The Supply Situation at Gettysburg Improves

By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein   Many Gettysburg civilians did what they could to nurse and feed the patients, but their own supplies were low because of Confederate raiding a few days before the battle.   With the reopening of the railroad on July 6, the supply situation improved dramatically. Trains also took those patients able to be moved to Baltimore for transfer to other hospitals.   As the crisis passed, the medical department established a consolidated hospital on the George Wolf farm about one and a half miles east of Gettysburg. Camp Letterman, as it was called, had at least 400 hospital tents arranged in neat rows, each tent housing eight to ten patients. The camp was located by the railroad for ease of transferring supplies and patients. The hospital opened on July 22, but transporting the wounded to the hospital took about two weeks. By October 18, only 326 patients remained at Camp Letterman, and the camp closed entirely on November 20, 1863.   Excerpted from: "The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine"   IMAGE: Dr. Martyn Fonds attending surgery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania., during the Civil War   .

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Gettysburg: The Army of the Potomac's Medical Staff Arrives

By Alfred Jay Bollet, M.D.   Most of the medical personnel, as well as a large part of the army, arrived after the fighting had already started, thus they had no time to make preparations. The flood of wounded started while the meager supplies were still being unpacked. No tents were available for field hospitals, so both sides commandeered homes, churches, barns, the railroad station, and even covered bridges for this purpose. Each evening after the fighting subsided, stretcher bearers and ambulances collected the wounded; each morning, before the fighting began at dawn, all the wounded (both Union and Confederate) within Union lines were receiving care. This was an unprecedented achievement, and it was accomplished during the largest battle that has ever been fought on American soil. Excerpted from: Civil War Medicine: Challenges and Triumphs .

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The Wounded Left at Gettysburg

By Alfred Jay Bollet, M.D.

 

[Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, Major Jonathan] Letterman calculated that 14,193 wounded were collected and cared for during the battle. In addition, he reported that 6,802 Confederates "fell into our hands" after the battle. These men were among the most seriously wounded, and had been left behind, too ill to be transported, when the Confederate army retreated across the Potomac. Many Confederate surgeons stayed behind to help care for them.

 

With nearly 21,000 wounded soldiers to treat, the surgeons working in Union medical facilities at Gettysburg labored day and night, completely overwhelmed. "I worked until three o'clock in the morning," wrote Surgeon Peltier of the 126th New York (3rd Division), "then slept about an hour on the ground among the wounded."

 

Excerpted from: Civil War Medicine: Challenges and Triumphs

 

IMAGE: Louisiana State Monument, Gettysburg

 

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A Case of Feigned Insanity

By J. Theodore Calhoun, Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army, And Surgeon in Chief, 2d Division, 3d Army Corps

A most remarkable case of feigned insanity occurred in a regiment under the charge of a friend of mine. A supposed insane man was kept in the regiment for several months and his every action carefully and closely watched.

He would sit for hours together on the color line or in the neighborhood of camp, with a pole, and imagine himself fishing. He was at length discharged, and when leaving his camp, one of his old company said to him: "Bill, what did you make such a d-d fool of yourself as to sit out in the sun all day pretending to be fishing." Pulling out his discharge papers he replied, with a quiet smile, "I was fishing for these papers."

Excerpted from: The Medical and Surgical Reporter, August 15, 1863

IMAGE: "My Civil War Obsession": Patriotic Cover: Uncle Sam Goes Fishing

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Attack on Black Doctor in Army Uniform

From the U.S. National Library of Medicine   In early 1863, Alexander T. Augusta and Anderson R. Abbott, two black physicians, wrote letters to President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton requesting appointments as surgeons to the newly formed "colored regiments." Augusta received a military commission as a major, and Abbott was offered a position as contract surgeon with the rank of lieutenant.   Both men wore the uniforms of Union Army officers as symbols of pride and patriotism despite the risk to their personal safety. Their appearance in officer uniforms stirred pride in many former slaves and free blacks, but provoked anger in others, both white and black. They represented a change in the role and position of African Americans that some were reluctant to accept.   While on a train in Baltimore, Maryland, Augusta was singled out for wearing his major's uniform and violently attacked by several young white men. Responding to the incident in a letter to the weekly black newspaper, The Christian Recorder, Augusta defended his right to wear his uniform in public saying, "…my position as an officer of the United States, entitles me to wear the insignia of my office, and if I am either afraid or ashamed to wear them, anywhere, I am not fit to hold my commission."   In contrast to the hostility he faced in Baltimore, Augusta received a jubilant response when he appeared in uniform at the mustering of the first two companies of contraband soldiers in Washington, D.C. and at a public celebration of the D.C. Emancipation Act. In him, black soldiers and former slaves saw a reflection of the possibilities that freedom could bring. On April 16, 1863, a celebration of the one year anniversary of the signing of the D.C. Emancipation Act was held at the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. The appearance of Alexander T. Augusta in uniform was reported the next day in The Evening Star newspaper. PHOTO: Dr. Anderson Abbott IMAGE: President Street Station, where the attack on Dr. Augusta took place

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