to the subject of my
paper, though it is hardly pertinent to
the subject of my paper, I trust you will
not be unwilling to hear - and it is
about a parson. Much laudation has been
expended on this and that "fighting
parson;" but, as far as I have
observed, there has been a notable dearth
of specification of the feats of arms he
did. Perhaps it will not be deemed
invidious if I make some mention of a
certain praying parson and of a
particular prayer he offered, when I was
present and knelt with him. It was on the
battlefield of Gettysburg, and just
before the battle.
As far as I
know, the incident was unique in our
armies. A great array of war-battered
soldiers baring their hearts and pouring
out their very souls in united appeal to
the God of battles as they were about to
march into the jaws of death is something
not likely to sink out of the notice of
him who was part of it; and yet I have
seen no mention of such a thing among the
innumerable reminiscences of the war. It
has been my fortune to witness much that
was grand, that was sublime, that was
terrible, but nothing has ever stirred
the profoundest feelings of my nature as
did this prayer before the battle. I have
no language fitting to describe the
solemn impressiveness of the occasion. We
were then at rest, and all around was a
quietude ominous in its stillness. The
day was glowing with summer brightness,
the landscape was pleasant to look upon,
but our circumstances were too fateful to
permit even young and ardent men to
utterly dismiss foreboding thoughts. Our
chaplain asked us to join with him in
prayer, and all of us knelt with him on
the ground. he prayed for us, feverently
for all of us, and most beseechingly for
those to whom it had been appointed to
die this day; but most touching of all
was his remembrance of the dear ones in
our distant homes, who, we knew, were at
this hour anxiously thinking of us and
mingling their prayers with ours. He
ended and turned away weeping, knowing
that with some of us he had communed for
the last time in this world. He could not
foresee how very great the number was to
be whose faces he was to behold no more,
for whom he was not to be permitted to
perform last rites, but whose burial was
to be what the victor deigns to give the
vanquished.1
The term
"fighting parson" has, I must
confess, to me a discordant sound. I
cannot say whether this is because I have
old-fashioned notions, or, as I think is
more probable, because I am a primitive
Christian without knowing it. It is
certain, however, that all the
confederate chaplains were not fighters,
but that some of them left fighting to be
done by people whose duty it was to do
it, and were mere ministers to the
spiritual needs, and often, very often,
to the bodily needs, too, of distressed
and sorrowing soldiers. This sort of
thing was not very glorious, but there
were times, as many of us old Rebels can
recall, when such ministrations were more
grateful than would have been the putting
to rout of a whole regiment of Yankees by
the chaplain. Very little has ever been
said of these humble workers, but I do
not clearly see that if the surgeons, who
were in safe nooks two or three miles
away from the turmoil and danger of
battle, are to parade as military heroes,
why the chaplains, who were in these
places with them and shared their safety,
should not partake of their glory too.
One of the
chaplains of my regiment did transform
himself into an actual fighting parson,
serving as an aide to a general. One
afternoon, in the lull of one of the
desperate battles marking General Grant's
advance on Richmond, I found him lying
dead on the field. He had been shot while
on horseback, and his attitude afforded a
striking example of the condition known
as cadaveric spasm, and was a startling
reproduction of one of the Masonic signs.
As a final
observation I remark that, from the
standpoint of the army surgeon, the
horrors of war have been vastly augmented
by modern advances. The long-range
weapons of these days will compel
surgeons to establish their hospitals
farther from the battlefield than our
surgeons placed theirs, which assuredly
were not set up abnormally near. An old
Rebel surgeon will be devoutly thankful
when he considers that in his times of
stress, as the enemy hurried him hither
and thither, he was at least spared the
anxiety of looking out for his
sterilizing plant, his x-ray machinery,
his cans of turtle soup, lobster, and
plum pudding, and his corps of female
nurses.
Here I
conclude my rambling narrative. It was
never my chance during the war to meet
with any surgeons of the Northern armies.
But one of the surgeons of the regiment
to which I was attached had this
experience, having been placed in charge
of some of our wounded who were in the
hands of the enemy. On his return to us
he gave a most appreciative account of
the hospitable and fraternal treatment he
had received from the Federal surgeons;
and I have heard many Confederate
soldiers speak most gratefully of the
solicitous attention bestowed by the
doctors upon them when they were wounded
prisoners. These are pleasant instances
of amenities that now and then softened
the grimness of fratricidal warfare. From
all that I have ever learned the surgeons
both of the Northern and Southern armies
adhered sacredly to that principle of our
beneficent calling which will not permit
us to classify human misery by race, or
creed, or political opinion, but leads us
instinctively to extend our succoring
hand impartially to any afflicted fellow
man. The loving memories of the cause for
which I made my poor share of sacrifice,
which well up from my heart and will not
be restrained, are not inconsistent with
my profound gladness that my countrymen
are again united. Our own profession,
bound together by ideals that pertain to
all humanity, could never be much severed
by the conflict, and since it has ended
our union has been growing ever closer
and more brotherly. Time and events have
obliterated former aspirates, and I know
that you have a fraternal regard for the
few Confederate surgeons yet lagging on
the stage. You have shown your
consideration for one of the humblest
among them by listening to his slight
story of experiences often hard and
bitter, though told in light words and,
he fears, in trivial form - a story which
he will hope may have somewhat in it to
exalt, if only in a small degree, your
kindly feeling for them all.
1
The
brigade to which I belonged
(Garnett's) lost in Pickett's charge at
Gettysburg sixty-five per cent., and
every officer of my regiment, from
colonel to corporal, was either killed or
wounded.
NOTE ABOUT
THE AUTHOR: William Henry Taylor was
born on May 17, 1835 in Richmond, VA. He
received his M. D. in 1856 from the
Medical College of Virginia, Richmond,
Virginia. On February 5, 1862, he was
appointed Assistant Surgeon, CSA and
served with the 8th Virginia and 17th
Georgia Infantry regiments. On August 31,
1864 he was promoted to Surgeon, CSA. He
was the Surgeon of the 19th Virginia when
the regiment surrendered on April 9, 1865
at Appomattox. From 1874 to 1890, he
practiced in Richmond and was a professor
at the Medical College of Virginia. He
died on April 14, 1917 in Richmond about
a month shy of his 82nd birthday. This
information was supplied by F. Terry
Hambrecht, M.D. If anyone has any
additional information on Dr. Taylor,
please contact The
Society of Civil War Surgeons,
539 Bristol Drive, SW, Reynoldsburg, OH
43068 [740.964.6116].
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